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“My story of stuff” Editorial

ELA 703 Ariel Roodal

 Meat Consumption: Trends and Health Implications

Meat consumption in the United States has nearly doubled in the last century. Americans are now among the top per capita meat consumers in the world; the average American eats more than three times the global average.1 A growing body of evidence suggests Americans’ taste for meat and animal products is putting them at greater risk for a range of health problems.

Eating less meat could help the environment, According to Ben Houlton, director of the John Muir Institute at UCLA Davis, reducing the amount of meat in our diets, specifically red meat, can help reduce our carbon footprint on the planet,which connects to science and our carbon footprints.My idea is basically to take meat away from all farms it is available in.Then have people come around and give meat out one day of the week.You won’t be able to get like 100 pounds of meat because we are trying to stop the meat consumption.Which is why we are doing this to help the environment.

 My solution is very helpful, Much U.S. farmland is used for raising livestock like cattle, chickens, cows and pigs. What if that land were used to grow plants instead? You know,right? Eating less meat is crucial for a healthy lifestyle and a healthy planet.Animals are being slaughtered and that is horrible for the environment which is why we must fix this to have a better environment for eating better and helping that animals from being slaughtered every single day just so we can eat, but eating too much of it.While slaughterhouses aren’t fun places for animals, abattoirs at least have some regulations so that workers can minimize suffering before killing the animal. However, undercover animal rights groups have filmed workers punching, kicking, and prodding animals, and even throwing them to the ground.I am like, this is very sad for animals that they have to go through this every day,I personally wouldn’t want to be abused. But this is why we must stop the meat consumption.

 https://arielroodal.tumblr.com/post/174489505094/post-3 My blog number 3 will show you more about the sacrifices that I made and how it challenged me to become a better writer.Having some crazy/wonderful thoughts and writing them down.So basically what I think about my solution is that it is exactly the kind of sloution we are all looking for because it solves the big problem which is the meat consumption.Meat is what we are trying to avoid and we got an answer to do that.

 Is it ok to kill animals and let them get slaughtered just so that we can eat meat? I think, NOT!!! One pro is how eating less meat helps the environment,also your lifestyle habit.And this will help with the solution that I have to help stop the meat consumption.One con I have is that not a lot of people are going to be able to eat meat so much like they did before because of the solution.So that could also mean that not a lot of restaurants are going to make enough money because of “the eating less meat/eating no meat”.But in conclusion there is alway a good side to all of this, most people do a lot of things/try a lot of things just to lose some weight and to eat healthy, well I think that my solution is the answer to this instead of doing things to eat healthier and lose some weight.  

 Meat Production: Public Health Concerns, from Farm to Fork

Almost all of the meat, dairy products, and eggs produced in the United States come from industrial food animal production (IFAP) operations that confine thousands of cattle, tens of thousands of pigs, or as many as hundreds of thousands of chickens at a single facility —and produce enormous amounts of animal waste. IFAP raises serious public health concerns for industry workers, rural communities, consumers of animal products, and the general public.

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Post #3

All I can think about is meat. When you don’t get something you want it’s the only thing you can think about and forget everything else that is important.But always in life you would have to sacrifice something or someone you love because it’s so important to you that you must. I realized that I gave up eating meat like everyday because it was my assignment and it meant something to me because I would get a good grade based on it and that is important to me,right. Wouldn’t you do the same?   

Meat is tempting and could take up your whole brain of just thinking about it.Like just food in general,when your in school you can’t wait to go home and eat some home-cooked food because you enjoy it better.So when you’re in school your brain just fills up with just thinking about home-cooked food all day until you finally get it at the end of the day.

Eating meat is your choice but it’s also really hard to let go of it because when you get so used to it,it’s really hard not to eat it. I had to eat less meat for like a few weeks but I guess it’s not that hard like eating no meat at all.I guess it just makes me think about the things I desire(meat).My solution to this problem is that if you eat less meat it will help trying to stop the meat consumption.

Will leave you with that...

