I heard something to do with Nitrogen and …cow farts(?) I am really unsure of this and would like to learn more.
Answer -
4 Parts
- Ethical reason for consuming animals
- Methane produced by cows are a harmful greenhouse gas which is contributing to our current climate crisis
- Health Reasons - there is convincing evidence that processed meats cause cancer
- it takes a lot more calories of plant food to produce the calories we would consume from the meat.
Details about the answers are in the comments
Because you need considerably more resources to grow meat than you need to to grow a nutritionally equivalent amount of vegetables.
The basic problem is that to get 1000 calories of beef, you need to feed the cow something like 10,000 calories. So growing a cow is actually growing an entire field of wheat/corn/etc., then feeding it to the cow, then eating the cow.
Farming all of those crops for the animals takes up a lot of land, consumes fresh water, produces wastes, and uses oil/gas (for farm equipment directly, or to produce things like nitrogen fertilizers) which produces co2. Cows also produce methane (that’s the fart thing) which is a bad greenhouse gas.
You could just eat the wheat/corn/etc. directly (most of the time) and skip the meat step therefore saving a massive amount of environmental impact.
Meat sure is tasty though.
I remember driving through Iowa and seeing vast fields of corn and learning that the majority of that corn was not even destined for human consumption. That kinda blew my mind.
Luckily there is still enough left over to poison the population with high fructose corn syrup
If America was a food, it would be sugar and high fructose corn syrup.
You wanna know another fact? Not all corn can be consumed by humans. There is actually corn that can only be eaten by animals like cows.
But growing a cow that eats the grasses makes it for I get the meat and the vegetables all at once and it tastes great /s
Plus is the fact that not all plants have the right amount of vitamins and minerals necessary to maintain the human body like meat does. Although it is possible, it does require research and monitoring to ensure that your getting all the nutrients you need. And yes, meat just tastes good.
What kind of bullshit are you peddling?
If you’re discussing complete proteins then all it takes is rice and beans. Not particularly difficult given that about half the world population survives on that without much meat.
A lot more water to make the food for cows than what humans consume.
A lot more food to feed a cow than what it would take to feed the human the same type of food.
And the growth of that food to keep feeding these animals in large batch is pretty much creating dead areas of land that gets ruined if it’s not carefully monitored. And the run off into the water supply is a problem. This is why industrial level of farming is really really bad for the environment.
You’re supposed to move cattle around in pastures for regrowth and not entirely decimate it. The capitalists do not care about that until a court summons tells them to care about that.
Currently there’s some better methods however the consumption stays high.
Health wise : all meat diets (meat at every meal) can produce issues in your body.
Cured meat or heavy salted meat can lead to heart issues and kidney stones.
You should mix in some fruit and vegetables and maybe even substitute some entire meals so that meat is consumed only a few times a week if only for your body’s sake. Your taste buds aren’t the same organ as your heart. They aren’t the organs that make your body stay alive.
animals are fed parts of plants that people can’t or won’t eat. all of the studies about the ecological impacts ignore this fact and then attribute the water used to produce, say, cotton to beef.
~This is false. Cows in the US are primarily fed corn. Not the can’t/won’t eat stuff.~
Edit: I am wrong. They said only fed about 8% human edible grain.
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Not in industrial farms. There is no grass there. They don’t bring hay.
It’s literally a sales pitch in the US to disambiguate corn fed and grass fed cattle.
you just don’t know what you’re talking about. cattle are raised in the field and then finished on feed lots.
grass fed just means that the cattle were only fed grass. but all cattle eat grass
Only until they are weaned. Then onto the feed lot they go and corn they eat.
so you are now admitting that literally all cattle eat grass, but trying to pretend your akshully still right. I guess plenty of toxicity flowed off of reddit.
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95% of all cattle feed is corn in the US. Raised to 600lbs or so before being put on the feed lot. Finishing in this case can be the final 400-600lbs fed on 95% corn.
