Livestock today consume 5 times as much grain as the entire American population, the average meal travels 1,500 miles from farm to fork, and seven football fields' worth of land is bulldozed every minute to create more room for farmed animals and the crops that feed them.
But it doesn't have to be all doom-and-gloom. We as consumers still have options, which, over time, can change our economy. It's this idea that drives INFORM -- the educational and advocacy nonprofit that raises environmental consciousness for the general public through visual media. Its "Secret Life" film series, seen by over 2 million viewers in 80 countries, examines the lifecycle environmental impact of everyday objects we all consume.
"We focus on solutions, not just problems. Solutions that individuals can easily embrace," says Virginia Ramsey, president of INFORM. "Our perspective is that environmental illiteracy is arguably as grave a threat to the future of the planet as is global warming. That's why our short, entertaining, nonpartisan films like The Secret Life of Beef aim to offer environmental basics to the masses."
"People don't want to hurt the planet. They often just don't know better," Ramsey adds, "Too few beef eaters in this country know the connection between the dietary choices they make and the environmental damage caused by industrialized beef production. What we want to show the public with The Secret Life of Beef is simple, concrete steps to becoming a sustainable consumer."
Founded back in 1973, INFORM was originally a research organization and produced 117 in-depth reports for government and business officials on a range of environmental challenges. When its founder stepped aside in 2006, INFORM re-envisioned itself for the 21st century -- shifting both its target audience from thought leaders to the general public, and its medium from print to film.
With only 18% of Americans taking action in their daily lives to combat global warming. INFORM wants to use on- and off-line outreach to get its short films onto screens everywhere, including schools, hospitals, state and municipal governments, planes and taxicabs, movie theaters and faith-based communities. If you'd like to show The Secret Life of Beef to your group or organization, or if you have ideas on how to help get the word out, or would like to volunteer with INFORM, please write here.
Follow Chris Elam on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MeatlessMonday
There's no free chicken, beef or pork lunch. If you're eating animal flesh and secretions you're eating animal secretions, with or without horseradish.
Personally, I eat the diet designed by nature and tested on 100,000 generations of our ancestors over about 2.5 million years. The beauty of this diet, based on organic pastured animal and certain perennial plant foods, is that it does not require the use of artificial fertilizers or pesticides (both derived from fossil fuel); or fuel to run agricultural machinery to plow, cultivate and harvest; or artificial irrigation (fossil fuel powered pumps); or GM seeds. It requires zero acres of tillable soil, zero pounds of grain, zero gallons of imported water, and is nutritionally complete.
It is totally independent of farms and all of the agricultural machinery that destroys topsoil and kills millions of ground-living animals. It eliminates the need for any of the products produced by the pesticide, fertilizer, and GM AgriGiants, or the need for feed-lots, egg-breeders, dairy farms, or processed foods.
The ecological footprint of this diet is estimated to be much smaller than either a vegan, vegetarian, or Standard American Diet. It arguably has the lowest profile of natural toxins, and respects the ethical treatment of both animals and plants - something unavailable in any other diet. An example can be found in "The Original Diet."
Roy Mankovitz, Director
http://www.MontecitoWellness.com
Global warming is called “climate change†lately.
It does exist, but the greenhouse effect is insignificant, comparing to the asteroids, meteorites, comets, galaxies’ movement and interface, Sun activity, movement of the Earth's tectonic plates, studied by Al Gore’s Professor Revelle, but ignored by Al Gore.
The livestock contributes too, but not much. I used a scientific hand-held calculator and a few websites. There are 1.3 billion cattle (estimated) on this Planet.
12.0 gal of manure (including urine) a day x 1 300 000 000 cows = 15 600 000 000 gal of manure a day = 9.081685E-13 miles3 per gallon x 15 600 000 000 gal of manure a day = 0.0142 mile3
Much of it is used as organic fertilizer. California land area is 155,959.34 square miles. If we spread the fertilizer over all the California land area, the thickness becomes 0.0142mile3 / 155,959.34 mile2=9.1049 E-8 mile x5280 ft/mile = 0.0005 ft = 0.0056 in = 0.1465 mm.
Not much at all to be an issue.
But it is a good idea to consume less meat, preferably from grass-fed stock raised without hormones and antibiotics. It’s good for you to consume more vegetables, legumes and whole grains, but meat is a part of healthy diet, according to many MD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYyDXH1amic The World's First Bionic Burger, 3:37 min
My complements to FDA.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-david-steele
The problem lies in our culture's peculiar plate concept, in which meat is the definition of "main course", and vegetables are the definition of "side dishes". These definitions are, of course, entirely arbitrary, but they ingrain some very deeply held beliefs about nutrition. People realize that there are other sources of vitamin C besides raspberries, and that there are other sources of vitamin K and calcium besides spinach, but we're indoctrinated from earliest childhood to believe that protein=meat and meat=protein, as if there were no other sources.
Regardless of whether one eats meat or not, I think we can all admit that the focus on meat in our culture is WAY out of proportion to any actual "need" for it, and that such focus often comes at the expense of other foods. Fruits, vegetables, and whole grains should be considered basic, core components of the daily diet, not optional "side items". Even vegetarian-bashing Anthony Bourdain said that we'd probably be better off if we treated meat more as a flavoring or condiment than as the main point of the meal.
I've been vegetarian (and at times as vegan as its possible to be) for more than 25 years. I wouldn't consider going back to eating the flesh of any animal.
However, this short encourages moderation and proper sourcing. The former is an attainable goal for everyone, while the latter may only be available to people with the money and access to "green," humanely-raised meat. Here's hoping that Meatless Mondays' moderation approach will make a dent.
Regardless of its immediate tangible effect, the "Meatless Monday" campaign at least reminds people that food is not a neutral issue, and that every time you sit down to eat you're "voting with your fork" on what kind of world you want to live in. While it might not be entirely true that, as someone said, "a meat-eater riding a bicycle contributes more to global warming than a vegan driving an SUV" (it depends on what kind of meat and what kinds of vegan foods the respective parties are purchasing), nevertheless it's pretty clear that our foods choices have just as much of an environmental impact as our choice of vehicle, or our choice to recycle or not.
When I changed to an organic vegan diet, I was surprised to find that the food was not THAT much more expensive than what I had already been eating - but then again, I hadn't been ordering off the Dollar Menu at McDonald's in the first place. Healthy, sustainble food is more expensive than industrial processed junk, regardless of whether meat is involved or not.
We are so removed from the sources of our food these days, that for most people the issue never comes to mind except when they're directly presented information on it.
I've known many people who will, for example, watch "Food, Inc." and be extremely moved by it, vowing immediately afterwards never to buy from Smithfield, etc., again, and then the very next day they're buying an Egg McMuffin at McDonald's, or a ham at Wal-Mart, or a pepperoni pizza from Domino's.
I think part of the problem lies in campaigns which directly go against specific businesses, such as the "McCruelty" and "Kentucky Fried Cruelty" campaigns. I've known people who will recoil in horror at the PETA ads about KFC, and then go pick up some fried chicken at Popeye's - as if that were somehow different. Yes, McDonald's is the largest purchaser of beef, and one of the largest purchasers of pork, in the country, but people need to understand that if you're eating fast food (with the rare exception of places like Chipotle's), then you're supporting factory farming.
If you're not sourcing your food, then you're, in all likelihood, supporting factory farming no matter what - whether it's a 10-piece chicken nugget "meal" from McDonald's, or Aunt Mabel's chicken salad at the Wednesday night church supper.
It's so much easier to just boycott a couple of businesses and be done with it.