See you next time...

www.whyeatlessmeat.com/

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Blog #2 Weekend (the struggles are real)

The struggles are real but you got to have a lot perseverance because at the end it is worth it and it helps the environment you live in.But your not only doing this for your environment, you are also doing this for your own health and watching your weight. Eating less meat is still better than EATING NO MEAT AT ALL, IT IS JUST SAD AND HORRIBLE!!!!!!

 In three decades, emissions related to agriculture and food production are likely to account for about half of the world’s available “carbon budget” - the limited amount of carbon dioxide and its equivalents that can be poured into the atmosphere if we are to hold global warming to no more than 2C.

The research, led by scientists at the Oxford Martin School, found that shifting to a mostly vegetarian diet, or even simply cutting down meat consumption to within accepted health guidelines, would make a large dent in greenhouse gases.

I don’t know how some people can turn vegetarian/vegan from when they used to eat meat for a very long time until they decided to have a better eating lifestyle/choice. I mean it’s really good to make more reasonable choices about your eating habits but also really hard to stick to it but soon you get used to it.

The animals are also important. All animals have important roles in the ecosystem. ... Some animals help to bring out the nutrients from the cycle while others help in decomposition, carbon, and nitrogen cycle. All animals, insects, and even micro organisms play a role in the ecosystem. 

 Carbon dioxide from livestock production is a result of fuel use from equipment and changes in the carbon content of soil, such as, crops, deforestation and direct land use by animals (Hermansen et al., 2011). ... When animals are better able to use the food they eat, fewer nutrients are released into the environment.

1. The livestock industry is a major driver of global climate change.

As a byproduct of their four-stomached digestive system, cattle produce and emit significant quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 23 times more potent by quantity than CO2. Given this methane production, livestock-related deforestation, and other greenhouse gas-heavy practices, the livestock industry is thought to be responsible for a whopping 18% of all manmade greenhouse gas emissions – more than that of all of the world’s non-livestock-related transportation, including all cars, planes, and ships.

2.    Animal waste from factory farms has been known to leak into local water supplies, spreading harmful bacteria to those who live nearby.

Livestock produce fecal waste – and at the current levels of livestock production in the developed world, there is a lot of feces to deal with. Livestock waste, known in its solid form as manure, or, when mixed with water, as “slurry,” is typically either left in large open-air lakes called “slurry pits,” or spread onto fields as fertilizer.  While the existence of slurry if not itself a problem, and using animal waste as fertilizer can be an efficient food-production practice, bacteria and other contaminants from this waste often makes their way into the local water supply, posing significant health risks to nearby residents.

3.    Animal products have a significantly higher water footprint than their plant-based equivalents.

As many parts of the world, including the western United States, face dwindling fresh water resources, the demand for animal products fuels massive water usage in the livestock industry. Estimates indicate that the production of 1kg of beef requires about 43,000L of fresh water, including both raising the livestock itself and growing the crops needed to feed it. For comparison, 1kg of grain only requires 1,000L. In terms of calories, that’s a 20 times greater water footprint for beef as compared to cereals, and a 6 times greater water footprint for beef as compared to its protein-equivalent in pulses (such as beans, peas, and lentils). While cattle raised for beef is by far the worst offender, other animal products consistently fare worse than their plant-based nutritional equivalent. Given this immense water usage, one study estimates that “meat contributes 37% towards the food-related water footprint of an average American citizen.” Of course, these are largely comparisons of meats and their energy equivalents in grains and pulses - a comparison that included fruits and vegetables would certainly find many non-animal products to be water-intensive and deserving of a decrease in consumption as well. Nevertheless, by reducing one’s meat consumption one can likely reduce one’s own impact on our fast-depleting fresh water resources.

4.    The demand for livestock is one of the major causes of deforestation, particularly of the Amazon rainforest.

Raising livestock requires a great deal of land – both for the animals themselves and for growing the large quantities of food required to feed them. As demand for animal products rises, farmers and ranchers must find more land, often cutting down forests in the process. The Amazon rainforest in particular has borne the burden of this search for land, as cattle ranching and soybean farming have been major drivers of deforestation in the region.Notably, while soy is often associated with a plant-based diet, about 83% of all of the world’s soybean production is used for animal feed, a less food-efficient use than its direct consumption. Therefore, switching to a more plant-heavy diet will help lower the demand for cattle and the soy that feeds them, slowing the rate of Amazonian deforestation.

