What's for supper?
or do you really want to know?

Who would have thought, but our diets are one of the main ways we impact God’s creation. How does it happen?

• Eating a meat-centered diet requires tremendous amounts of land, water and grain, and creates a lot of pollution and impact on the soil.
• On average, food items travels 1500 or more miles to our table—and it doesn’t arrive by magic carpet, but by fossil-fuel powered vehicles.
• Typical methods of raising food use inputs such as pesticides and fertilizers, which have a serious impact on water supplies and the living things in our creeks, bays and oceans.
• Growing crops and livestock occupies about 60% of US land. This means that lots of other living things - the diversity of plants and animals that used to live on this land - have been replaced by monocultures. Indeed, one-quarter of the living things threatened by extinction in the US are endangered by agriculture.
• Seafood choices have a serious impact on the world's oceans. Our guide helps the conscientious consumer make good decisions at the fish counter.

Where’s the Beef?
People who know about these things say one of the most important things we can do to better care for the earth is to cut back on our meat consumption. Here’s why:

Home on the Range

• Livestock have a huge impact on the ecosystem. From cutting down the rainforest for pasture to disposing of animal waste to the compacting of soils and the ruining of stream banks in heavily grazed areas, animals are a leading cause of environmental damage. What is the most populous large mammal in the Amazon? Beef cattle--57 million of them! According to a recent study, 80 percent of the annual loss of six million acres of the Brazilian Amazon is being cleared for cattle pasture. Most of this beef is exported, and a significant percentage comes to the United States.
• In addition, when animals are fed grain to fatten them up for slaughter, and when this grain is from irrigated fields, it takes 1000 pounds of water to raise 1 pound of grain. As a result, many of the world's aquifers (sources of groundwater) are being depleted. And if it takes 8 pounds of grain to create 1 pound of beef, you can do the math on how much water and grain it takes to get a whole cow ready for market.
• Fed up with meat? A wholesome and earth-friendly vegetarian diet awaits you. Check out our veggie resources, including vegetarian singles services (part of our never-ending effort to be your all-purpose website...). pdf version - - html version
  

  If everyone in the US cut back by half on their meat consumption, by 2025 when our population will be over 300 million we would save an amount of water equal to the flow of 14 Colorado Rivers. -State of the World 2004, World Watch Institute

• Livestock also contribute to Global Warming. Every day your average cow belches 640 quarts of methane--a potent Global Warming gas. Altogether, our diets contribute 12 percent of our Global Warming impact. An indirect contribution to Global Warming caused by meat production is through the cutting of forests for pasture or to raise grain.
• Even eating fish is not without consequences. Ninety percent of the oceans' large predatory fish are gone (tuna, marlin, swordfish) due to over-fishing. Cod could become extinct in 15 years. And unfortunately (because many of us love ‘em!), eating shrimp has environmental consequences. Shrimp are often caught using large dragnets, which also catch lots of other sea life--which is promptly thrown back overboard, dead. Shrimp farms are often created by destroying coastal mangrove swamps which play a key role in coastal ecosystems (A quarter of the world's mangrove forests have been destroyed in the past 20 years, largely due to shrimp farming.) Check out this eating guide for best and worst seafood choices: http://www.oceansalive.org/eat.cfm?subnav=bestandworst

Industrialized Agriculture

One result of the industrialization of our food supply is unlabeled, patented, and genetically engineered foods. These foods face little government regulation, yet they pose serious risks to humans, domesticated animals, wildlife, and the environment.

The patents on these foods and even native seeds themselves protect the companies that "own" them, but cross-pollination from these crops threaten farmers and endanger the world's food crops.

Grass-roots efforts are aimed at uncovering the truth behind the "Green Revolution," but because of the tremendous power of the companies pursuing these technologies, the government has done little to stop them. Many consumers have been misled by advertising campaigns heralding genetic engineering as the answer to ending world hunger, when in fact, these policies have done little more than give these companies unprecedented control over the world's food supply.

