The Hidden Cost Of Meat - The Myth of Scarcity

In his 1975 bestseller, The Eco-Spasm Report, futurist Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock and The Third Wave, suggested a positive hope for the world’s food crisis. He anticipated "the sudden rise of a religious movement in the West that restricts the eating of beef and thereby saves billions of tons of grain and provides a nourishing diet for the world as a whole."

Solving the Hunger Problem

Food expert Francis Moore Lappe, author of the best-selling Diet for a Small Planet, said in a recent television interview that we should look at a piece of steak as a Cadillac. "What I mean," she explained, "is that we in America are hooked on gas-guzzling automobiles because of the illusion of cheap petroleum. Likewise, we got hooked on a grain-fed, meat-centered diet because of the illusion of cheap grain."

According to information compiled by the United States Department of Agriculture, over ninety percent of all the grain produced in America is used for feeding livestock-cows, pigs, lambs, and chickens-that wind up on dinner tables. Yet the process of using grain to produce neat is incredibly wasteful. For example, information from the USDA’s Economic Research Service shows that we get back only one pound of beef for every sixteen pounds of grain.

In his book Proteins: Their Chemistry and Politics, Dr. Aaron Altshul notes that in terms of calorie units per acre, a diet of grains, vegetables, and beans will support twenty times more people than a diet of meat. As it stands now, about half the harvested acreage in America is used to feed animals. If the earth’s arable land were used primarily for the production of vegetarian foods, the planet could easily support a human population of twenty billion and more.

Facts such as these have led food experts to point out that the world hunger problem is largely illusory. The myth of "overpopulation" should not be used by advocates of abortion to justify the killing of more than fifty million unborn children worldwide each year. Even now, we are already producing enough food for everyone on the planet, but unfortunately it is being allocated inefficiently. In a report submitted to the United Nations World Food Conference (Rome, 1974), Rene Dumont, an agricultural economist at France’s National Agricultural Institute, made this judgment: "The over-consumption of meat by the rich means hunger for the poor. This wasteful agriculture must be changed-by the suppression of feedlots where beef are fattened on grains, and even a massive reduction of beef cattle."

Living Cows Are an Economic Asset

It is quite clear that a living cow yields society more food than a dead one-in the form of a continuing supply of milk, cheese, butter, yogurt and other high-protein foods. In 1971, Stewart Odend’hal of the University of Missouri conducted a detailed study of cows in Bengal and found that far from depriving humans of food, they ate only inedible remains of harvested crops (rice husk, tops of sugarcane, etc.) and grass. "Basically," he said, "the cattle convert items of little direct human value into products of immediate utility." This should put to rest the myth that people are starving in India because they will not kill their cows. Interestingly enough, India recently seems to have surmounted its food problems, which have always had more to do with occasional severe drought or political upheaval than with sacred cows. A panel of experts at the Agency for International Development, in a statement cited in the Congressional Record for December 2, 1980, concluded, "India produces enough to feed all its people."

If allowed to live, cows produce high quality, protein-rich foods in amounts that stagger the imagination. In America, there is a deliberate attempt to limit dairy production; nevertheless, Representative Sam Gibbons of Florida recently reported to Congress that the U.S. government was being forced to stockpile "mountains of butter, cheese, and nonfat dried milk." He told his colleagues, "We currently own about 440 million pounds of butter, 545, million pound of cheese, and about 765 million pounds of nonfat dried milk." The supply grows by about 45 million pounds each week. In fact, the 10 million cows in American provide so much milk that the government periodically releases millions of pounds of dairy products for free distribution to the poor and hungry. It’s abundantly clear that cows (living ones) are one of mankind’s most valuable food resources.

Movement to save seals, dolphins, and whales from slaughter are flourishing-so why shouldn’t there be a movement to save the cow? From the economic stand point alone, it would seem to be a sound idea-unless you happen to he part of the meat industry, which is increasingly worried about the growth of vegetarianism. In June. 1977, a major trade magazine, Farm Journal, printed an editorial entitled, "Who Will Defend the Good Name of Beef?" The magazine urged the nation’s beef-cattle raisers to chip in $40 million to finance publicity to keep beef consumption and prices sky high.

