Can you have your environment - and eat it too? - environmental & economic effects of meat production - adapted from the book, "Diet for a New America"

Feeding the hungry. The livestock population of the United States today consumes enough grain and soybeans to feed more than five times the entire human population of the country. We feed these animals more than 80 percent of the corn we grow, and more than 95 percent of the oats.

By cycling our grain through livestock, we end up with only 10 percent as many calories available to feed human mouths as would be available if we ate the grain directly.

Less than half the harvested agricultural acreage in the United States is used to grow food for people. Most of it is used to grow livestock feed. For every 16 pounds of grain and soybeans fed to beef cattle, we get back only one pound as meat on our plates; the other 15 pounds are inaccessible to us.

To supply one person with a meat habit food for a year requires three and a quarter acres. To supply one lacto-ovovegetarian with food for a year requires one-half acre. To supply one pure vegetarian requires only one sixth of an acre. By cycling our grain through livestock, we not only waste 90 percent of its protein; we sadly waste 96 percent of its calories, 100 percent of its fiber, and 100 percent of its carbohydrates.

Soil erosion. Topsoil is the dark, nutrient-rich soil that holds moisture and feeds us by feeding our plants. It is the most basic foundation of our sustenance upon this earth.

Two hundred years ago most of America's croplands had at least 21 inches of topsoil. Today most of it is down to around six inches of topsoil, and the rate of topsoil loss is accelerating.

The U.S. Soil Conservation Service reports that more than 4 million acres of cropland are being lost to erosion in this country every year. That's an area greater than the size of Connecticut. Our annual topsoil loss amounts to 7 billion tons. That is 60,000 pounds for each member of the population.

Of this staggering topsoil loss, 85 percent is directly associated with livestock raising.

Timber! For each acre of American forest that is cleared to make room for parking lots, roads, houses, shopping centers, etc., seven acres of forest are converted into land for grazing livestock and/or growing livestock feed.

Forests, by the way, are one of the few places in the country where topsoil erosion isn't occurring. But after being cleared for use in livestock production, ex-forestland begins to lose topsoil rapidly.

We need our forests. They are vital sources of oxygen. They moderate our climates, prevent floods, and are our best defense against soil erosion. Forests recycle and purify our water. They are homes for millions of plants and animals. The Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service say there is nothing we can do to stem the tragic destruction of our forests. "People have to eat," said one agency official, shaking his head. And he's right-assuming the present meat habit, there is nothing we can do to save our forests. But diet style changes could not only halt the process of deforestation; they could actually reverse it. Cornell economist David Fields and his associate Robin Hur estimate that for every person who switches to a pure vegetarian diet, an acre of trees is spared every year. A lacto-ovovegetarian diet is also helpful, particularly if dairy and egg product consumption is low.

It is not only American forests that are being cut down to support our meat habit. An ever-increasing amount of beef eaten in the United States is imported from Central and South America. To provide pasture for cattle, these countries have been clearing their priceless tropical rainforests.

According to the Meat inspectors Council of America, we now import 10 percent of our beef consumption, and more than 90 percent of that is from Central and Latin America. The Meat Importers Council reports that almost all of this meat ends up as fast-food restaurant hamburgers.

The fountain of life. More than half the total amount of water consumed in the United States goes to irrigate land growing feed and fodder for livestock. Enormous additional quantities of water must also be used to wash away the animals' excrement.

To produce a single pound of meat takes an average of 2,500 gallons of water-as much as a typical family uses for all its combined household purposes in a month.

To produce a day's food for one meat eater takes more than 4,000 gallons; for a lacto-ovovegetarian, only 1,200 gallons; for a pure vegetarian, only 300 gallons.

The amount of water consumed by America's meat habit is staggering.

it takes up to 100 times more water to produce a pound of meat as it does to produce a pound of wheat. Rice takes more water than any other grain, but even rice requires only a tenth as much water per pound of production as meat.

Consumption of so much water has serious economic as well as ecological consequences. The economic costs are hidden from us, though, because our federal and state governments subsidize the meat industry's water consumption at every stage of the process.

If the cost of water needed to produce a pound of meat were not subsidized, the cheapest hamburger meat would cost more than $35 a pound ! Environment and economy.

Quite a pile. Fifty years ago most of the manure from livestock returned to enrich the soil. But today, with huge numbers of animals concentrated in feedlots, confinement buildings, and other factory farm locations, there is no economically feasible way to return their wastes to the soil. As a result, there is a continuing decline in soil humus and fertility, an increasing dependence on chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and an accelerating loss of topsoil.

Sadly, instead of being returned to the soil, the wastes from today's animals often end up in our water. This is extremely significant, because the quantity of waste is so immense.

The livestock of the United States produce 20 times as much excrement as the entire human population of the country ! Animal waste is high in nitrogen, which is one of the chief reasons it makes such good fertilizer if it's returned to the soil. But unreturned, much of the nitrogen converts to ammonia and nitrates. The dumping of livestock wastes into our water is one of the reasons more and more rural wells are encountering dangerously high nitrate levels. Even city water supplies are increasingly high in nitrates.

Energy crises. The production of meat, dairy products, and eggs account for one third of the total amount of all raw materials used for all purposes in the United States.

In contrast, growing grains, vegetables, and fruits is a model of efficiency, using less than 5 percent the raw material consumption as does the production of meat.

On a traditional farm, pigs and chickens kept warm in the winter by nestling in bedding. And in the summer they would cool off in shady, damp soil. In today's factory farms, however, there is no bedding and no shady, damp soil. in order to maximize the animals' weight gain under these conditions, temperatures must be artificially controlled, and that takes energy.

Further heat is needed because the young animals are separated from the warmth of their mothers' bodies.

Economists Fields and Hur report: "A nationwide switch to a diet emphasizing whole grains, fresh fruits, and vegetables-plus limits on export of nonessential fatty foods-would save enough money to cut our imported oil requirements by more than 60 percent. And the supply of renewable energy, such as wood and hydroelectric, would increase 120 to 150 percent."

All things connected. At the present time, when most of us sit down to eat, we aren't very aware of how our food choices affect the world. We don't realize that in every Big Mac there is a piece of the tropical rain forests, and with every billion burgers sold dozens of species become extinct. We don't realize that in the sizzle of our steaks there is the suffering of animals, the mining of our topsoil, the slashing of our forests, the harming of our economy, and the eroding of our health.

We don't see the toxic poisons accumulating in the food chains, poisoning our children and our earth for generations to come.

But the earth itself will remind us, as will our children and the animals and the forests and the sky and the rivers, that we are part of this earth and it is part of us. All things are deeply connected, and so the choices we make in our daily lives have enormous influence, not only on our own health and vitality, but also on the lives of other beings, and indeed on the destiny of life on earth.

John Robbins, of Baskin-robbins fame, is president of the EarthSave Foundation. This article was adapted from his book Diet for a New America. Reprinted by permission of the publisher, Stillpoint Publishing, Walpole, NH. Tel.- 800-847-4014. Used by permission.

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