All my life, I have lived as an omnivore. I can hardly say that this has been exemplary of how we should treat ourselves or the environment, but recently, I have been seriously asking myself the question of whether I should eat less meat and dairy.
Processed meats have now been ranked by the World Health Organisation in the same category as asbestos, alcohol, arsenic and tobacco for causing cancer.
Red meat has also been ranked as a "probable" carcinogen, however this comes with the disclaimer that eating 'some' can also be healthy. Personally I believe that if consumed in balance, then some lean meat must be OK - why else would we have teeth designed for eating meat and the natural urge to hunt?
Recently I have been more likely to only eat top quality red meat that has come, unprocessed (other than being butchered of course) straight from the farm. After growing up with mince as a staple and now with an iron-deficient wife and my own occasional cravings, I would be somewhat shocked if it was proven that every now and then consuming red meat caused problems.
Until I heard about the possibility of processed meats making me sick, my main reason for cutting down was to try and curb the middle age weight gain which I always (wrongly) thought - with the hyperactive metabolism of my younger years - would never get me.
Here in New Zealand we have the dubious honour of the fourth highest rate of obesity in the OECD.
The surgeon general in the US is now calling for more walking to be forced into building design:
This makes me think of the refurbishment of Wellington Hospital - hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on exotic palm trees as a decoration out the front. Why did they not fill the grounds with fruit trees and a walking track to visit them? This would seem to produce a far better result - people exercising and enjoying real and nutritious fruit rather than artificially-flavoured jelly that ubiquitously comes in single-use plastic packaging. I wonder how much cancer-causing processed meat is currently being served in state-run operations such as hospitals, the armed forces and prisons?
But there are also other reasons for reducing meat consumption. 22kg of CO2-equivalent emissions are released per kilogram of beef produced. Seeing as agriculture comprises nearly half of our greenhouse gas contribution, this is significant from a climate change perspective.
But perhaps more important is the impact that raising animals has on waterways. In particular the well-documented diffuse pollution that occurs with nutrient losses.
So should we eat less animal products?
A world-leading expert in nutrient management I have met called Professor Mark Sutton, reckons that we should become 'demitarians'. He says that simply eating meat and dairy products half as much as we do now would have a major impact on the problems our environment faces and the cultural implications would be significant for developing countries.
The age-old argument in retort is that we need to continue our proud history of raising animals and expand this for reasons of economic development, meaning that the last thing we want is a drop in demand for these products.
But what about the costs? Are they all being taken into account in these assessments or are they too simplistic?
Let's start with the hard costs that are not contentious. Colon cancer (which is now proven to be caused by processed meat) is already estimated to cost taxpayers over $80 million dollars a year and rising. But while that figure may seem low compared to the perceived value created by agriculture and potentially justifiable somehow, it is important to also note that these costs do not include the loss of efficiencies created by sick people, loss of earnings and harm.
Now for a quick look at water-borne illness. The New Zealand Medical Association estimates the overall burden of endemic drinking-waterborne gastrointestinal disease in New Zealand at 18,000 to 34,000 cases per year. The great bulk of these medical costs are covered largely by taxpayers, with minimal penalties (if any) being paid by polluters, particularly when it is diffuse, rather than point-source of origin.
Then I think it is pertinent to consider where this issue could be heading, with for example the negative impact that nutrients can have on fishing and tourism - which costs the United States over $1 billion dollars a year.
Again these losses are not borne by producers, in fact they are reducing opportunities for budding entrepreneurs that may want to start up a sustainable ecotourism operation. You can't really take tourists white water rafting in a river that doesn't meet standards for swimming in right?
Of course following this, we should look at the environmental costs, which have been estimated at billions of dollars by a recent study from Massey University. This report was peer-reviewed and published by a reputable academic journal, then predictably criticised, but at the end of the day the point was clear - it is much cheaper and better off in the long term to not pollute our waterways than it is to try and clean them up after.
For the sake of our health and that of our environment, I feel that a 'demitarian' approach - which would result in me for one eating less meat and dairy - could be a good compromise, but what do you think? Should we eat less meat and dairy?
