Are Vegetarians Bad for the Environment? July 14, 2008

I’m always reading about people eating less meat in order to reduce their carbon footprint. These people say that the most important thing you can do to help the environment is to go vegetarian.

For example, Kelly Freston wrote this article last year in the Huffington Post: Vegetarian is the New Prius:

Last month, the United Nations published a report on livestock and the environment with a stunning conclusion: “The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” It turns out that raising animals for food is a primary cause of land degradation, air pollution, water shortage, water pollution, loss of biodiversity, and not least of all, global warming.

Seems logical. But is it really true?

I read a great article recently in the spring edition of Wise Traditions (the Weston A. Price Foundation quarterly journal). The article was written by Matthew J. Rales, who has a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Middlebury College in Vermont. He also recently completed an apprenticeship at Joel Salatin’s grass-based Polyface Farm.

This article is so dense and so brilliantly constructed that I can’t do it justice in one post. So I am going to do a series of posts discussing Matthew Rales’ arguments against vegetarianism as pro-environment.

Let’s start with the assertion that vegetarians make that rainforests are being destroyed by livestock.

“Make no mistake; rainforests are not cleared in any drastic measure by independent farmers who want to graze a few steers. They are cleared by United Nations-supported corporate giants under the guise of feeding the world and alleviating poverty — all for the production of more of their patented seed.”

“A recent article in Business Week reports that Brazil alone grows over 25 million acres of soybeans — all of which are genetically engineered. The Wall Street Journal reports that Monsanto’s stock has tripled in the last year due to Brazil’s demand for Roundup Ready soybeans — a genetically engineered plant that can withstand multiple, frequent applications of toxic herbicide.”

“Our society has been conditioned to support a co-opted environmental movement in the name of a chemical-intensive vegetable bypass industry, at the tragic expense of good health to both man and environment via the qualities of grazing animals and their products — meat and milk for people, manure for the soil — none of which we can afford to lose.”

Why are cows being blamed for the destruction of the rainforest? Farmers who raise cows on pasture do not buy soybeans. They do not buy corn. They feed their animals grass and hay.

Clearly, this argument made by the U.N. that raising animals for food is destroying the environment is fallacious. They are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Rales writes:

“The U.N. points its global finger not at bad management practices like feedlots and confinement dairies, but at the cows themselves; not at Monsanto, but at real farmers, who raise livestock in accordance with nature’s principles — on grass.

The U.N.’s accusations ought to be directed at chemical-intensive, industrial CAFO agriculture.”

Back to Kelly Freston’s article on the Huffington Post. The worst, most misleading part of her article are these two sentences:

Recent years have seen an explosion of environmentally-friendly vegetarian foods. Even chains like Ruby Tuesday, Johnny Rockets, and Burger King offer delicious veggie burgers and supermarket refrigerators are lined with heart-healthy creamy soymilk and tasty veggie deli slices.

Environmentally friendly? Burger King?

Let’s take a look at what’s in a BK Veggie Burger:

Vegetables (Mushrooms, Water Chestnuts, Onions, Carrots, Green Bell Peppers, Red Bell Peppers, Black Olives), Textured Vegetable Protein (Soy Protein Concentrate, Wheat Gluten, Water for Hydration), Egg Whites, Cooked Brown Rice (Water, Brown Rice), Rolled Oats, Corn Oil, Calcium Caseinate, Soy Sauce (Water, Soybeans, Salt, Wheat), Onion Powder, Corn Starch, Salt, Hydrolyzed Corn, Soy, and Wheat Protein, Yeast Extract, Natural Flavors from non-meat sources, Sugar,Soy Protein Isolate, Spices, Garlic Powder, Dextrose, Jalapeño Pepper Powder, Celery Extract.Contains: Soy, Wheat, Milk and Egg. This is NOT a vegan product. The patty is cooked in the microwave.

I bolded all the processed foods that are contained in that single patty.

