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Author Anna Lappe says that food production -- particularly Western society's love of meat packaged in Styrofoam and cellophane from the local supermarket -- is a major climate-warming offender. Forget about those stretch limos with the little hot tub in the back; turns out a double cheeseburger is a lot more harmful to the environment.
Lappe's new book called, Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do about It, evokes the title of her mother's 1971 classic, Diet for a Small Planet. One of Time magazine's 'eco' who's-who, Lappe is a founding principal (along with her mother, Frances Moore Lappe), of the Cambridge based Small Planet Institute, an organization that does research and education on the root causes of hunger and poverty. According to Lappe, who recently spoke at the annual Green Matters Symposium at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, MD, because of harmful pesticides and the waste and methane that livestock produce, meat production creates more carbon dioxide than all world travel combined. What with all the
Lappe's recommendation is familiar to anyone who has read Michael Pollan's books: Don't eat processed food, cook at home, and eat more vegetables and fruits. She also suggests people get out into their backyard or community garden, grab a shovel and start digging a veggie patch.
In other words, start thinking about where and how food got to our plate and what's the real cost of that mouthful of steak to our planet. It's a lot more expensive than we previously thought.
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3-04-2010 @6:30PM Sledge Hammer said... Global warming has been thoroughly debunked. All of the major doomsday predictions in Al Gore's movie have been debunked, scandal has been revealed amongst the top international research projects that have fueled the global warming hysteria.
All of this manufactured guilt over what we are eating is wholly unnecessary. The world is not ending and we are not causing it to destruct. There are more pressing problems, including poverty across the globe that need to be addressed.
Enjoy a tasty steak or double cheeseburger. It will not harm the planet.
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3-04-2010 @10:54PM Worldwatcher said... Science and college education have been debunked, according to Sledge Hammer. Why? Because science and college require claims to be accompanied by evidence. But Sledge Hammer believes that he/she can simply make a claim and demand that you believe it, with no evidence provided.
On the other hand, if you believe that scientific claims should be accompanied by evidence, then meat should be replaced by better alternatives -- whether climate change is human-caused or not, as you can see at http://awellfedworld.org/sites/awellfedworld.org/files/pdf/GoodlandFoodIndustryBerlinJan2010.pdf
3-05-2010 @10:57AM gobo said... Sledgehammer, everything in your post is a flat-out lie based on zero actual facts. Please, read the paper once in a while. Open a magazine. Get the actual facts -- global warming is very, very real. Feel free to hide your head in the sand and pretend it isn't, but it's irresponsible and ignorant.
3-05-2010 @12:21PM Matt said... Gobo, if you're getting your scientific news from the newspaper or magazine, you're in the dark.
I'm reminded up this:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/files/2009/05/phd051809s.gif
3-05-2010 @3:37AM SandraDee said... The vast majority of the plant life and landmass on this planet is utilizable in it's present state by ruminants only(four stomachs. Able to take low quality, high fiber food, not capable of being eaten by humans, and turn it into a high quality, nutritious food product). So without having to till it up, remove the present vegetation, bring water to it, and farm it, cattle, goats, and sheep can wander around and produce one of the most healthy, nutrient dense foods that we have available to mankind. I suppose if they were buffalo or some other wildlife that we didn't eat or humans couldn't make money off of, it would be just fine.
When you find someone pushing this anti-meat stuff, they always have an agenda that makes them money by doing it; whether it be books, noteriety, selling health food, etc. It would require plowing under huge quantities of land to provide only non-meat food to the population of this planet. People need to quit listening to this stuff.
I wonder if the global warming hoax has made any of you wake up and see that there is a huge community out there that thrives and makes billions of dollars off of keeping you all scared and distracted from what they are really up to?
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3-05-2010 @12:19PM gobo said... Kind of a useless argument, Sandra, considering that the vast majority of beef is corn-fed, not grass-fed. And it's far, far more efficient for humans to eat low on the food chain -- eating plants -- than to eat the animals that feed on those plants.
