Eat your Veg, and Save the Planet!

By Dr Graham Pinn

After reaching an impasse with fossil-fuel bans, the COP 28 conference in Dubai, moved on to a new climate and life-threatening target; the latest activists’ mission, to save the planet, is to stop us eating meat. It is apparently a win/win, with less land required for animal husbandry, and reduced methane output from cows. The conference, coming from the desert sands, discretely failed to mention that camels, although not ruminants like cows, have multiple stomachs and also produce large amounts of methane.

This development is now being inappropriately incorporated into the National Health and Medical Research (NHMRC) official guidelines, on the grounds of environmental sustainability, rather than human development; the NHMRC has no mandate to involve itself in environmental issues.

As climate change fervour subsides, and the planet goes off the boil, our personal activities still continue to be curtailed by those “who know better”. We are told how to heat/cool our homes, how to cook, how and where to travel, what clothes we should wear, the list is endless. The latest, and most invasive is to tell us what to eat; the battle between the farmers (and we who eat their produce), and the bureaucrats has now commenced. This latest, politically correct ideology, has to be subject to fact checking.

There are 2 parts to this debate; firstly, is meat harmful to humans, secondly is its production harmful to the planet.

Paleoanthropologists tell us that animals, unlike plants, are independent of seasons and can survive in inhospitable environments; the ability to use a variety of food resources enabled the move out of Africa to more challenging climates. In far off times of hunter-gathering, there was no cropping; fruit and vegetables were vital, but supply uncertain; hunting of game assumed greater importance for survival. Paleo-anthropologists, working in Africa, have ascertained humans have been around for around 2.5 million years, and for 2.4 there is evidence of meat eating; the important step-up being the discovery of fire, with increased ease of digestion.

This higher quality protein is what allowed us to develop from the early Homo rudolfensis, with a small brain around 750cc, into Homo erectus with a brain around 1200cc, subsequently to Homo sapiens enlarging to around 1800cc; the brain consumes around one fifth of total calorie expenditure. Increased protein consumption has also resulted in increased height.

Not only was hunting nutritionally advantageous, it often required group involvement, and with the ensuing feasting, developed social order. It was only when moving on from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, with the development of reliable cropping 10,000 years ago, that an alternative became available.

In 2022, a study in the International Journal of General Medicine, from Adelaide University, examined the overall health implications of meat-eating in over 170 countries. It found that a vegetarian diet was not associated with increased life expectancy, whereas meat consumption was. These findings were independent of total calorie intake, economic affluence, urban environment and obesity. It concluded” Our ancestors have developed genetic, physiological and morphological adaptations to meat eating, adaptations we have acquired”.

Prior to human dominance North America was estimated to contain 60 million bison, 60 million deer, plus countless bears, wolves etc, a total of around 200 million flatulence producing animals. These flatulent animals are now extinct or in severely reduced numbers, and are replaced by 100 million cattle, 60 million pigs and 5 million sheep.

Modern US lifetime meat consumption is around 7000 animals; 4500 fish, 2400 chickens, 80 turkeys, 30 sheep, 20 pigs, 11 cows. The demand for meat is increasing, over the last decade by 8% in US, 7% in Europe, 50% in Asia, in China meat consumption has quadrupled in 40 years; Australia comes third in the meat-eating world tables. This increase has allowed improved growth and development in previously protein-deficient diets in poor countries.

The true believers’ solution to saving the planet is meat substitution. Lab grown plant “meat” has been increasingly available from 2019, prospective sales are not reaching forecasts as pretend meat looks and tastes like pretend meat; sales increased minimally in 2021 and fell in 2022, with some companies going bankrupt.

Another alternative is to convert our protein consumption to eating insects, with the added bonus they can feed on food waste; is anyone really interested in another pie (fly)-in-the sky concept? Apart from the yuck factor, fly larva are apparently nutritious but have the potential to cause allergies for those who react to sea-foods. One Canberra-based company, Goterra, is using this system to make animal food, currently only 6 tons of waste a week, but with expansion plans to 45,000 tonnes a year.

The latest comparative study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that eating a diet high in synthetic meat, produced higher blood sugars, putting them at greater risk of diabetes and heart disease; the synthetic burgers were high in carbohydrate and low in protein.

Health studies of meat-eating are contradictory, and no scientific consensus has been reached; the Dublin Declaration, by 1000 scientists, opposed zealous interference with livestock. The main problem is not what we eat but how much – obesity is main health issue, leading onto a range of medical conditions, the obvious such as diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and arthritis; the less obvious such as infertility and cancer. As a result, life expectancy is already in decline, and, with childhood obesity on the rise, statistics will worsen.

Processed meat, such as bacon, ham, hot-dogs, has different health problems; apart from the salt content there are increasing concerns about additives causing cancer; nitrites or nitrates are added to improve colour, kill bacteria and give a longer-shelf-life. Routinely, two-thirds of nitrates come from plants, a quarter from drinking water, and 4% from processed meat. When ingested, these compounds are converted to nitrosamines; there is some evidence that high levels may be associated with bowel cancer, even breast and prostate cancer. The watch-word is moderation of processed meat, much of it junk, it is something the modern fast-food generation find difficult to give up.