For more information on genetically engineered food and seed patents see:

• www.thefutureoffood.com
• www.centerforfoodsafety.com

Or read:

• "Stolen Harvest: The High-jacking of the World's Food Supply" by Vandana Shiva

Given that we all have to eat, the fight to protect our crops seems to be a losing battle, but there are things you can do. In addition to buying organic foods, asking questions and buying from local farmer's markets is a great start. Another alternative is to investigate community-supported agriculture, or CSAs. By purchasing a share of a local farmer's crops, you can feed your family and help insure the future of sustainable agriculture. For more information on CSAs in your area, see www.localharvest.org

You are what you eat

Until the Atkins Diet craze, most people thought of meat as less healthy than grains or vegetables. Many people still think so. Indeed, recent research indicates that the Atkins Diet doesn't keep weight off over the long haul, and eventually causes other problems such as headaches, muscle cramps and diarrhea--due to a lack of fruits and grains in the diet (Lancet Medical Journal). In addition, most meat is raised with the help of large doses of antibiotics and growth hormones that then enter our bodies when we eat animal products. This is one reason so many germs are becoming resistant to antibiotics, which has a negative effect on human health.

Also along the you-are-what-you-eat lines, it turns out that how your food is grown is a big factor in the nutrition you will get from it. See Food Without Fear to find out how free-range poultry and organic vegetables pay off in better health for consumers.

Want to see how you're managing your weight? Do the math at this site on the National Institutes of Health website: http://nhlbisupport.com/bmi/bmicalc.htm

Do Unto Others...

Some foods are produced using child labor--that is, children under 15 years of age working in fields or fruit groves instead of attending school. For instance, bananas in Ecuador, cocoa in Ghana, sugar in El Salvador, vegetables in the United States--all are regularly harvested by children. These children rise early--as early as 3 a.m.--then work all day in often dangerous conditions for half or less of their country's minimum wage. (See Human Rights Watch report at: http://www.hrw.org/children/labor.htm.)

If you suspect that a food is brought to your table by child labor, begin asking questions and looking for a Fair Trade alternative (like Equal Exchange on the Justice or Just Us page on NCP website). Contribute to the NCP Give a Girl a Chance project to help kids get the education they need and deserve. Doing these things, we give these children the same opportunities we would want for ourselves or our children.

I don't know if Jesus also had animals in mind when he gave us the Golden Rule, but one reason some people become vegetarian is because of the way meat-animals are treated. Both the way they are confined prior to slaughter and the killing process itself is seen by many as cruel and "inhumane."

Guidelines for good eating

• Eat less meat
• Buy organic products when possible
• Purchase from local producers (the average food items travels 1500 or more miles to our table; the average farmer who sells to the large food conglomerates is only paid 10 percent of the eventual purchase price of a food item)
  

Potluck of facts

From Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices (Union of Concerned Scientists) and State of the World 2004 (World Watch)

• 40% of US land (800 million acres) is used for grazing livestock; another 60 million acres is to grow grain for livestock
  creating room to graze livestock is responsible for 25% of threats to natural ecosystems and wildlife in the US
• 2 billion tons of wet manure generated annually by raising meat=10 times the total US municipal solid waste output (cows=45%; chickens=34%; pigs=12%)
• US'ers eat about 3/4 pound of meat per person per day
• producing red meat creates 3.4 times the global warming gases as pasta for same amount of calories; 22 times the water pollution; 20 times the land use
• 103 million cattle are raised for the market annually in the US (and we import a large percentage of our beef from elsewhere), along with 7 billion chickens and 60 million hogs
• it takes 20 times more water to supply 500 calories from beef as compared to rice
• 68% of US grain consumer via eating meat; in India, 4% of a one's grain comes through eating meat—most is consumed directly
• a vegetarian requires 2-4 times less land to produce their food than a non-vegetarian, and if the food is produced locally, produces 9 times less CO2