About 40% of all corn grown in the US is grown exclusively for feed nearly all of which is used within the US.
won’t eat
Is not the point of the argument when we’re taking about what humans shouldn’t eat. We can’t cater to wants anymore when growing percentage are starving.
can’t eat
Which is bullshit. We didn’t invent their diet. we substituted it. They might eat grass but we eat plenty of other green substitutes. The amount we consume of it doesn’t come close to their needs though.
cows eat mostly grass but, for instance, poultry are fed a lot of soy. that soy is usually (almost always) in the form of so-called “soy meal” or “soy cake”, but that is actually a waste product from pressing soybeans for oil. it would be industrial waste if we didn’t feed it to livestock.
Soy oil is only one form of oil that humans can use. One of many. none of this argues the points put forward. It still requires much more water than if we stuck to humans eating less meat. And it not even requiring for people to completely cut out meat. Which has more pros for both humans and cows than cons.
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The point is that you can grow a plant based diet for a human for much less resource cost than you could for a cow.
Multiplied by the amount our current meat industry runs at and you get decimation of large swaths of lands, much higher emission of greenhouse gasses, etc…
animals are fed parts of plants that people can’t or won’t eat. all of the studies about the ecological impacts ignore this fact and then attribute the water used to produce, say, cotton to beef.
Source?
poore, nemecek 2018
Maybe I’m misunderstanding your argument- as that publication back what we are saying about the beef industry having a massive impact on the environment
read the methodology and you will see cottonseed is fed to cattle, and the water to grow that cotton is attributed to cows instead of the textile industry.
~This is simply false. Cows are often fed all or nearly all corn diets.~
Only once they are on the feed lot, then they are fed usually 70-80% corn based diets.
Your edit is actually missing the biggest reason–all the energy and water it takes to raise the meat. It’s just not sustainable.
Most tree and forest loss is from making land for grazing.
Not for grazing but for crops that are fed to animals in animal agriculture.
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Without a source this is just a bogus claim.
here you go:
https://ourworldindata.org/soy
a soybean is only about 20% oil. in order for 17% of all end uses of soybeans to be oil, we need to press about 85% of them. which is exactly what the usda says:
https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/soybeans-and-oil-crops/oil-crops-sector-at-a-glance/
76% of soybeans world wide are used as animal feed as per your own source. I’m not sure what you are trying to argue with your original comment to me?
the bulk of what’s fed to animals is industrial waste from making soybean oil.
Care to quote the relevant parts of your sources? I’m not going to read everything from that just to find this claim.
The core issue is soil quality. Without sufficient organic content in the soil, all our food, whether it be plant or meat, has drastically reduced nutritional content meaning we need to consume more for the same effect. We’re heading for a global food shortage because of the one key issue. Healthy soil also sequesters an enormous amount of carbon from the atmosphere. So instead of fighting the beef vs tofu wars, we should be focusing on encouraging agricultural practices that enrich soil rather than destroy it. We have about 50 years of crop cycles left before the majority of arable earth turns to sand.
Shifting your diet to be more plant-based is a good idea, but it’s not the crux of the issue.
Bam!
Ask the cow what she thinks?
She said moo
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Pig says oink
Because the amount of resources required to raise the livestock required to support the free market of meat is unsustainable. Also the impact of all that livestock is a huge contributor to climate change. So besides the moral argument of it being wrong to eat another living beings there is a very real danger to ourselves in the future.
I think everything has been addressed. I just wanted to clarify that the methane is from cow burps, not farts.
One other thing I think is worth mentioning: meat is good, but it’s not even that good. As a child I was a very picky eater and largely carnivorous, having to purposefully supplement the occasional vegetable. Now I’m essentially pescatarian because honestly, most meat isn’t really good. It can be low quality, bland, and boring. Innovative chefs seem to be realizing that, and I personally agree that Eleven Madison’s food is better now that it’s fully plant based.
Meat can be such a crutch, and when it’s not, it requires quality cuts and good preparation. And yet many people would rather eat a tough, poorly seasoned mediocre steak than a vegan dish, even if it’s genuinely a bad experience, but I’m pretty sure it’s a misplaced pride thing.
Finally, working with meat can be a lot harder than vegetables, especially chicken. Dominique Crenn has a wonderful cookbook featuring incredible plant based dishes, and of course Atelier Crenn is one of the most convincing arguments of plant superiority.
