I got a copy of the monthly magazine Reform Judaism yesterday and read Rabbi Eric Yoffie's article titled "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" In it he urged a decision to reduce red meat intake by at least one fifth. When I read some of the rationale behind his recommendation, I was impressed. One table listed the average amount of water needed to produce a variety of foodstuffs; those numbers ranged from 13 liters for a tomato to 135 liters for an egg to 2,400 liters for a hamburger. We're facing a water shortage in Colorado where I live, so that got my attention.
I started thinking about the Why behind that huge quantity of water as well as the Why Not about Rabbi Yoffie's suggestions. Most of our beef, at least that available in the supermarket, comes from animals that are corn-finished. So in order to bring a cow to the slaughterhouse, most producers, wanting as much meat as possible per animal, raise them in feedlots and feed them corn for a large portion of their lives. Raising all that corn consumes a lot amount of water.
The meat industry is responsible for a goodly share of our greenhouse gases; the article mentions a U.N. paper ranking animal agriculture above the total of all transportation modalities. One academic has suggested that cutting our meat intake by one fifth would be the equivalent of each US citizen driving a Prius instead of an ordinary, non-hybrid automobile.
At that point I thought, "For once I'm ahead of the game." Lynnette and I each bought a Prius at the end of 2006 and, as I've previously said in one of my blogs, we've cut our red meat intake markedly in the last three years. We've also purchased non-corn-finished meat, splitting a bison with three other families and recently trying some Beefmaster beef from a Colorado company that grass feeds and finishes all their animals.
Well that's a good start, but I still need to be careful of my portion control when I do eat red meat; Michael Pollan's Food Rule #23 says, "Treat meat as a flavoring or special occasion food." He's concerned about the other consequences increasingly linked to red meat; those include heart disease and some forms of cancer.
I think Lynnette is making a vegetarian dinner while I'm writing this; tonight I'll be content to eat no meat at all, red or otherwise. It seems like that is a good start on cutting my water use and staying healthy.