With that amount of processing, there is a ton of energy that goes into making that patty. Not to mention all the energy and chemical fertilizers that went into growing all those vegetables and soybeans and oats and rice. Oh, and there are egg whites in there, too. So you have to factor in raising chickens and slaughtering them as well. Plus those chickens were fed corn and soybeans.

And where do you think the corn and soybeans come from that were used to make this BK Veggie Burger? Do you think they came from organic farms tended by environmentally-conscious sustainable farmers?

Not likely. They are most likely genetically modified soybeans from industrial farms.

And where a lot of those industrial farms located? Why, in South America. Where the rainforests used to be.

All right, okay, so maybe you can still be a vegetarian and save the planet. You just won’t eat at Burger King. Maybe you’ll just buy those faux deli meats like Freston recommends at the health food store. Like “Smart Bacon”. After all, they are made from soybeans that are not genetically modified. So you’re safe, right?

Not so fast. What’s in Smart Bacon?

Water, soy protein isolate, wheat gluten, soybean oil, textured soy protein concentrate, textured wheat gluten, less than 2% of: natural smoke flavor, natural flavor (from vegetable sources), grill flavor (from sunflower oil), carrageenan, evaporated cane juice, paprika oleoresin (for flavor & color), potassium chloride, sesame oil, spice extractives, fermented rice flour, tapioca dextrin, citric acid, salt.

Again, I’ve bolded the processed foods. Any idea how much processing goes into some of these ingredients?

Take paprika oleoresin. I looked it up on Wikipedia:

Paprika oleoresin (also known as paprika extract) is an oil soluble extract from the fruits of Capsicum Annum Linn (Indian red chillies), and is primarily used as a colouring and/or flavouring in food products. It is composed of capsaicin, the main flavouring compound giving pungency in higher concentrations, and capsanthin and capsorubin, the main colouring compounds (among other carotenoids).[1]

Extraction is performed by percolation with a variety of solvents, primarily hexane, which are removed prior to use.[2]

Hexane? Where does hexane come from? Wikipedia?

Hexane is produced by the refining of crude oil.

Oh, okay, so Smart Bacon is made with hexane, a refined petroleum product. Gee whiz, how can that be good for the environment? I thought we were trying to reduce our dependency on oil.

So I guess Vegetarian is the New Prius, like Kelly Freston said, seeing how the Prius also requires gasoline.

But let’s get back to that Smart Bacon. What else is in there? TSP — textured soy protein. According to Wikipedia, this is how it’s made:

TSP is made by forming a dough from high nitrogen solubility index (NSI) defatted soy flour with water in a screw-type extruder such as the Wenger and heating with or without steam. The dough is extruded through a die into various possible shapes; granules, flakes, chunks, goulash, steakettes (schnitzle), etc., and dried in an oven.

OK so you have to grow the soybeans then dry them then grind them into flour then defat (?) the flour by extruding it and then heat it with or without steam.

Hmm… not sure how much energy is involved in that process but I do now that anything extruded is made in a factory.

Here’s a picture I found of a soy extruder:

You think that thing needs oil, too? Just like the Prius and the Smart Bacon? Or do you think it runs on solar power?

Anyone want to take a guess — which has a lower impact on the environment: a grass-fed farmer selling meat at the farmer’s market or extruded soy patties from a factory?

So who’s destroying the rainforests? Who’s using up the most energy to produce their foods?

Is it the small farmers raising grass-fed cows and those of us who support them by purchasing grass-fed meat and dairy products directly from the farmer?

Or is it multinational corporations like Monsanto and Burger King and Lightlife Foods (makers of Smart Bacon), and all the veggie-burger-eating vegetarians?

Wake up, folks. Just because you are avoiding meat does not mean you are avoiding factory farms.

If you really want to avoid factory farms, support your local farmer.

PS: We’re having cheeseburgers tonight. Grass-fed beef from Organic Pastures Dairy up in Fresno — where the cows are on pasture all year long.

Sources: Burger King, Lightlife Foods, Wise Traditions 2008, Huffington Post, Soy extruder machine