Skip the cheeseburger, save the planet

[oldhat]

Studies show you may be doing more damage to the planet by eating beef than by driving.

[Alan]

My take is that eating cheeseburgers does nothing to the planet, although killing off all the cows may decrease the environmental impact. Of course, if that is our goal, killing off all the people would have the biggest impact. I vote we keep our cheeseburgers and our neighbors.

[bae]

I just had a great burger for lunch.

The cow was raised 1/4 mile down the road from me, eating almost entirely grass from land here suitable mostly for pasture. It was slaughtered and processed right on-site by our USDA-inspected mobile meat-processing facility, the first such in the nation.

So, while eating factory-raised corn-fed beef that gets shipped across the country may indeed be a bad idea all around, if you eat local you may find yourself on the positive side of the equation. The land my beef was raised on isn't suitable for much else, the cost of raising and processing the animal was minimal, the transportation costs were non-existent, and keeping that land in active agricultural use by raising and distributing local food products from it saves it from being cut up into 5 acre hobby farms for the part-time/vacation/trophy-home crowd, which would increase the amount of impervious surface, reduce the quality of our wetlands, further stress our aquifers, etc. etc.

So, beef is what's for dinner too.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I don't eat meat unless it's grass fed either, I really don't. Often it's from California, though not always Southern California, though there is grass fed meat that could be had in Southern Califiornia as well if it would be better if I only got that meat. Red meat maybe once a week. I usualy don't even bother to eat poultry very often at all as I don't much like it. And yes I eat fish maybe 2-3 times a week like they say - even though I worry about the contaminants and only buy fish that aren't endangered. Whether that red meat has too high a carbon impact I have no idea!!! I do have to wonder if getting people to switch to chicken (often raised in unbelievably horrible conditions) or fish (much of it WAY overfished by this point) will really help anything.

I find myself at the supermarket recently agonizing "fish species that is less sustainable that I'd prefer", "fish species that is sustainable". Back and forth .... I'm all lost in the supermarket, I can no longer shop happily .... Well you know I got the more sustainable fish. But I had a burger this week as well (grass fed meat from northern CA).

[pinkytoe]

I am reading a book now called Untamed about a woman who eats primarily road kill. Imagine all the meat that goes to waste there.

[catherine]

I will ONLY eat meat that I get from Charlie. Charlie owns a small cattle farm about 10 miles away. He has introduced me to his cows by name and he sells the meat at farm markets. If I don't buy from Charlie, or from our local poultry farm, I don't eat meat at all. I will not by grassfed beef that gets flown to us from Australia or Argentina.

ANM, I hear you with regard to fish. I love sushi and DH and I go to an inexpensive sushi house every Saturday night. But I recently read that when you get a plate of sushi, you should imagine the entire table filled with the fish that were killed just to get the little pieces of sushi on your plate.

I try to keep on top of what fish is environmentally sound vs. what is not, but it's hard to keep up with.


ETA: The article in the OP suggests cutting down--not giving up. Can't we just eat a little less meat? Just like we spend a little less money, or eat a little less ice cream. Not a revolutionary concept.

[Jilly]

Studies show you may be doing harm to the planet by eating kale.

[razz]

Studies show you may be doing harm to the planet by eating kale.

Silly article making a spoof of health claims using kale as the subject created some satirical humour.

[Jilly]

Yes.

[bUU]

So, then, that link is not really relevant to this thread.

We humans are very good at making up excuses and other types of rationalizations regarding the harm attributable to choices we make. That doesn't actually relieve us of obligations to act in a responsible manner as a citizen of the world. By the same token, no one is expected to solve the world's problems alone and in the absolute. Rather, being responsible means, first, admitting our impact, and accepting our responsibility for taking steps to mitigate some of that impact. A business owner, for example, who capitalizes on our society's structures that unfairly facilitate lower cost of labor, isn't absolved of the impact those structures cause, but isn't unilaterally responsible for the impact, and therefore isn't expected to take absolute measures to mitigate the impact but rather just reasonable measures, including supporting (i.e., more than just not obstructing) changing of those structures so that they are more just.