[Book] 'The Omnivore's Dilemma', Michael Pollan
Over and over again, while looking up tips on how to be more environmentally friendly, I've found an innocent little sentence that says something like, "Eat less meat. It takes more energy and resources to raise animals for food than it does to raise plants." I made a mental note of it, but I don't think I ever understood what that really meant until I started reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. Pollan's theme here is that every time you eat, you're engaging in a transaction with nature; at some point, even a Twinkie used to be a variety of plant species, a part of nature. Pollan makes his point by following the food chain to show how (and to some extent, why) food is grown and processed and ends up in a supermarket and finally on our plates. It's really, really fascinating, and very scary.
Here is a (simplified) food chain as it exists in nature:
1. Sun and soil provide nutrients that allow grass to grow.
2. Cows feed on the grass, transforming the sun's energy and the soil's nutrients into protein. Cows can do this because they have a digestive organ called the "rumen", which houses bacteria that are able to break the grass down into its constituent nutrients.
3. The cows poop out fertilizer that enriches the soil, allowing the grass to continue growing.
Here is the food chain as it works here in America:
1. Farmers tear up the grass to make room for corn, because corn plants can grow in tight spaces, producing more food per acre.
2. Without grazing animals to fertilize the soil, it becomes depleted, which is why corn crops need to be rotated with crops of other plants (like soybeans) that give some nutrients back to the soil. Or at least, that's how it used to work, until the invention of industrial fertilizers. Producing industrial fertilizers requires a lot of fossil fuels. Plus, the runoff from the collective tons of fertilizer used on all that Midwestern corn flows into the Gulf of Mexico and has created a dead zone in the Gulf that's the size of New Jersey.
3. Because corn is cheap and plentiful, it's fed to cows, along with protein supplements and a rich diet of blood and beef fat, plus maybe some chicken litter (feathers, bedding, and feces). Cows aren't built to live on corn, though: it acidifies their rumen, leading to ulcers that allow bacteria into the cows' blood and eventually into their livers, leading to infection that, despite the huge volumes of antibiotics fed to the cows, would be fatal... if the cows weren't slaughtered first and fed to humans.
So, I finally understand why eating plants is better for the environment than eating meat. At the end of the day, we get less energy out of corn (in the form of food calories) than is put into it (in the form of fossil fuels). And it takes two pounds of corn to produce one pound of beef. Factor in the fossil fuels used to run the tractors for planting the corn and the trucks for transporting it, and you find that each and every corn-fed cow represents about a barrel of oil.
Eating less meat is sounding pretty good right now, and so is checking out a local farm that raises grass-fed beef. As an added bonus, grass-fed beef is leaner than corn-fed beef and is richer in omega-3 fatty acids. If you're interested in switching to grass-fed meat, Eat Wild is a great directory of pasture-based farms. And I really recommend reading the book. (In the next chapter, Pollan is tackling organic food, and I'm really curious what he'll have to say.)
I know this isn't a very comfortable topic, but this book has been a real eye-opener for me. I guess I'm naive, but I never realized that... well, that most of the people growing, processing, and selling food really don't give a hoot about those of us who are going to eat that food -- and they care even less about the planet that's providing us with the food. Reading this is making me realize that making responsible environmental choices isn't just about what you buy or don't buy; it's about being conscious of what went into that product, and of the price we're all paying for it.
Here is a (simplified) food chain as it exists in nature:
1. Sun and soil provide nutrients that allow grass to grow.
2. Cows feed on the grass, transforming the sun's energy and the soil's nutrients into protein. Cows can do this because they have a digestive organ called the "rumen", which houses bacteria that are able to break the grass down into its constituent nutrients.
3. The cows poop out fertilizer that enriches the soil, allowing the grass to continue growing.
Here is the food chain as it works here in America:
1. Farmers tear up the grass to make room for corn, because corn plants can grow in tight spaces, producing more food per acre.
2. Without grazing animals to fertilize the soil, it becomes depleted, which is why corn crops need to be rotated with crops of other plants (like soybeans) that give some nutrients back to the soil. Or at least, that's how it used to work, until the invention of industrial fertilizers. Producing industrial fertilizers requires a lot of fossil fuels. Plus, the runoff from the collective tons of fertilizer used on all that Midwestern corn flows into the Gulf of Mexico and has created a dead zone in the Gulf that's the size of New Jersey.
3. Because corn is cheap and plentiful, it's fed to cows, along with protein supplements and a rich diet of blood and beef fat, plus maybe some chicken litter (feathers, bedding, and feces). Cows aren't built to live on corn, though: it acidifies their rumen, leading to ulcers that allow bacteria into the cows' blood and eventually into their livers, leading to infection that, despite the huge volumes of antibiotics fed to the cows, would be fatal... if the cows weren't slaughtered first and fed to humans.
So, I finally understand why eating plants is better for the environment than eating meat. At the end of the day, we get less energy out of corn (in the form of food calories) than is put into it (in the form of fossil fuels). And it takes two pounds of corn to produce one pound of beef. Factor in the fossil fuels used to run the tractors for planting the corn and the trucks for transporting it, and you find that each and every corn-fed cow represents about a barrel of oil.
Eating less meat is sounding pretty good right now, and so is checking out a local farm that raises grass-fed beef. As an added bonus, grass-fed beef is leaner than corn-fed beef and is richer in omega-3 fatty acids. If you're interested in switching to grass-fed meat, Eat Wild is a great directory of pasture-based farms. And I really recommend reading the book. (In the next chapter, Pollan is tackling organic food, and I'm really curious what he'll have to say.)
I know this isn't a very comfortable topic, but this book has been a real eye-opener for me. I guess I'm naive, but I never realized that... well, that most of the people growing, processing, and selling food really don't give a hoot about those of us who are going to eat that food -- and they care even less about the planet that's providing us with the food. Reading this is making me realize that making responsible environmental choices isn't just about what you buy or don't buy; it's about being conscious of what went into that product, and of the price we're all paying for it.