Useful Info For Meat-Eaters Who Care About Climate Change But Can’t Quit Eating Meat

The graph comes from the Environmental Working Group, who describe their findings:

Lamb, beef and cheese have the highest emissions. This is true, in part, because they come from ruminant animals that constantly generate methane through their digestive process, called enteric fermentation. Methane (CH4) – a greenhouse gas 25 times more (CH4) potent than carbon dioxide (CO2), accounts for nearly half the emissions generated in this study’s Nebraska beef production model (see chart below). Pound for pound, ruminants also require significantly more energy-intensive feed and generate more manure than pork or chicken (see figure 2).

* Lamb has the greatest impact, generating 39.3 kg (86.4 lbs) of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) for each kilo eaten – about 50 percent more than beef. While beef and lamb generate comparable amounts of methane and require similar quantities of feed, lamb generates more emissions per kilo in part because it produces less edible meat relative to the sheep’s live weight. Since just one percent of the meat consumed by Americans is lamb, however, it contributes very little to overall U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

* Beef has the second-highest emissions, generating 27.1 kilos (59.6 lbs) of CO2e per kilo consumed. That’s more than twice the emissions of pork, nearly four times that of chicken and more than 13 times that of vegetable proteins such as beans, lentils and tofu. About 30 percent of the meat consumed in America is beef.

* Cheese generates the third-highest emissions, 13.5 kilos (29.7 lbs) of CO2e per kilo eaten, so vegetarians who eat a lot of dairy aren’t off the hook. Less dense cheese (such as cottage) results in fewer greenhouse gases since it takes less milk to produce it.

My takeaway from this chart: I already don’t eat lamb, so good on that. I had reduced my cheese consumption — not because of greenhouse gases, but because of other gases (i.e., I wanna fart less)1 — but I’ve backslid on that in recent months. So I’ll cut back on cheese again.

I’ve already reduced my beef and pork usage, replacing it mostly with turkey but also with chicken. But I’m still eating beef far too often — it hadn’t penetrated my mind that beef is actually much worse for climate change than pork (27 vs 12.1 kgs). Also, I hadn’t realized that turkey was worse than chicken (10.9 versus 6.9 kgs).

So I’m going to try to turn more of my beef and pork eating into poultry-eating, and more of my turkey-eating into chicken-eating. Also, when I eat a meat other than poultry, I’ll try to have pork. Beef should be a treat food, not a staple.

In the end, it seems like the most important step most meat-eating Americans could take is to cut down on beef, replacing it with pork or poultry or fish. That’s not hard. And marginal changes count — so if you eat beef twenty times a month and you don’t think you can reduce it to once a month, maybe you can reduce it to ten times a month. Or to sixteen a month (that’s changing just one meal a week).

Of course, the best changes are structural, not personal. If the environmental costs of beef were reflected in what we pay at the cash register, than Americans would switch away from beef as a matter of supply and demand.

  1. I worry that this will be the thing that generates the most discussion in comments, alas. []
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21 Responses to Useful Info For Meat-Eaters Who Care About Climate Change But Can’t Quit Eating Meat

  1. 1
    Jake Squid says:

    Lamb, beef and cheese have the highest emissions.

    This seems misleading. I’d rephrase it as, “Lamb and beef have the highest emissions, followed by cheese, pork, farmed salmon and turkey.”

    Looking at the chart, it seems like Lamb is on its own level, as is Beef. Then you’ve got the cheese/pork/farmed salmon/turkey level. I guess there’s also a chicken/canned tuna/eggs level followed by a level for everything else on the chart.

    Why are yogurt & milk so far behind cheese in production emissions? Kraft made cheese by bringing raw milk into their plants directly from the farm, so I can’t figure out how cheese has more production emissions than milk.

    I guess it takes ~12 kilos of milk to make one kilo of cheese? That makes me wonder why butter isn’t on the chart. Do we not eat enough butter to be worth putting on the chart?

  2. 2
    Robin Allison says:

    I’m a carnivore, veggie and fish meals tend to leave me hungry again in an hour,no matter how prepared. Be that as it may, my cheese,lamb (God,I adore lamb) and beef consumption has fallen horribly in the past couple months, replaced by lots more chicken, eggs, beans and potatoes. Not out of any great environmental concerns but because the prices on any of the above have become out of my budget range. I’m guessing I’m not the only one. So good for our carbon footprint, even if I’m so sick of chicken I’m ready to scream.