I find that, for those who simply don’t care about the world around them, an appeal to taste and ease is far more effective than trying to introduce humanity. It also prevents the knee jerk reaction to plant based diets— “sure, I like my meats too, but it’s just too boring/doesn’t taste good enough” shifts the discussion from tribalistic hatred of vegans to something that directly impacts them, largely the only way to actually get some people to listen.
You’re not getting many answers yet regarding nitrogen.
As a preface: When it comes to climate and environmental concerns with respect to agriculture, the word “nitrogen” does usually not refer to the completely harmless atmospheric nitrogen (N2). Instead, it refers to various compounds that contain nitrogen.
Nitrogenous pollution from cattle comes in two shapes:
The first is methane (NH3). A single cow burps and farts out about 100kg of methane each year. Methane is a greenhouse gas that’s 28 times as potent as CO2. This means a single cow is responsible for as much as 2800kg equivalent in CO2 each year due to burps and farts alone. For reference, the CO2 per capita emissions globally are about 4 tons (4000kg) per year, for all sources combined. Cows, relatively speaking, therefore produce a huge amount of CO2 equivalent.
The second is all the nitrogenous compounds in their excrements. This acts as a fertilizer on soil and in the water. While that sounds good, it leads to various unwanted effects. One is that agricultural runoff causes algal blooms in water that then ends up killing a significant amount of marine life. Another is that nutrient-rich soils tend to seriously decrease plant species diversity. Many native and wild plants actually need nutrient-poor soils to thrive. Those plants will get outcompeted by a small group of fast-growing plants that do well in all the cow-poop-infested soil. These compounds also tend to travel far, via agricultural runoff or even via the air, so ecosystems far away from farms are also impacted.
Is there a way to absorb methane from the atmosphere? Ie like a plant absorbing CO2 is there a substance which does something similar for methane?
Also for runoff, I assume there are no ways to contain this issue. Or is there perhaps a more sinister answers that it is possible but farms have not invested into such structures due to economical reasons.
There is no solution to capture methane in the air. Its lifespan in air is 12years, so if we stop emitting, it will go away by itself. Until then, it’s quite bad. Capturing it at the source is also challenging (can you hemetically seal a cow’s ass without impacting its health?!).
The best solution is… less farms, less cows but that means less meat!
Feeding cows takes up a lot of land, which often requires deforestation.
I’m going to piggyback off of this too since i havn’t seen it mentioned as much, cows need a LOT of water. They are literally walking bathtubs (the average cow stomach is the size of a tub, i have a bachelor’s in animal science and actually have seen in one ><) and this is why it baffles me when someone talks about the water need for plants or things like almond milk. It’s not even comparable as far as efficiency is concerned, and honestly, plant producers have actually worked to be better at water conservation since it’s important to them, but most cow production doesn’t even consider it into the equation.
I did not know this; thank you for enlightening me. I should go back to being a vegetarian…
Np! And I’m going to say something controversial to my fellow vegetarians and vegans. Giving up meat can be very very hard depending on your personal circumstances. I grew up 30 minutes away from any groceries in cow country. I’m also autistic with mild food issues. It’s taken me a long time, work, and circumstances changes (i live in a nice vegetarian friendly city now) to get where i am now. I think the “do or you are a utter failure” that is rampant in anti meat spheres is honestly to its harm. Instead of encouraging everyone to do their best while we fight for better systematic changes, there is scorn and fingerwagging if someone isn’t perfect.
That’s an excellent point! I totally agree harm reduction is the goal here.
However and alas, I have absolutely no excuse living where I live and having the extensive cooking skills I gained over the years. No excuse at all. It’s on my mind a lot lately.
Because it’s speciesism. If we started giving birth to humans to eat them, that would be absolutely outrageous, but to do that to animals seems perfectly fine to most people. Animals have the same desire as we do not to be killed or abused, and to live a happy life.
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It is indeed about morality. Morality is about what is “good” and “bad”, so it’s perfectly in line with OP’s question “why is the consumption of meat considered bad”.
Religions have arbitrary morality so it doesn’t seem very interesting to discuss why these religions allow or forbid to eat their specific set of animals, unless you’re studying these religions.
