I found the other “experts” posts interesting and the commentary sharp. Was surprised to read Joel Salatin say this, though:

5. All of the negatives associated with meat, dairy, and poultry consumption stem from non-pastured production models and/or monospeciation. This includes both nutritional problems (i.e. colon cancer from red meat) to environmental considerations (i.e. irrigation water required to grow grain). This also includes humane farming considerations. In addition, far more herbivores (bison) existed in the Americas 600 years ago than exist today: The notion that methane from burping herbivores causes climate change is both unscientific and ridiculous.

Take a look at the rebuttal over at the Center for a Livable Future.

The dozens of contributors read like a who’s who of the sustainable food movement, among them ranchers, journalists, public health advocates, and more. Among them:

Wendell Berry ways in on “Renewing Husbandry: The Mechanization of Agriculture is Fast Coming to an End”

Robert F. Kennedy pens a chapter called “Farms to Factories: Pillaging the Commons”

Grist’s Tom Philpott writes “Squeezed to the Last Drop: The Loss of Family Farms”

And I contributed a chapter on the link between livestock and the climate crisis.

But it’s not all doom-and-gloom, contributors were also asked to share a vision for the future and in “Putting the CAFO Out to Pasture” you learn about how we might work toward a humane, equitable, and sustainable food system. Imagine that.

A coffee-table book format volume, including full-color photos of The CAFO Reader will be out this fall. (Just don’t serve feedlot burgers to your guests while you’ve got this one lying around).

Any conflict of interest there, you think?

Maybe a little?

The bloggers in question, who write the pork, knife and spoon blog, say that their funding doesn’t change their editorial line. They just love pork. It’s that simple.

But my eyebrows got a little more of a raise when the bloggers visited a CAFO hog farm – hand-picked by the industry, mind you – and waxed poetic about how lovely it was.

Read below for my comment, which should be posted to the site, too:

“I’ve long heard the line from the pork industry – which funds your site and set up your visit – that hogs appreciate being separated from their young, lest they roll over on ‘em.

I’m not so sure. As Bonnie Powell notes, hogs are at least as social as dogs and I’ve visited plenty of sustainable hog farms where families of pigs were co-existing happily – no mom’s killing their babies. But that kind of operation requires a different scale of production, one that’s not possible in the CAFO model.

What’s missing from your description of this one particular CAFO is not only a critical eye to these inhumane conditions, among others, but to the broader environmental and social context of these operations.

Sadly, we have reams of evidence that hog CAFOs are energy-intensive, polluting factories that have led to illness and death for workers as well as community members who must live near them. The industry has also been repeatedly found in violation of environmental regs. In 1997 alone, Smithfield, the nation’s largest hog producer, was fined $12.6 million for knowingly violating the Clean Air Act. Livestock production, including hog CAFOs, are now such a worrisome player in the global climate change that the United Nations Environment Program has advocated for reducing the production of meat and dairy in CAFOs.”

Want to hear a different story about CAFOs? Check out this documentary by UK journalist Tracy Worcester and read The CAFO Reader.

Or, maybe you just need the visual reminder.

How about this

Versus this

Thanks for all who joined. You can check it out here.

A new report concludes that reduced-meat menus in hospital food service led to reduced greenhouse gas emissions and substantial cost savings.

“One of the most compelling aspects of this evaluation is the greenhouse gas emissions reductions,” says co-author of the report, Roni Neff, PhD, MS, Research and Policy Director at the Center for a Livable Future and a faculty member at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. “If the four included hospitals continued what they were doing for a year, they would collectively cut over 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions from meat purchases. That’s like saving over 100,000 gallons of gasoline or growing over 23,000 trees for 10 years.”

Health Care Without Harm and the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, part of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, released the report this week. “Balanced Menus: A Pilot Evaluation of Implementation in Four San Francisco Bay Area Hospitals,” is the first US examination of the impact that reduced-meat menus in hospital food service have on climate change.

- posted by Kate

According to an article over at Meatingplace, Bon Appetit has “exceeded its carbon footprint goals for the year by reducing beef purchases by 25 percent, cheese by 10 percent, tropical fruit by 50 percent and total food waste by 20 percent.”

A representative from Bon Appetit said: “Chefs are able to offer the usual cheeseburgers to diners who want them, and still reduce the amount of beef they purchase. This reduction is a key component of the program because regardless of how far it travels, or how the animals are raised, beef and cheese come from methane-emitting ruminant animals and methane is a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than CO2.”

–Deepa

According to an article on “The Pig Site,” the EU Parliament said “changes in behavior by consumers and the consideration of targets for reducing agricultural emissions should accompany regulations to cap industrial greenhouse gases and improve energy efficiency.” The 80-page report also reiterated the EU’s plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions 20% by 2020.