  3. Pingback: The Visual Du Jour – Eat Your Vegetables! | The Global Sociology Blog

  4. 3
    nmlop says:

    I am not sure, but I thought that this chart was actually about conventional / factory-farm meat only? Because I read recently elsewhere that local, grass-fed, non-factory-farmed, organic beef is actually one of the more environmentally-friendly and least animal-abusive meats. I’m vegan and my roommate eats meat, and prefers this kind of beef to similarly “politically correct” chicken, and I excitedly shared this anecdote with her, thinking she was eating the “right” kind of meat.

    For people interested in the environmental impact of animal products, I recommend Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Eating Animals.” It’s about his journey to deciding to become, basically, 99% vegetarian, but it’s not a manifesto or a guilt trip. He spends a huge time talking about how if he raises his son vegetarian, his son won’t get to eat his grandmother’s signature chicken dish, etc. It’s also full of wonderfully well-researched and well-written information on the meat industry. This is actually where I got the info mentioned above on beef, but it’s possible / likely I’m misremembering and it was actually just more animal-friendly, rather than environmentally-friendly (even many “free range” chickens have actually been bred so they can’t fly or walk. so they still just lay there. and are often still de-beaked, and so on.)

    Regardless, any omnivore who cares about climate change should try to buy organic, free-roaming, local animal products whenever affordable and available.

  5. 4
    KellyK says:

    One thing I really like about the graph is that it separates out transport and retail emissions from production. So it gives you at least a vague idea how much an effect buying local has. With beef, it’s just about negligible, but with chicken, it could be substantial (depending on how much of the yellow bar is actually transport and retail, as opposed to cooking and waste disposal).

  6. 5
    mokele says:

    I’m a bit sad they didn’t include various invertebrates, such as shrimp, clams, or squid, simply because such organisms convert almost all of what they eat to biomass (either of themselves or offspring). While processing/raising/etc. is a big part, in general the endotherms on the chart are worse than the ectotherms (salmon and tuna), particularly for whole-body products. Frog legs would be another interesting case study, as most amphibians convert ~80% of consumed calories to biomass.

    Mammals, including us, are terribly wasteful, burning more than 90% of our calories just to maintain body temperature. Honestly, the best thing would be to genetically modify all humans to be ectotherms – an instantaneous 10-fold reduction in global food consumption, not to mention all the other benefits (“oh, his heart stopped beating, we’d better get him to medical care within the next 3 hours or so.”)

  7. 6
    marie says:

    @nmlop
    Actually grazing cattle produce 2-4 times more methane than corn-fed factory cows. However, the corn-fed beef produce GHGs in the growing and transporting of their feed. I think over-all they’re pretty even. However, as I understand it, grass-fed beef is significantly healthier for us (and nicer for the cows too).

  8. 7
    Susan says:

    I read an interesting book. Called Dirt. By David Montgomery. I highly recommend it.

    It’s about the health of the soil, the ways we use soil, and how agriculture works. Without constant replenishment, the health of the soil degrades when used for agriculture. The replenishment is the manure of animals.

    Agriculture itself is not “natural” for human beings, who were hunter-gatherers. To make agriculture work, we need to continually fertilize the soil to maintain its fertility. For the last 100 years or so we’ve used petrochemicals, but this cannot last. The old way, the way that has worked for centuries (or not worked, as in the crash of Mayan civilization) is by using the manure of large domestic animals.

    So then what do we do with them, these animals? The logical thing is to eat them. Not in the quantities to which we as 21st Century Americans have become accustomed, but becoming a vegan doesn’t work either, in the big picture.

    This is an integral part of agriculture. If you give up on agriculture I’m afraid you’re signing on for the mass death of much of the current human population of the planet.

  9. 8
    Shoshie says:

    Totally agreed on the money thing. I keep kosher, which means that meat for me is significantly more expensive than for most US folks. Accordingly, my husband and I couldn’t imagine eating as much meat as the typical USian– we’d go bankrupt! So meat is a treat for us, once or twice a month. We still manage to eat pretty well, though we do eat decent amounts of fish and dairy.

  10. 9
    mythago says:

    I do not trust EWG.

    And as others have pointed out, the data is really strange – there are omissions, and it’s not really explained why dairy products are separated (unless they are assuming dairy cows do not result in beef). It also ignores any other environmental impact beyond emissions.

  11. 10
    Solo says:

    It’s a bit misleading to directly compare cheese and tomatoes by weight. A kilogram of cheese yields 4000kcals , tomatoes just 320kcals. Per calorie they are pretty much even (3.3 and 3.4 g CO2/kcal respectively). Milk comes in at 3.1g/kcal.