Moral philosophy on the contrary tries to study morality with real arguments. In almost all cases they agree it’s bad to harm others while it’s not necessary. Even with our intuitive morality most people would agree with that. And in most cases eating animals products contributes to harming them and is not necessary. It was not necessarily the case in the past, but today it is. So eating animal products nowadays is immoral.
The environmental problems only adds additional harms on top of that by causing harms to even more animals, including humans.
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In your example the “bad weather” means “bad for me/us” (a farmer would probably disagree, for example, as would some animals). Indeed morality is about what’s “bad to others” or to everyone. But since OP didn’t specify to whom, I considered it meant “bad in general”, for the one eating and for the others.
OP included “Ethical reason for consuming animals” in the accepted answer, so answering about morality doesn’t seem wrong.
IMO what’s bad is not meat consumption itself, which we were able to do sustainably for millennia and it was never really a problem. The problem is that now you’re getting too much of it way too easily. Eating too much meat is a problem because it perpetuates demand for unethical mass-production of meat and livestock are made to suffer as a direct result.
Take a look at the global human population chart over the last few millenia. Things can seem sustainable when there are a million people on the planet. When there are 8 billion things are a bit different.
The main issue is probably less meat itself than the ginormous quantities we consume.
Most livestock farming is intensive, meaning they can’t rely on grazing alone and need extra food sources, typically corn. They emit methane, a greenhousing gas on steroids.
That grain is produced through very intensive agricultural methods because we can’t get enough of it. It consumes ridiculously large amount of water and slowly degrades the soils. Nitrates eventually end up in the sea, causing algea to proliferate while other lifeforms are suffocated. See the dead zone in Mexico’s gulf.
71% of agriculture land in Europe is dedicated to livestock feeding.
The percentage must be similar or higher in America, and don’t count North America alone: without grains from Brazil, we’re dead. Period. So next time you hear the world blaming Brazil for deforestation, keep in mind that a large share of it is to sustain livestocks…
Cattle farming in the USA is heavily subsidized, by allowing farmers to use federal land for grazing for free (I believe something similar is in place in Canada?). The claim they “take care of the land” is absurd: nature has been doing that for millenias without needing any help. First nations have been living in these lands also without supersized cows herds and it was going alright. Farms actually prevent wildlife to take back its place.
But I wouldn’t blame them. People in North America (among others, and I live in Canada, definitely me too) eat indecent and unhealthy quantities of meat, and that has to come from somewhere.
Now, simple math will tell you: if everyone in the world was consuming meat in the same quantities as us, there would’nt be enough suitable land on Earth to grow the corn that needs to go with it.
Another thing is not all meats are equal in terms of pollution. From the worst to the least bad, in equivalent kgCO2 per kg of meat you can actually eat: -Veal: 37 -Chicken (intensive, in cage): 18 -Beef: 34 -Pork: 5–7 -Duck, rabbit, pork: 4–5 -Chicken ("traditonal, free range): 3–4 -Egg (for comparison): <2
You can appreciate the orders of magnitude!
There are only 2 ways out of this:
- reduce meat consumption, and pick it right
- grown meat (meat made without the animal around it, in machines)
One can be done today, starting with your next meal. We don’t need meat every meal, we don’t even need meat every day, but it is true that going full vegetarian force a certain gymnastic to get all the nutriments one need.
The other solution is barely getting there, so there are still unknown (food quality, resources consumption, etc.) and the economics may not help it taking off.
The third (and let’s face it: current approach at national level everywhere on this issue) option is to do nothing and keep going as if the problems didn’t exist. This is guaranteeing a famine in the coming decades. When we’ll fail to feed our livestock, and it will start dying, it will be too late to turn around and get the whole agriculture sector to transition. These things take many years.
We’re trying to reduce our meat consumption at home, or to favor the least impacting ones. We still eat too much meat, but I hope we can gradually improve.
because you have to kill a living thing for it
I swear there was another reason why the practice was considered bad. Something about nitrogen and sustainability. I never really understood that part, hence the question.
I think that one was the cows burp methane, which is a greenhouse gas. So if you apportion the greenhouse gas emissions over the delicious hamburgers, you make more climate change by making a cow burger than a veggie burger. So we should cease the production of cows as part of our attempt to not make our planet terrible. And buying cow burgers to eat is contrary to the goal of ceasing cow production.