Those on the other side of the debate, despite 2 billion plus years, state our teeth are not designed for meat eating, a vegetarian diet contains more vitamins, the only deficiencies, B12, calcium and Vitamin D, and zinc, can be provided by dairy and eggs; over millennia, our dentition seems to have worked well enough. Although containing iron, it is less well absorbed from non-meat sources, at 2 -10% compared with 30% from meat; a vegetarian diet has led to the increased likelihood of anaemia and stunted growth.

Alternatively, you can get your daily iron from 700 gm of spinach!

In the modern woke world similar problems now arise with pets fed on vegetarian diets, dogs and cats can also develop nutritional deficiencies if fed inappropriately. Vegan pet foods are now available.

The amount of land available for food production has not changed; despite population growth, better soil and water management, genetically modified crops, greater use of fertilisers, and increased CO2 (plant food), have all increased productivity. In Australia, only 4% of land is used for agriculture, this figure varies enormously throughout the world, UK has 25%; perhaps the highest land use is in Ukraine, until the war, it was Europe’s bread basket, with over 50% of its land was used for agriculture.

One theory is that as well as vegetarian diets being healthier, they are cost-efficient. An analysis stated 77% of world arable land is used for meat or milk, which provided only 18% of calories; a turn to a vegetarian diet could theoretically reduce land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares, as less crop production is needed for animal feed. These sums ignore the fact that most sheep and goats, the staple meat of many countries, survive on land unsuitable for cropping; there are an estimated 450 million goats and 1.2 billion sheep in the world. Although they do not fart like cows, a German study in the 1980’s showed they produce around 5kg of methane annually, pigs are even less flatulent at around 2kg; then there are wild animals. Despite some people we all know, humans barely rate at less than 0.05 kg annually.

Conversely, another study in 2015 suggested vegetarians could be destroying the environment, more so than their meat-eating counterparts. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon took a closer look at foods recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and discovered fruits, vegetables, dairy farming, and catching seafood are more harmful to the environment than red meat. Their study, published in the journal Environment Systems and Decisions,explained how healthy foods require greater amounts of resources and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per calorie.

A UK study of over 50,000 compared vegetarian, Vegan, fish, and meat diets; it found that a vegan diet produced 93% less methane than meat, this is certainly not a personal dietary experience. “Eating lettuce is over three times worse in greenhouse gas emissions than eating bacon,” said another study’s co-author, Paul Fischbeck, Professor of Social and Decisions Sciences and Engineering and Public Policy. “Lots of common vegetables require more resources per calorie than you would think. Eggplant, celery, and cucumbers look particularly bad when compared to pork or chicken.” When they replaced “unhealthy” foods with healthier mix of fruits, vegetables, dairy, and seafood, it negatively impacted the environment; energy use went up by 38 percent, water use by 10 percent, and GHG emissions by 6 percent.

Natural gas, was recently proposed as the second most important climate enemy, after coal. Farming produces 20% of the world’s methane emissions, coming from waste, livestock, and particularly rice farming, which accounts for 10%. As rice production produces a similar output of methane to animal husbandry, would activists suggest stopping its cultivation? We concentrate on coal seam gas, but ignore other natural sources, with an estimated 30% of methane coming from wetlands and vegetation breakdown. The other 20% comes from ignored sources, including emission from the 1350 active volcanoes, forest fires, rubbish tips, and now burning biomass.

The current obsession with methane production from livestock is a soft target for activists combining climate with animal-rights activists; farmers and their tractor blockades are fighting back. Cows produce 250 to 500 litres of methane daily; from 1.5 billion animals this equates to 120 million metric tons daily. Should we obsess about this, then feeding 1% Asparagopsis sea-weed, is a natural and cheap solution, reducing output by 90%. We could also introduce the hard-working dung beetle; some species delight in rolling up dried dung and burying it, reducing its methane release, and sequestering its CO2 and nitrogen content in the soil.

Saving the planet

Those who wish to save the environment should concentrate on real destruction being caused by wind and solar farms, and transmission lines; in some states solar farms could be the biggest destroyers of natural vegetation. Massive environmental destruction is already occurring with Snowy hydro 2, windfarms are destroying birds as well as habitat; mining is necessary to manufacture renewables – this needs a 6-fold increase to provide materials demanded.

The main problem we face is not what we eat but how much. As capitalism has lifted vast numbers out of poverty, the obesity epidemic is increasing, leading to increased cancer, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and reducing life expectancy. Fatty meat is of value if calories are deficient, not if our diet has excess, with white meat being much lower in fat and calories than red. Attempts at limiting calorie intake by taxing sugar have failed, a similar approach in taxing meat is now being contemplated, and is doomed to similar failure.

As electricity demand increases, we are already facing the downside of shutting down fossil-fuelled generation and the lights going out. The latest project, saving the planet by becoming vegetarian, is like many other climate concepts, pure fantasy. The priority should be reducing population numbers, under 2 billion 100 years ago, now 8 billion and rising; at least in the Western world there is falling fertility, and the total may yet not reach the predicted 10 billion.

Humans produce an estimated 1 litre of gas daily; this output can double with a high-fibre, vegetarian diet, an extra 7 farts a day – who does this research? We all produce CO2 at the top end and methane at the bottom end, perhaps we also need to eat sea-weed? Perhaps our ultimate contribution could be, instead of being cremated and our CO2 escaping, we should return to tradition and be buried, recycling ourselves to increase soil carbon capture!

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Dr Graham Pinn, retired consultant physician. With acknowledgement to Charlie Peel, rural reporter at the Australian, for much information.