I was wrong (about eating meat)

After eleven years of vegetarianism, I started selectively eating meat again this summer. Since then, I’ve had a steak, two hamburgers, a piece of bacon, chili with beef, lamb, elk, elk sausage, beef jerkey and chicken enchiladas. And once again, I’m questioning the most ethical way to eat.

I stopped being a vegetarian because of a growing realization that most vegetarian diets involve a lot of carbohydrates and a lot of soy products. Carbohydrates aren’t very good for you, and they’re almost entirely grown in monocrop fields which rely on pesticides and a variety of other chemicals, not to mention genetically engineered seeds which are controlled almost entirely by one corporation (Monsanto). Pesticide manufacture kills people, animals and the planet everyday. The single largest industrial disaster in history was the Bhopal gas leak, which occurred in a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India and killed 20,000 people. Soy is also not very good for people to eat in the quantities many vegetarians, including myself, do. It’s grown in a similar way, and in developing countries, planting field of soy often means cutting down rainforest. The process used to extract protein from soybeans relies on hexane, a neurotoxin byproduct of gasoline refinement. Workers exposed to it in “natural foods” plants which make things like veggie burgers have chronic health problems from breathing too much in. And companies that make “natural foods” like Boca burgers, tofu and a lot of other things vegetarians rely on are generally owned by agribusiness giants like Kraft and ConAgra. Eating meat from a small local producer seems like a more ethical and environmental choice.

Since arriving at this decision, I’ve gotten a better look at meat production. I’ve learned a lot about cattle grazing on Semester in the West, and I’ve also read Eating Animals by Jonathan Foer, which is a very eloquent condemnation of factory farming. And I’m no longer sure that being a selective omnivore is the most ethical thing I can do.

Mostly, when I think about sustainable meat, I think about cows. Cows are the only animal raised for human food production on a large scale which still have a somewhat “natural” life, in that they get to spend a year outside grazing before they’re shipped to a feedlot and then to slaughter. It seems easy to retool this system—cut out the feedlot, let the farmer slaughter cows individually, and you have a sustainable system. One of the classic vegetarian arguments is that eating meat is inefficient—cows consume about nine calories for every calorie we get out of them. But if cows are fed only grass, they’re eating something we can’t and providing food for us without us having to completely destroy the land by plowing it and planting irrigated monocrops. Grass-fed cows seem to work their way around many arguments for vegetarianism.

But even grass-fed meat has enormous environmental problems. In the West, cattle grazing has completely transformed native ecosystems. Many ranchers planted nonnative grasses at the beginning of the century because they provided better forage, and overgrazing has allowed invasive species to take over many former grasslands. Entire portions of the West are covered in Russian thistle or sagebrush without a blade of native grass in sight. Ranchers have also been the interest group most responsible for the work of Wildlife Services, a branch of the federal government which kills “problem” animals. Last year, they killed over 20,000 coyotes and hundreds of wolves, bobcats, cougars, beavers and several hundred other species. Cattle grazing is the largest obstacle to wolf reintroduction. Healthy Western ecosystems are not incompatible with cattle, but they are difficult to achieve and maintain for even the most committed ranchers. The death toll of beef can be measured in more than cows—coyotes, wolves, beavers, switchgrass, aspen, willows and stream channels should be added to the list.

In addition, even grass-fed cattle require agriculture to sustain them. During the winter, cows are fed hay and other similar crops. Growing cattle feed takes up a huge amount of land—the majority of agricultural land in production in California is used to grow food for cows, not crops for people. While it’s better than sending them to a feedlot and feeding them corn or soybeans or other dead animals, growing hay takes up a lot of land and a lot of water. California uses more water from the Colorado than anyone else, and pumping that water to irrigated valleys where food is grown requires a ton of power. Glen Canyon Dam and the Navajo Generating Station owe their existence in part to California’s demand for water to grow crops. And while all of these problems apply to agriculture too, eating less beef, even grass-fed, allows this land to be used more efficiently to grow food for people. If I have to choose between eating plants grown unsustainably or eating cows fed hay grown unsustainably (nine calories of it for every one I eat), I’m going to go with the plants.

There are two other problems I see with grass-fed meat. One: it’s not scalable. The things that make small, conscious producers better than factory farms also mean that grass-fed will never be able to produce enough meat to meet current global demand. And global demand is growing. Which means even if we accept grass-fed as sustainable, everyone needs to eat less meat to make it work. Since I have the means to be relatively healthy as a vegetarian, I’d rather people eating factory farmed meat switch to more sustainable producers. If all the sustainable meat revolution accomplishes is that a bunch of ex-vegetarians go back to eating meat and feeling environmentally conscious, factory farming will never go away. The other problem is that no matter how you raise them, cows are an incredible contributor to global warming. Their methane production is reduced when they’re fed grass instead of corn, but even then, they’re doing more to warm the planet than transportation. Global warming has gone beyond the point where it’s an environmental issue—it directly affects human health, national security and the very existence of some countries.

This is not to say that eating meat is always wrong. I would eat something wild I killed myself, and I would like to learn how to hunt elk or deer. But eating meat in our current food system, meat I didn’t produce for myself—I can’t justify that anymore. So I’m returning to being a vegetarian, but with a more conscious look at the foods I eat. Soy products and monocrops are incredibly environmentally problematic, and I want to make better choices as a vegetarian about the foods I do support. In an ideal food system, I would eat animals. Sustainable food systems rely on local permaculture, and if you aren’t going to use fossil fuels as fertilizer, you need manure. But I don’t live in that world. When I’m in a position to grow and raise my own food, I will, and I’ll make my choices accordingly. But for now, when I buy food from other people, I’m sticking with the plants.