All this time, I thought it was the gas that comes out the other end of the cow that was contributing to Global Warming. Now, we’re told that’s nothing compared to what the animals belch out while chewing their cud. And it’s a major source of greenhouse gasses…
Producing a 3 lb. / 1.5 kg Beef roast generates approximately the same
amount of greenhouse gas as driving a car 225 miles / 360 km.
Agriculture experts say animal agriculture is the leading producer of greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide. When you consider that there are something like 28 billion ‘farm’ animals on the globe at any given time, it makes sense.
Cow raising – both beef and dairy – is the leading contributor to agricultural greenhouse gasses. Most recent figures, gathered in the UK, where cows wore hoods that measured their oral output, reveal that each cow belches out 600 litres of methane alone every day. Who’d have thought?
Here’s a shocking statistic, courtesy of the BBC: Producing a few hundred grams of Beef generates the same amount of greenhouse gasses as driving 30 miles / 48 km in a car.
Now, factor in an estimated increase of 60 per cent in bovine agriculture by 2030 and you’ve got a major contribution to global warming at a time when we should be doing all we can to combat the phenomenon.
What we can do…
Obviously, we should reduce our habitual reliance on Beef as a dietary staple. If we started right now, we could produce an overall net decrease in cow-caused pollution by 2030. But that’s not likely. It’s human nature not to act on an issue until it impacts us materially. Dare I suggest that the meteoric rise in Beef prices since the millennium has been a good thing, in that respect, reducing our consumption of Beef out of fiscal necessity?
On a broader front, we should be looking at reducing our consumption of all animal agriculture products. For example, other studies have warned that poultry farming sends huge amounts of methane into the atmosphere as well.
I’ve suggested many times, in this space, that we could all benefit health-wise from eating less Meat, and shifting our dietary emphasis to fresh Fruits and Veggies, Whole Grains and Seafood. Here we go with a plug for the Mediterranean Diet, again. I has to be significant that the solutions to so many of our dietary and cultural issues come down to the Med Diet!
That, alone, should be a lesson to us all…
~ Maggie J.