Eating to save the planet: Is it time to stop eating joints of beef for Sunday lunch?
Most food that is transported over long distances is carried by ships that carry huge loads. Picture: Stock image
IS it time to stop eating hamburgers, steak dinners, as well as joints of beef for Sunday lunch? This is the question being asked by climate change activists who claim that beef farming is harming the planet.
Beef farming has a long history in Ireland. The first cows arrived here from mainland Europe an estimated 6,000 years ago and they have been central to our economy ever since.
In early Ireland, wealth was measured by how many cattle you owned. Fast-forward to today and the country’s 109,400 cattle farmers produce more than 550,000 tonnes of beef every year. In 2018 alone, this amounted to over €2.4bn in exports.
This is not the sector’s only cash cow. That same year, dairy exports brought in a further €4bn.
We do not just export beef. We eat lots of it too. We currently consume 19kg of beef per person per year. This is much higher than the European average of 10.7kg and Britain's average of 11.8kg.
However, we are not as carnivorous as Americans, who consume 26.7kg, or Uruguayans, who consume the most beef in the world at a staggering rate of more than 50kg per person every year.
All of this beef-eating comes at an environmental cost. Cattle produce methane, through their digestive processes. Methane is 28 times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2 and, with each burp, they release it into the atmosphere. If the global cattle population (989,030,000 in 2019) was considered a country, they would be the world’s third-largest greenhouse gas emitter.
Nitrous oxide is another byproduct of cattle farming and, given that it is 265 times more potent than CO2, it causes even more damage to the environment.
The science is irrefutable: Beef emits more greenhouse gases per kg of food produced than any other food product. According to a scale devised by Our World in Data, an organisation that presents existing research in an accessible manner, its score is 60 units of greenhouse gas emissions. The next highest on the scale is lamb at 24 units. Chicken scores 6 units and fish ranges from 3-5 units, depending on whether it is farmed or not.
Climate-change activists are calling for Irish beef farming to change. “Ireland’s emission profile has high levels of methane and nitrous oxide,” says Catherine Devitt, policy co-ordinator with the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition, a group of more than 30 organisations that are campaigning to ensure Ireland does its fair share to tackle the causes and consequences of climate change.
“That comes from how we farm. We have to change our farming policy and we have to do it now.”
It makes sense to cut back on beef for health reasons too. Last year, a study by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health found that eating more plants and less meat reduced the risk of cardiovascular conditions such as stroke, heart attack, and heart failure by 16%. It lowered the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease by 32%, and the risk of early death from any cause by 18%.
Another study from Harvard concluded that eating a balanced plant-based diet lowered the risk of developing type-2 diabetes and reduced blood pressure, insulin sensitivity, weight, and systematic inflammation.
The science is not quite so clear-cut, says dietitian Paula Mee. “A lean cut of red meat is a nutrient-rich food,” she says. “Irish cattle graze on grass for 300 days a year, and the meat has a fuller, meatier flavour, with more omega-3 fatty acids, iron, vitamin A, B vitamins, zinc, copper, magnesium, potassium, and phosphate.”
The problem is that most of us do not eat lean red meat. “We eat cheaper processed meats such as burgers that are higher in saturated fats, additives, and salt,” says Mee.
“That is what raises blood pressure and the risk of heart disease.”
She recommends limiting red and processed meat to under 500g of cooked meat per week.
In a report last year for the EAT Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, and Health, 30 of the world’s top scientists looked at how best to meet the challenge of feeding a growing global population. They concluded that the consumption of animal products needed to drop by 50% if greenhouse-gas emissions were to be reduced while ensuring everyone was adequately fed.
Their recommendations generated heated discussion. When then-taoiseach Leo Varadkar admitted he was cutting back on red meat, he was criticised by lobbyists for the agricultural industry and by committed carnivores.
Why is it that even when we are presented with evidence that a plant-based diet is better for us and for the planet, we are still reluctant to give up our burgers? We're surrounded by viable alternatives. “When you remove meat from the plate, there is so much that can replace it,” says Mee.
“Brown rice with beans or brown bread with hummus can give you as much protein as a piece of meat.”
It could be that social customs have more of a role to play. “We are creatures of habit and change can be a slow process,” says Mee.
Ireland’s farmers are understandably concerned about what they perceive as a threat to their livelihoods. They refer to UN projections of global demand for beef growing by 10% by 2020 and claim it would be better if that beef were produced here rather than in South America where it would lead to further deforestation of the rainforest.
“A 2013 UN report showed that the greenhouse-gas emissions intensity of beef produced in western Europe is more than 50% lower than the global average,” says Eric Donald, head of communications at Teagasc. “Contracting production in a region where greenhouse-gas emissions are relatively low would be counter-productive to global efforts to curb those emissions.”
While it may not agree with climate change activists on what needs to be done in the beef sector, Teagasc is working to improve the sustainability of Irish farms. “Our Agricultural Sustainability Support and Advice Programme helps farmers with improving soil fertility and reducing nitrogen fertiliser use to lower greenhouse-gas emissions as well as advising on other areas of sustainability,” says Donald.
Some farmers have always done this. John Brennan is the manager of Leitrim Organic Farmers' Network and a member of Talamh Beo, an organisation of farmers working for change in our food and agricultural system. He is also an organic cattle and sheep farmer.
“I farm traditional native cattle that feed in the fields,” he says. “I don’t apply nitrogen-based fertiliser or agrichemicals to the soil, and I don’t use GMO feed.”
Brennan believes the reason most farmers do not farm like this is because they are required to mass-produce beef for world markets. “Cheap prices encourage farmers to farm more intensively and that leads to environmental degradation,” he says. “Instead, we should be adding value to our meat and selling lower volumes at higher prices to Irish and neighbouring markets.”
This would benefit everyone, he says.
The Green Party’s Pippa Hackett is the Minister for State for Land Use and Biodiversity. Under the programme for government, she hopes to effect the change that is needed in the beef sector.
“Ireland has a distinct advantage over other countries when it comes to producing beef and milk, but this must not be at the expense of our environment,” she says. “The new Government is planning its future agri-food strategy and it will be informed by the recent EU Farm to Fork and Biodiversity strategies as well as by the commitment we have made to attaining a minimum 7% reduction in greenhouse gases per annum over the next ten years.”
While the Climate Change Coalition is in favour of the Farm to Fork strategy, it is disappointed that no firm commitments have been made to reverse the increase in methane and nitrous oxide emissions.
Other countries have taken a stronger stance, says Devitt.
While the government lags behind, a growing number of people are making lifestyle changes for the sake of the environment. A Bord Bia survey in 2018 found that 8% of Irish people were now vegetarian and a further 2% vegan.
Questions have been asked regarding the sustainability of vegan diets. After all, nut butters travel across the world to reach Irish supermarket shelves. Yet, beef emissions still dwarf nut-butter emissions, even when transportation is taken into account. This is because most food that is transported over long distances is carried by ships that carry huge loads.
Before you conclude that veganism is your only option, remember that not even the authors of the EAT Lancet Commission suggested that meat-eating had to be an all-or-nothing situation.
You could make smaller changes such as taking part in Meatless Mondays. This campaign urges people to cut meat for one day a week in order to gradually make the shift from meat-heavy diets.
As farmer John Brennan says: "We must eat less meat, but better.”
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
Celebrating 25 years of health and wellbeing
