What if we ate beans instead of beef?
Now that we have a basic understanding of the environmental impacts of agriculture and how unsustainable our current system is, I am going to start to look at these problems in more detail, explore ways to solve them and discover how we can best feed the future! As Cowspiracy in particular highlights, the way we farm cows now poses serious threats to the
environment through their greenhouse gas emissions, land use, water use and
waste production. I will look at meat production in greater detail in my next post, but for now here is some food for thought:
Helen Harwatt and colleagues published a paper this summer, in which they calculated that if all Americans replaced the beef
in their diet with beans, then the USA could almost meet its 2020
greenhouse-gas emission goals. Here is a video by The Atlantic summarising the argument:
I agree that we are unlikely to see such a reduction in beef consumption in the USA, but I think it is a powerful message nonetheless. What do you think?
Image from National Geographic.
I like beans.
ReplyDeleteThats good to hear! So do I!
DeleteWe should be friends! Our mutual love of beans shall bring us together.
DeleteGreat post! Such an intriguing idea... I honestly wish it could happen. Although I am aware it is an entirely theoretical scenario, it would be interesting to explore the question what would happen with all the cows that are still alive and being kept. If suddenly everyone decided not to eat beef anymore, where would that leave them?
ReplyDeleteThats a really good question! In my 'Raising Twenty Billion' post I talk about how this is an issue due to the huge number of cows we have (1.4 billion), and the economic damage the world population suddenly becoming vegetarian would cause (https://feedingsevenbillion.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/raising-twenty-billion-look-at-global.html). In response to your question, I am not sure what we would do in that scenario! Hopefully not a mass cull (but this has happened in the past, for example 6 million pigs were killed in the Great Depression in order to raise the price of pork). I would hope instead for a gradual change, where fewer cows reproduce over time. This is more likely anyway as, as you said, it is a theoretical scenario that we would all suddenly switch our diets, we are more likely to slowly change instead (this is also what I endorse in the post I mentioned earlier :)).
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