5.    While the majority of these reasons apply only to livestock raised on land, the seafood industry has many of its own environmental consequences.

Perhaps the most direct effect of high demand for fish and other seafood was already mentioned in the Food System section – the current rates of fishery depletion are unsustainable, leading to significant collapses in global fish populations. Already, the world is seeing declining rates of catch, predicted only to worsen if current levels of consumption continue.

As populations have decreased, making fishing more difficult, the fishing industry has turned to more intensive practices, such as trawling, to make up the difference. But as nets are trawled, or dragged along the ocean floor, they cause significant damage to the natural habitat, affecting coral reefs in particular. Coral reefs, vital in maintaining fish populations and oceanic biodiversity, face considerable, long-term damage from this method of fishing.

Another effect of most fishing methods, including trawling, is bycatch – a term for marine life (and often birds) that are accidentally caught as a byproduct of fishing practices. Bycatch affects and threatens the population of many species, including sea turtles and sea mammals such as dolphins, porpoises, and seals.

The natural response to these negative impacts of the wild seafood industry is to promote its alternative: seafood farming. However, while the effects of farming vary greatly with the species raised, aquaculture has its own host of negative impacts. Aquaculture has long been known to produce environmental waste, including that which contributes to eutrophication – a process whereby an influx of nutrients, often from agri- and aquaculture runoff, ends up in local waterways where phytoplankton populations then bloom, using up the system’s oxygen resources and killing other aquatic life. Aquaculture is also associated with the destruction of valuable wetland habitats, such as salt marshes and mangrove forests. Finally, and counterintuitively, aquaculture may contribute to depletion of world fisheries – the farming of carnivorous fish requires the input of other fish, which are often themselves caught in the wild. While the environmental impacts of seafood are different than that of land-raised livestock, and therefore difficult to compare, they are doubtlessly significant. By eating less seafood, lowering demand for these products, it is possible to help reduce these adverse consequences.

6.    Combining all of these factors, diets that are heavy in animal products cause significantly more harm to the environment than more plant-based diets.

According to multiple life-cycle studies, which test the total environmental impact of a product, from its start to its finish, diets high in animal products have a significantly higher negative impact than nutritionally equivalent vegetarian or vegan diets.

So in conclusion,what I personally think is that NYC should lower down the meat industry but be equal at the same time.It helps everyone,the environment,the animals,etc...And that is just enough for each category with the meat industry. My solution is to eat less meat and that would help the environment and the animals. It’s a win-win for everyone at the same time,no fighting about this or that, it’s like a done deal.

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Blog #1

Eating less meat is actually harder than I thought. Meat is very tempting especially when there is a McDonald’s and Wendy’s right near my school. And maybe it will help the environment with the animals because they are being slaughtered and I guess that is because of us, killing them and eating them too much. Maybe life would be different if most people cut some slack on meat and it would help the environment. “A plant-based diet, which emphasizes fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, legumes and nuts, is rich in fiber, vitamins and other nutrients. And people who don't eat meat — vegetarians — generally eat fewer calories and less fat, weigh less, and have a lower risk of heart disease than nonvegetarians do.” 

The more you eat less meat the more it helps the environment. So do the right thing guys. HOW EATING LESS MEAT HELPS THE ENVIRONMENT

Factory farms produce an estimated 500 million tons of manure each year - more than three times the sewage produced by the entire U.S. human population. After making its way into local waterways, this pollution can cause major health and environmental problems.

Nearly half of all water used in the United States goes towards raising animals for food.  According to National Geographic, it takes nearly 2,000 gallons of water to produce a single pound of beef. By comparison, plant-based foods such as potatoes or wheat use fewer than 200 gallons per pound during production

Animal farms and processing facilities also require a substantial amount of land to operate, and due to the growing demand for expansion, the animal agriculture industry is a direct contributor to the Amazon’s deforestation. Even locally in the United States, nearly 300 million acres of land has been cleared to make room for range, pasture land, and crop fields used to grow livestock feed.

https://vegetarian.procon.org/