It’s been a long school day, and you just got home for dinner. As you sit down, your parents announce that from now on, beef will only be served at dinner once a week. You hear your younger siblings immediately complain about not being able to eat burgers, and you also question your parents’ reasoning: “Why are we eating so little beef?” “Well” they say, “We are so glad you asked.”
Foods with the most environmental impact. Beef and its production is at the top.
Let’s start with why beef is so bad for the climate. On average, a serving of beef (around 6 oz) emits around 330 grams of carbon into the atmosphere. For comparison, this is like driving your car 3 miles. Now if we swap the beef for a different meat like chicken or lamb, the amount of carbon released decreases to between either a third or sixth of how much carbon beef releases into the atmosphere. With fish, it goes down even lower to around an eighth, and vegetables are even lower at around a twentieth (Vox). So how does beef emit produce such a bad effect on the Earth’s climate compared to other foods? Beef consumption is associated with a number of problems including: exportation costs, their feed, land use, and last but definitely not least, farming processes. Each of these problems release different sorts of greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide. These gases cause damage to our climate by increasing global warming, destroying the ozone layer, and causing more extreme weather.
Amount of calories in feed for beef compared to the amount converted into beef.
Of the four, exportation costs cause the least amount of carbon emissions with beef consumption. While exportation in the US doesn’t release too many greenhouse gases while distributing beef, exportation to various other countries is where the problem really starts. When exporting a product like beef, you have to take into account how it will need to be taken care of when being transported. For example, the massive fast food industry needs to have an insane amount of beef transported all around the world. This requires refrigeration of beef, safe storing without contamination, as well as carbon released from gas due to planes, ships, and trucks.
By comparison, feeding cows is a huge emission factor for greenhouse gas emissions. We feed cows a massive amount of calories and water for very little in return. For cows only convert around 4% of the protein and 3% of the calories we feed them into meat, meaning that more than 97% of the calories that we feed cows is wasted and lost to us. To put this into perspective, one kilogram of beef is equivalent to over 25 kilograms of grain and over 15,000 liters of water (Kurzgesagt). Humans drink around 90,000 liters of water in their lives, which is equivalent to 6 kilograms of beef. To put it into perspective, if all humans stopped eating meat, we could use 75% less land to produce food and feed an additional 3.5 billion people (Greenpeace).
Thirdly, the land that livestock use to graze constitutes around 26% of the world’s global land use, and around 33% of all the cropland used around the world is used for animal feed(FAO). This land used to graze is also continually expanding, as 80% of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest is due to needing more space for cattle ranching (Vox). Our obsession with eating meat is causing permanent damage to the Earth’s ecosystems and is increasing the risk of climate change becoming permanent as well.
Methane potential on global warming compared to carbon dioxide.
Lastly, farming processes make up the majority of emissions from cows. All cows digest plant material through a process called enteric fermentation. This process digests the material, but creates methane, which then is either farted out of the cow, or is burped out. There is a reason why cow burps have so many videos all over the internet! Methane is the second most common greenhouse gas that is emitted, behind Carbon Dioxide. However, Methane has the strength to be up to 21 times more harmful than Carbon Dioxide (Vox).
Sadly enough, there are many people who still don’t believe in how eating beef is causing damage to the environment. What is even worse, the website mymeatup is spreading lies about how beef is good for the environment and is helping reduce climate change. All of their claims have no evidence to support them, as they don’t really have any.
To everyone who reads this, having heard about how bad beef is for the environment, would you still feel easy while wolfing down a hamburger? The Chinese have a saying: “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Reducing the amount of beef you eat and the amount of meat you use in general is something the small step that you can do take to reduce the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere. Indeed, substituting meat for fish or vegetables can not only help your health, but also the health of the world. Encouraging your friends and family to do the same is something that can make a big difference for the fight against climate change! While all of this seems like something small, if everyone changes their eating habits, it can have a large impact for the our future.
Discussion Questions
How can you reduce your carbon footprint while eating?
How will this effect the beef industry?
Works Cited
Brown, Natalie. “7 reasons why meat is bad for the environment.” Greenpeace UK, https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/why-meat-is-bad-for-the-environment/. Accessed 16 November 2022.
Carroll, Aaron E. “The Real Problem With Beef.” The New York Times, 1 October 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/01/upshot/beef-health-climate-impact.html. Accessed 16 November 2022.
Kurzgesagt. “Why Meat is the Best Worst Thing in the World.” Why Meat is the Best Worst Thing in the World – YouTube, Kurzgesagt, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxvQPzrg2Wg&ab_channel=Kurzgesagt%E2%80%93InaNutshell. Accessed 16 November 2022.
“LIVESTOCK AND LANDSCAPES.” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, https://www.fao.org/3/ar591e/ar591e.pdf. Accessed 16 November 2022.
Piper, Kelsey. “A no-beef diet is great — but only if you don’t replace it with chicken.” Vox, 22 May 2021, https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22430749/beef-chicken-climate-diet-vegetarian. Accessed 16 November 2022.
“Six Reasons Why Meat is ‘Greener’ Than You Think.” Meat Up, https://mymeatup.org/content/environment. Accessed 16 November 2022.
Vox. “The diet that helps fight climate change.” The diet that helps fight climate change – YouTube, Vox, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUnJQWO4YJY&ab_channel=Vox. Accessed 16 November 2022.
Vox. “Why beef is the worst food for the climate.” Why beef is the worst food for the climate – YouTube, Vox, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lrJYTsKdUM&ab_channel=Vox. Accessed 16 November 2022.
3 Comments
Maia · December 1, 2022 at 2:44 am
I think that some ways to reduce your carbon footprint while eating are looking into the foods you are eating to ensure that they are negatively affecting the environment and using sustainable utensils and materials. If people were to learn about all the downsides to eating beef so often, I don’t think that the beef industry will face a drastic change in sales rates. I say this because people know the damage that plastic products do to this earth yet they continue to rely on these objects on a day-to-day basis. I do, however, believe that if word continues to spread and if people become more conscious of their carbon footprints, then people might start to reduce the amount of beef they consume which will end up affecting the beef industry in a negative way.
Bodhi V · January 5, 2023 at 7:12 pm
Being more educated on the things that you put into your bodu definitely helps people with their carbon footprint. A lot of times when you learn the process of how mass-produced foods are made that you enjoy, it tends to almost make you feel disgusted. For example, I used to make myself a box of perdue chicken when I was hungry, however, after learning how that specific brand of chicken makes their food, it just puts an awful taste in your mouth. Another way to reduce your carbon footprint would be to eat less meat, but because that is obviously a very difficult thing to do, staying away from red meats like beef would obviously help the environment. Reducing red meat consumption would also have a positive effect on your body’s health as well. If more people started to take steps like these to reduce their carbon footprint the beef industry would more than likely pretty much plummet.
Grace G · January 6, 2023 at 2:46 pm
I really like all the statistics you included it really helped plant the image in my brain of how bad beef is for the environment. I think that by limiting beef consumption the beef industry will suffer a small amount. They are at the moment making a lot of money and with a few people limiting their consumption, it might not change greatly. However, if a great number of people decide to restrict their consumption it has the potential to really impact the industry.
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