Your facts are wrong, your post is needlessly virulent and insulting, and you're completely mistaken. Why are you wasting people's time?
3-05-2010 @6:32PM Adrian said... If what Sandra describes was how modern meat farms actually WORK, it would be relevant. Yes we need some animals as part of a good farming system.
When I can support and purchase from farmers whose animals actually wander relatively free, eating their natural foods, basically until slaughtering time, I will do so. But that's NEVER what you get for cheap at the big grocery store. I am anti-"big factory" meat with all its entailed lakes of fecal pollution etc. etc., not anti-meat period.
Quoting Sandra above:
" The vast majority of the plant life and landmass on this planet is utilizable in it's present state by ruminants only(four stomachs. Able to take low quality, high fiber food, not capable of being eaten by humans, and turn it into a high quality, nutritious food product). ... The vast majority of the plant life and landmass on this planet is utilizable in it's present state by ruminants only(four stomachs. Able to take low quality, high fiber food, not capable of being eaten by humans, and turn it into a high quality, nutritious food product)."
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3-06-2010 @1:42PM QuonsetHut said... The data supporting man made global warming has been manufactured. It is an attempt to control the masses in a way that is almost a carbon copy of how the USSR operated. How many buffalo roamed the United States before the 1800's? How much methane do you think they produced? That being said, we can be much better stewards of our planet without duping the masses and having a huge blowback against legitimate environmental concerns. The ocean is dying. In places it is for all intents and purposes dead. Inland waterways are a conduit of pesticides, fertilizes, sewage, petrochemicals..etc that dump into the oceans worldwide. Our drinking water is suspect at best. What are we really doing about this immediate threat? Nothing! Simply put, these measures can be fixed, but researchers/universities do not really need billions of dollars of research to figure out the solutions. Companies will be unable to create windfall profits from these solutions. So we chase a white rabbit, whilst the farm is burning.
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3-05-2010 @4:21PM gobo said... Wow, who are you people? Sheep. Fools. People who're hiding their head in the sand, pretending that all scientific data is wrong. Imagining that global warming is a vast conspiracy, a figment of the government's imagination. Well, you're quite wrong. Please open your eyes and stop posting lies. Thanks!
3-05-2010 @1:35PM SandraDee said... Dear, dear gobo, speaking of needlessly virulent and insulting.....you are the one that is completely mistaken and wasting people's time with your lack of knowledge on the subject. Most of the cattle in the nation and the world are the cowherds that spend their entire lives grazing high fiber forages. Some of their calves will be herd replacements that go back into the herd and live the same lives of living off of forages that their mothers have. The remaining calves will be framed up on forages until at least one year old (some continuing on and selling as grassfed beef) and then spend only the last 90-120 days of their lives in the feedlot being fed grains. So, the VAST majority of the plants that cattle eat in their lifetimes are plants that humans cannot eat or digest, and would be wasted if not put through a ruminant.
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3-05-2010 @4:21PM gobo said... Thank you for that pointless and fact-free chunk of data, SandraDee. It has no basis in reality for the vast majority of cattle farms. Global warming is very real -- again, feel free to pretend it isn't, but that's sheer ignorance on your part. I guess it's comforting to hide your head in the sand.
3-05-2010 @4:23PM gobo said... @Matt -- You're saying that all magazines and newspapers are useless and full of flat-out lies, and we should believe nothing we read? Really, that's the world you live in? I feel sorry for you.
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3-07-2010 @8:57PM health283 said... I disagree it is not always about money. I have been a vegetarian for over thirty years and I teach a FREE class at my local YMCA for those wanting to be vegetarians.
I also recommend you read John Robbins book “May All Be Feed.” Robbins is the heir of Baskin and Robbins, yet choice to have nothing to do with the family fortune. Instead of taking his family money he refused it so he can teach his vegan agenda with integrity. His books by the way are excellent!
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