A step forward, right? Well, the assembly also took a huge leap backward when they decided to DELETE a piece of the report that demanded a cut in global meat consumption, especially in wealthy countries. Why the hesitation? Read the article and tell us what you think.

– Deepa

Juliette Jowit, from the British rag The Guardian, reported on a plan to eliminate meat from hospital menus across the UK. The action would be part of a larger strategy by the National Health Service (UK) to lower carbon emissions and save money, which could then be redirected into patient care.

Check it out here.

The National Health Service was inspired by a study they conducted last year through which they discovered that their emissions alone account for approximately 3% of the country’s s total emissions. If the NHS was a country, this emissions toll would rank them the planet’s 81st worst emitter in 2004.

The NHS has proposed both long- and short-term changes, from “urging people to drink less bottled water to more phone-in surgeries by GPs to the food: The NHS is planning to limit meat and dairy on hospital menus. David Pencheon, director of NHS’s sustainable development unit, said, “We’d like higher levels of fresh food, and probably higher levels of fresh fruit and veg, and more investment in a local economy.”

Sounds good to us.

The filmmakers fly to remote locations and give the locals their first taste of a Burger King burger as they discuss so-called “American culinary culture” and refer to the United States as the “land of fast food.”

Niles asks, “What is the point of this film? And what about the health and climate impacts of this type of food? I doubt that the crew took the time to tell them that if they actually ate the whole Whopper they consumed 40 grams of fat. They also probably failed to mention the greenhouse gas emissions tied to animal production (18 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions according to the U.N.) or the other environmental pollution problems associated with mass-produced animals. And I wonder if they bothered to note that the beef they were eating was probably confined in its own feces for the better part of its life.”

Misdirected advertising concept? We thought so, too.

Oprah’s show includes speakers from across the spectrum, including Wayne Pacelle (president of the Humane Society of the United States and the original sponsors of the Proposition 2 legislation) as well as Prop 2 critics. Proponents of the bill say Prop 2 would ensure more humane treatment of poultry in the state. Opponents counter that it would make production more expensive, putting farmers out of business and driving up costs.

Pacelle sums up Prop 2 this way: “This is just about basic decency,” he said. “It’s about, if animals are going to be raised for food—and that’s certainly the case in this country—then the least we can do for them is allow them to move. I mean, what’s more basic than allowing animals with legs and wings to move around?”

The average American consumes approximately 254 eggs a year. 95% of egg-laying hens are raised in caged facilities. Human decency and common sense indicate that we should care about the quality and size of these cages, to ensure a better quality of life for food-producing animals and a better quality of the food we’re consuming.

You can watch a really great online slideshow about the show and learn how to be ever-more “conscious” consumers.

We’re glad to see the message is getting out there.

Now, for the backlash.

He told The Observer that we should each practice a non-meat diet at least one day a week, and then gradually reduce our meat intake over time.

(See #3 on our list Ten Ways to Take a Bite out of Climate Change.)

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that meat production is responsible for one fifth of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, and that at the rate consumption is increasing we will double that production by 2050.

“In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity,” Pachauri told The Observer. “Give up meat for one day [a week] initially, and decrease it from there.”

Pachauri also stressed that we need to make changes in every sector the economy in relation to climate change. Diet is just a starting point.

Check out the full report in English (China translation coming soon): www.brightergreen.org/files/brightergreen_china_print.pdf

Here’s Mia’s press release:

New York–based policy action tank Brighter Green’s new report, Skillful Means: The Challenges of China’s Encounter with Factory Farming, explores the emerging superpower’s “livestock revolution,” which is having serious impacts on public health, food security, and equity in China—and the world. The Beijing Summer Olympics are showcasing a resurgent nation, which only two generations after a devastating national famine is eating increasingly high on the food chain. In the past ten years, consumption of China’s most popular meat, pork, has doubled. In 2007, China raised well over half a billion pigs for meat.

Given that every fifth person in the world is Chinese, even small increases in individual meat or dairy consumption will have broad, collective environmental as well as climate impacts. Increasingly, what the Chinese eat, and how China produces its food, affects not only China, but the world, too.
“When I was a child, every person was allotted one pound of pork a month,” says Peter Li, a professor of political science at the University of Houston in Texas who grew up in Jiangxi province in southeast China says in Eating Skillfully. “We could not eat more than that. You could not get it. Now, though, more people have access to more meat and want to eat a lot of it.”

