Some of you will have seen the press and TV features recently suggesting that eating less meat is a way of “saving the planet”. Not something a carnovore wants to hear - espacially from vegetarians! So here are some interesting facts that they do not tell you at the same time.
About 40% of the earths landmass is available for farming. The rest is too dry - deserts, too wet - such as coastal flood plains, too cold - the poles or the top of Everest!
What gets left unmentioned is that of the land available for farming only a third of it is any good for the growing of crops. It may be that it is too steep to get a plough on, or the soil is not fertile enough, the growing season is too short and so on. So two thirds of the earths farm land is grass and the last time we looked humans cannot eat grass. Thats because a large part of grass has a chemical in it called cellulose that we are unable to digest. The good news is that farm animals can, especially cows, sheep, goats and to a lesser extent free range pigs. So many societies have developed a food culture that has meat and animal products as a major component. The Masai in Africa base their entire society round cattle and many nomadic tribes of the dry parts of the world rely on goats to convert inedible plants into something humans can eat. Here in the North of England our steep hills and wet climate can grow grass really well so some of the worlds best beef, lamb and free range pork is produced here. So if you are concerned about the feeding of wheat to farm animals look for local grass fed and free range meat. Their production may not be entirely free from the use of grains but it will be much lower than some thing fattened in a feed lot in the Americas and it will have used less oil to transport it to you. Whats more it will taste good too.
So as well as having positive reasons to eat meat - we cannot eat grass - what about the methane thing. Most people know that ruminants ( cattle, sheep etc ) belch methane whilst digesting their food. The scientists tell us that methane warms the climate faster than Carbon Dioxide. Ergo eating meat means we are all going to hell. But the planets ruminants does not just include farm animals it also includes things such as, Wildebeast, Buffalo, Bison, Antelope, Deer so are we going to get rid of all those too? A hundred and fifty years ago there used to be nearly 100 million Bison in the USA but they were hunted nearly to the point of extinction an act that would be inconceivable today. So not all methane comes from farm animals. Also in some where like Britain grazing livestock and farming in general contribute to the well loved landscape we rightly treasure. In some places we value it so much the land has statuary protection such as here in the Yorkshire Dales national Park.
Another thing the vegetarians do not tell you is that to expand the growing of crops, to turn us all away from meat, is that ploughing some of our most appreciated landscapes would release massive amounts of carbon dioxide currently held in the soil. Not a good idea. The continued trade in food would require more transport as the calories in salad takes up more space than those in meat as meat is more energy dense. Again contributing to global warming.
So here at The Blue Pig Company we say keep eating meat and may be you are actually doing some good to the planet especially if its local and free range. Its not a guilty pleasure.
PS the next time a vegetarian is having a go at you for eating meat ask them which plant their milk, butter, cheese, leather and wool came from!