The Effects of Hamburgers on Our Society
Posted by Global Issues Budapest on Tuesday, March 8, 2011
When asked which industries produce the most greenhouse gasses, many people would probably answer transportation, coal plants, or oil refineries. What most people don't think of, is actually the most pressing one.
The food industry has grown to incredible sizes in the past few decades, and is posing as a huge threat to our climate.
It generates over one fifth of the world's greenhouse gasses (more than transportation!) and over 30% of Earth's ice free land is directly or indirectly involved in just livestock production! Livestock are huge consumers of water and crops, and rainforests need to be cut and burnt for their feed. And once they eat the crops and drink the water its still not over, because even their gasses are endangering our environment! Yes, I'm talking about cow farts, which from each cow alone pollute the air with 10 kg of methane in one year, which might account for more pollution then cars in certain areas!
And while we pump our burping and farting livestock with feed, there are over 800 people in the world suffering from hunger in malnutrition, where instead of food production, agrilcultural output is diverted towards soy and corn crop to feed livestock.
Nice.
But what are our governments doing about this? Well subsidizing meat of course! Subsidizing means that governments are supplying the meat industry with extra money, because the production would be too expensive to make it profitable, and subsidies are increasing with the ever growing demand for meat.
But to look at yet another angle, lets consider what kind of animals we are all eating. Industrial farms are a little different from the sunny and grassy ones you see on TV. Loosely described, they usually stand around in their own manure (yes, often they are not properly cleaned, and we all know what that means), are confined to tiny, enclosed spaces, and are lucky if they ever see sunlight. They are not fed the foods their bodies actually require, the aim is to make them nice and fat. The stomachs of cattle are not designed to digest grain, while most can't even support their own body weights.
I guess everyone was able to draw the most important, meat eating is bad.
And then you would say that meat and animal by products, such as milk and cheese, are essential to a healthy lifestyle.
But are they really?
An average American consumes 110 grams of protein a day, of which 75 grams come from animal protein. This is more than twice the reccommended allowance, considering that even that is considered too high by some experts.(and you will find most meat full of pesticides, antibiotics and hormones anyway)
As for milk, its awesome! We've grown up with it and drink it every day! It might be surprising to you, that only a fraction of people on Earth drink cow's milk, namely us, Caucasians. Humans are the only species that drink milk at an adult age. I find that a little bit weird. Also, the following is from an interesting article I found on the sight notmilk.com, which might make you raise a couple of questions.
Hmm? We are all also familiar with the condition of lactose intolerance, which is the inability to digest milk. There are more people affected by it then you would think, since the adult stomach is not designed to digest milk, especially that of a cow. Over the many, many year of milk consuption, many people have simply adapted.
But to comfort you, most of the milk you drink has nothing to do with what the cow actually produces. Fifty years ago, a cow produced about 2000 pounds of milk per year, today top producers manage 50,000 pounds. I will leave the rest to your imagination.
What to do
You don't have to cut these products out of your life, but it is really easy to reduce your carbon output by limiting your consumption.
Most importantly perhaps, you can switch the type of meet you consume, beef is by far the most harmful, to for example chicken, which is four times less in carbon output.
Foods that can replace nutrients found in meat and dairy products include:
cereals, legumes, soybeans and tofu, dried fruit, pumpkin seeds, boccoli, tomatoes, orange juice, greean leafy vegetables, nuts, rice, grains, seeds, and many other things.
And the best way to eat meat and dairy is definitely to go organic! These producers will not use harmful pesticides and antibiotics, and will keep livestock production natural!
Bon Appetit!
by Hanna Kereszturi
The food industry has grown to incredible sizes in the past few decades, and is posing as a huge threat to our climate.
It generates over one fifth of the world's greenhouse gasses (more than transportation!) and over 30% of Earth's ice free land is directly or indirectly involved in just livestock production! Livestock are huge consumers of water and crops, and rainforests need to be cut and burnt for their feed. And once they eat the crops and drink the water its still not over, because even their gasses are endangering our environment! Yes, I'm talking about cow farts, which from each cow alone pollute the air with 10 kg of methane in one year, which might account for more pollution then cars in certain areas!
And while we pump our burping and farting livestock with feed, there are over 800 people in the world suffering from hunger in malnutrition, where instead of food production, agrilcultural output is diverted towards soy and corn crop to feed livestock.
Nice.
But what are our governments doing about this? Well subsidizing meat of course! Subsidizing means that governments are supplying the meat industry with extra money, because the production would be too expensive to make it profitable, and subsidies are increasing with the ever growing demand for meat.
But to look at yet another angle, lets consider what kind of animals we are all eating. Industrial farms are a little different from the sunny and grassy ones you see on TV. Loosely described, they usually stand around in their own manure (yes, often they are not properly cleaned, and we all know what that means), are confined to tiny, enclosed spaces, and are lucky if they ever see sunlight. They are not fed the foods their bodies actually require, the aim is to make them nice and fat. The stomachs of cattle are not designed to digest grain, while most can't even support their own body weights.
I guess everyone was able to draw the most important, meat eating is bad.
And then you would say that meat and animal by products, such as milk and cheese, are essential to a healthy lifestyle.
But are they really?
An average American consumes 110 grams of protein a day, of which 75 grams come from animal protein. This is more than twice the reccommended allowance, considering that even that is considered too high by some experts.(and you will find most meat full of pesticides, antibiotics and hormones anyway)
As for milk, its awesome! We've grown up with it and drink it every day! It might be surprising to you, that only a fraction of people on Earth drink cow's milk, namely us, Caucasians. Humans are the only species that drink milk at an adult age. I find that a little bit weird. Also, the following is from an interesting article I found on the sight notmilk.com, which might make you raise a couple of questions.
Consider for a moment, if it was possible, to drink the milk
of a mammal other than a cow, let's say a rat. Or perhaps
the milk of a dog would be more to your liking. Possibly
some horse milk or cat milk. Do you get the idea? Well, I'm
not serious about this, except to suggest that human milk is
for human infants, dogs' milk is for pups, cows' milk is for
calves, cats' milk is for kittens, and so forth. Clearly,
this is the way nature intends it. Just use your own good
judgement on this one.
Hmm? We are all also familiar with the condition of lactose intolerance, which is the inability to digest milk. There are more people affected by it then you would think, since the adult stomach is not designed to digest milk, especially that of a cow. Over the many, many year of milk consuption, many people have simply adapted.
But to comfort you, most of the milk you drink has nothing to do with what the cow actually produces. Fifty years ago, a cow produced about 2000 pounds of milk per year, today top producers manage 50,000 pounds. I will leave the rest to your imagination.
What to do
You don't have to cut these products out of your life, but it is really easy to reduce your carbon output by limiting your consumption.
Most importantly perhaps, you can switch the type of meet you consume, beef is by far the most harmful, to for example chicken, which is four times less in carbon output.
Foods that can replace nutrients found in meat and dairy products include:
cereals, legumes, soybeans and tofu, dried fruit, pumpkin seeds, boccoli, tomatoes, orange juice, greean leafy vegetables, nuts, rice, grains, seeds, and many other things.
And the best way to eat meat and dairy is definitely to go organic! These producers will not use harmful pesticides and antibiotics, and will keep livestock production natural!
Bon Appetit!
by Hanna Kereszturi