By Jack Miller, Member, Pennsylvania Chapter Food and Agriculture Team
Most Americans probably don’t consider how much meat we consume, but this is one category we can confidently say we lead the world. We eat three times what the rest of the world consumes. While some may judge this beneficial, it is both damaging to our health and the environment. Consider that, since the beginning of the twentieth century, our consumption of meat has increased by over one hundred pounds and we now consume on average 260 pounds. Dairy and eggs cause the same health and environmental damage.
Why we have increased our animal food consumption can be attributed to many factors. Home refrigeration, advertising, misinformation, fast food restaurants, and falling prices in inflation-adjusted dollars have all contributed. David Robinson Simon in his book Meatonomic$ attributes this increase in consumption to decrease in prices in real dollars over the years. Decreasing prices may sound great to many, but we have paid an awful price with our health and environmental destruction. We are even paying with our taxes.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has played a central role in all of this. It is in the contradictory role of both promoting animal agriculture while also presenting along with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) dietary guidelines for Americans that recommends far less meat consumption than the average American consumes.
A major contributor is the growth of confined animal feeding operations (CAFO). Children’s books’ portrayals of “down on the farm” is a picture that has largely disappeared. Living here in central Pennsylvania gives a false picture of most farming in this country, but the countless fields of corn and soybeans and the growing numbers of chicken CAF0s in our area is part of today’s picture. The animals we consume today live a life of pain and suffering as part of this industrial food system. If you treated any dog or cat the way the sentient beings we consume are routinely handled, you would be breaking the law.
It is a basic premise of capitalism that costs of production must be lower than the sale price, yet that premise is turned on its head with government subsidies. Farmers must sell their corn at a price lower than their costs! They only get ahead when they receive their subsidy check from Uncle Sam. This subsidy creates a surplus which keeps the price low and puts extra money in the pockets of corporations with increased sales of seeds, herbicides, and fertilizers. This increases pollution to land and water and soil erosion. It also favors the ever-increasing size of farms and corporate farms while driving smaller farmers out of business. In 1950 there were 5.6 million farms in the country, today there are just over two million.
One of the great costs of animal food production is our health. The USA, despite its wealth and abundance of food, ranks only about 40th in world longevity rankings. The Standard American Diet, the SAD diet, is at the core of our most common diseases and the trillions we spend in health care. Sugar, salt, and fat, much of it animal fat, factor into most of our serious health concerns. The cholesterol, saturated fat, and calories in our meat laden diets factor into our rates of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and strokes. Meat is meat whatever the source. Some might be somewhat better, but slightly better is still unhealthy. Animal products also communicate infectious diseases such as salmonella and E. coli. Don’t forget all the toxins such as mercury and PCBs that are found in fish. The key to good health is fruits, vegetables and whole grains. If you want to be as strong as an ox, eat like an ox. Eat a whole food, plant-based diet. Plants provide all the protein we need, no need for animals.
Animal agriculture is one of the two or three most destructive industries in the world. It is the source of 26% of climate changing gasses, the biggest polluter of water, and forest destruction. It degrades our groundwater and wells with massive amounts of excrement. Increased erosion results from fields plowed to grow animal feed. This along with pasturing is the major cause of habitat loss and biodiversity.
This blog was included as part of the October 2023 Sylvanian newsletter. Please click here to check out more articles from this edition!