In yuan terms, meat is the second largest segment of China’s retail food market. China has also opened its doors to investments by major multinational meat and dairy producers, as well as animal feed corporations, including Tyson Foods, Smithfield, and Novus International. Western-style meat culture has gone mainstream. Fast food is a U.S. $28-billion-a-year business in China. McDonald’s, a major sponsor of the Olympics, had more than 800 restaurants in China, with at least a hundred more set to open by the time the games began. Four McDonald’s are operating in Olympic venues, including the press center and the athletes’ village.

“China is not yet a bone fida “factory farm nation” like the U.S.,” says Mia MacDonald, Brighter Green’s executive director and co-author of Skillful Means. “But the strains of its fast-growing livestock sector are becoming harder to ignore. In the U.S., a re-examination of the multiple human, environmental, economic, and ethical costs of factory farming is taking place. Such a process needs to get underway in China—before it’s too late.”

Although these realities won’t be fully obvious to the millions of people cheering on the Olympic athletes in China and across the globe, they demand attention:
• China’s livestock produce 2.7 billion tons of manure every year, nearly three and a half times the industrial solid waste level. Run-off from livestock operations have created a large “dead zone” in the South China Sea that is virtually devoid of marine life.
• In northern China, overgrazing and overfarming lead to the loss of nearly a million acres of grassland each year to desert.
• Diet-related chronic diseases now kill more Chinese than any other cause, and nearly one in four Chinese is overweight.
• More than 90 percent of some bacteria in Asia can no longer be treated effectively with “first-line” antibiotics like penicillin—due to their overuse in farmed animals.
• China can still feed itself. But this is likely to change as its meat and dairy sectors expand and intensify. The Chinese government is looking abroad, not only to international food markets but also to Africa, Latin America, and other parts of Asia for land on which to produce food for people and feed for livestock.
• In 2008, China surpassed the U.S. to become the world’s leading emitter of carbon dioxide (CO2). Per capita emissions of CO2 in China have more than doubled, from 2.1 tons of CO2 equivalent in 1990 to 5.1 tons today. Meat and dairy production have a direct relationship with global climate change: fully 18 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions stem from the livestock industry.

Even though the Chinese government seems set on emulating industrialized nations’ meat and dairy culture, a small but growing number of Chinese non-governmental organizations and individuals are questioning this path. To them food quality, not quantity, is important, along with issues of sustainability and animal welfare.

In the talk, “Global Warming: The Impact of Meat Production and Consumption on Climate Change,” Pachauri will focus on industrial farming’s impact on the environment and the impact of our industrialized diet on climate.

In London in September? Get your tickets now: here.

You can read more about the impact of agriculture on climate change in CIWF’s report ‘Global Warning: Climate change and Farm Animal Welfare.’

We’ll report more in September!

“Our favorite question: If meat causes more carbon emissions than cars, what should we do? Al said, “It is true that it would be healthier for us as if we consumed less meat.” How come that hasn’t been a more prominent? “I myself am a meat eater and perhaps that has something to do with it.” We’ve got to walk before we run, Al said. “None of us are perfect.”

Take a look at our Eat section to get some decrease-the-meat suggestions.

Those fateful words got her into serious hot water.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, trade industry for the beef boys, claimed that her comments were sensational and alarmist: There have been no known outbreaks of the disease in the United States, in either cattle or humans, NCBA argued at the time.

Ultimately, Oprah won the Beef Association’s food disparagement suit, but only after having to spend gobs of cash and loads of time in a Texas court defending her freedom of speech.

So, it was interesting to see Oprah dipping her toes back into the meat debate, albeit a little more quietly. And this time around she’s got a positive spin: Oprah is in the midst of a 21-day vegan diet. (In case you’re unclear on the concept: that means, no meat). In Oprah’s case, it also means swearing off caffeine, sugar, alcohol, and gluten. Inspired by best-selling author Kelly Freston, Oprah says she embarked on this diet, in part, to examine why she’s attached to certain eating habits: She’s trying to eat with more “consciousness” and “spiritual integrity.”

“How can you say you’re trying to spiritually evolve,” she wrote on her blog, “without even a thought about what happens to the animals whose lives are sacrificed in the name of gluttony?”

Maybe over in Oprah-land, we’ll start hearing about the other ethical and spiritual aspect of this 21-day meat-free spree: that it’s a climate-friendly diet, too.

Regardless of whether she champions the climate-connection, she certainly has become a cheerleader for the chow.

“Wow, wow, wow!” Oprah gushed on her blog. “I never imagined meatless meals could be so satisfying. I had been focused on what I had to give up—sugar, gluten, alcohol, meat, chicken, fish, eggs, cheese. ‘What’s left?’ I thought. Apparently a lot. I can honestly say every meal was a surprise and a delight, beginning with breakfast—strawberry rhubarb wheat-free crepes.”

Let’s see if the second time around she gets lobbed any lawsuits for loving that rhubarb.