Each year about 134 million mammals and 3 billion birds are killed for food in America. But few people make any conscious connection between this slaughter and the meat products that appear on their tables. A case in point: in television commercials a clown called Ronald McDonald tells kiddies that hamburgers grow in "hamburger patches." The truth is not so pleasant-commercial slaughterhouse are like visions of hell. Screaming animals are stunned by hammer blows, electric shock, or concussion guns. They are then hoisted into the air by their feet and moved through the factories of death on mechanized conveyor systems. Often still alive, their throats are sliced and their flesh is cut off. Describing his reaction to a visit to a slaughterhouse, champion tennis player Peter Burwash Wrote in his-book A Vegetarian Primer, "I’m no shrinking violet. I played hockey until half of my teeth were knocked down my throat. And I’m extremely competitive on a tennis court. . . . But that experience at the slaughterhouse overwhelmed me. When I walked out of there, I knew I would never again harm an animal! I knew all the physiological, economic, and ecological arguments supporting vegetarianism, but it was firsthand experience of man’s cruelty to animals that laid the real groundwork for my commitment to vegetarianism

Environmental Damage

Another price we pay for meat-eating is degradation of the environment. The United States Agricultural Research Service calls the heavily contaminated runoff and sewage from America’s thousands of slaughterhouses and feedlots a major source of pollution of the nation’s rivers and streams. It is fast becoming apparent that the fresh water resources of this planet are not only becoming polluted but also depleted, and the meat industry is particularly wasteful. In their book population, Resources, and environment, Paul and Anne Ehrlich found that to grow one pound of wheat requires only 60 pound of water, whereas production of a pound of meat requires anywhere from 2,500 to 6,000 pounds of water. And in 1973 the New York Post uncovered this shocking misuse of a valuable national resource-one large chicken slaughtering plant in America was found to be using 100 million gallons of water daily! This same volume would supply a city of 25,000 people.

Social Conflict

The wasteful process of meat production, which requires far larger acrages of land than vegetable agriculture, has been a source of economic conflict in human society for thousands of years. A study published in plant Foods for Human Nutrition reveals that an acre of grains produces five times more protein than an acre of pasture set aside for meat production. An acre of beans or peas produces ten times more, and an acre of spinach twenty-eight times more protein. Economic facts like these were known to the ancient Greeks. In Plato’s Republic the great Greek philosopher Socrates recommended a vegetarian diet because it would allow a country to make the most intelligent use of its agricultural resources. He warned that if people began eating animals, there would be need for more pasturing land. "And the country which was enough to support the original inhabitants will be too small now, and not enough?" he asked of Glaucon, who replied that this was indeed true. "And so we shall go to war, Glaucon, shall we not?" To which Glaucon replied, "Most certainly."

It is interesting to note that meat-eating played a role in many of the wars during the age of European colonial expansion. The spice trade with India and other countries of the East was an object of great contention. Europeans subsisted on a diet of meat preserved with salt. In order to disguise and vary the monotonous and unpleasant taste of their food, they eagerly purchased vast quantities of spices. So huge were the fortunes to be made in the spice trade that governments and merchants did not hesitate to use arms to secure sources.

In the present ear there is still the possibility of mass conflict based on food. Back in August 1974, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) published a report warning that in the near future there may not be enough food for the world’s population "unless the affluent nations make a quick and drastic cut in their consumption of grain-fed animals.

Saving Money with a Vegetarian Diet

But now let’s turn from the world geopolitical situation, and get right down to our own pocketbooks. Although not widely known, grains, beans, and milk products are an excellent source of high-quality protein. Pound for pound many vegetarian foods are better sources of this essential nutrient than meat. A 100-gram portion of meat contains only 20 grams of protein. (Another fact to consider: meat is more than 50% water by weight.) in comparison, a 100-gram portion of cheese or lentils yields 34 grams of protein. But although meat provides less protein, it costs much more. A spot check of supermarkets in Sydney in February 1984 showed sirloin steak costing $8.95 a kilogram, while staple ingredients for delicious vegetarian meals averaged less than $1.50 per kilogram. A 250 gram container of cottage cheese costing 55 cents provides 60% of the minimum daily requirement of protein. Becoming a vegetarian could potentially save an individual shopper at least several hundred dollars each year; thousands of dollars over the course of a lifetime. The savings to Australia’s consumers as a whole would amount to hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Considering all this, it’s hard to see how anyone could afford not to become a vegetarian.

click here to go to:  Vegetarian Quotations and Philosophy