    Raw(!) turkey’s 7.3g/kcal, chicken’s 7.7g/kcal and beef’s at 12.6g/kcal. Eat turkey, stay away from beef.

    P.S. Got my email wrong, resubmitted comment.

  12. 11
    Mandolin says:

    ” It also ignores any other environmental impact beyond emissions.”

    That’s what flags me, yeah… which isn’t a problem with looking at the chart (providing the chart is accurate, which I have no idea; I don’t have any information on people’s concerns), but does make it seem strange to suggest basing food choices as… completely?… on it as the post seems to suggest.

    Is pork really significantly better than beef in a more holistic analysis?

  13. 12
    Dianne says:

    One thing that strikes me is the difference between turkey and chicken. Can anyone explain that?

  14. 13
    Katherine says:

    How does this compare to other countries? I assume this is only true for people in the US eating animals raised and processed in the US.

    What about ensuring you get sufficient iron in your diet to donate blood without having to take an iron supplement? I struggle to get enough if I am only eating 1-2 servings of red meat a week.

  15. 14
    Katherine says:

    Edit: double post

    Also humans who claim to be carnivores annoy me. Alright: you’re not allowed to eat any fruit, vegetables or dairy again. Including bread, cheese, and most popular sauces. Let’s see how well you do now.

  16. 15
    Ruchama says:

    What about ensuring you get sufficient iron in your diet to donate blood without having to take an iron supplement? I struggle to get enough if I am only eating 1-2 servings of red meat a week.

    I think this really depends on the person. I’ve been vegan for years, and my iron has always been borderline high, and the only iron supplements I have are whatever’s been added to breakfast cereal and almond milk and things like that — I do take a daily multivitamin, but it’s an iron-free one. My sister eats a lot of red meat, and she’s frequently anemic.

  17. 16
    Grace Annam says:

    Katherine:

    What about ensuring you get sufficient iron in your diet to donate blood without having to take an iron supplement? I struggle to get enough if I am only eating 1-2 servings of red meat a week.

    Per serving, greatest to least, looks like it’s oatmeal, soybeans, lentils, various other beans, tofu, and spinach. All of them have higher per-serving concentrations of iron. However, the iron in meat is “heme iron” (a term I hadn’t heard before), which absorbs into the human body better, probably.

    Nonetheless, oatmeal, beans and spinach and that should help.

    Googledand this was the second result:

    http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/iron/

    Grace

  18. 17
    Charles S says:

    There are three great environmental crisis going on: eutrification (driven by fossil nitrates and phosphates), climate change, and the extinction event (ocean acidification will be here shortly as a fourth, but its cause overlaps pretty tightly with climate change).

    I found an article on the eutrification impacts of food (although it doesn’t have quite as much detail). It didn’t include pork in its analysis, and it points out that the eutrification effects of food are way more variable than the global warming gas emission effects of food (if you buy pork that came from a North Carolina industrial hog farm, you are participating in the death of the North Carolina estuaries; if you buy pork that came from a small scale hog farmer in North Carolina, you aren’t), because what matters in eutrification is what happens to the excess nitrogen down the line, rather than the mere fact of its release.

    The simple take way from that article was that dairy is nearly as bad as beef for eutrification. From my experience in NC, I wold say that turkey is much worse than chicken for eutrification, but that is just an ignorant guess.

    The extinction effects of food are probably pretty hard to calculate (beef from a ranch in Eastern Oregon that practices best practices of land restoration probably has much less extinction impact than a ranch next door that doesn’t, both are probably worse than a chicken farm in western Oregon), but the concept of ecological footprint attempts to do so. I couldn’t find a chart of the ecological footprint of food, but here is a whole lifestyle ecological footprint calculator.

  19. 18
    VoiP says:

    What’s the deal with potatoes? I figure they have such low emissions associated with production because they just sort of sit there and don’t require a whole lot of labor, but why the high requirements for everything else? Potatoes have the highest post-farm emissions on the graph, comparatively.

  20. 19
    morgaine says:

    I would be interested to know the impact of venison, both farmed and wild. A former US American, I now live in New Zealand (where lamb is THE meat of choice) but farmed venison is readily available and no more prohibitive in cost than lamb or beef.

    Oh, and as a former North Carolinian (who still “like[s] calling North Carolina home”), I appreciate your information about hog farms in NC and their damage to the estuaries. With tourism now as NC’s biggest industry, it seems mad to desecrate the beautiful waterways and wetlands with hog-farm waste.

  21. 20
    mythago says:

    morgaine @19: In the US it seems as though people eat venison if they hunt, and very little otherwise.