Is Meat Killing Us?

The relationship between Overconsumption of Meat and Environmental Degradation

Finally, after a long time, I am back writing about what interests me the most: the relation between our individual consumption, and the consequences for the society as a whole.

I want to share with you a conference held by Mark Bittman in May 2008 posted on TED (www.ted.com). TED is an amazing private not profit foundation that has the goal of sharing outstanding ideas by extraordinary people. The idea behind this project is the belief that all the world needs in order to change is people with strong ideas.

TED is a free online platform that makes available more than 900 conferences. As of mid 2010, these conferences were viewed more than 50 million times. I invite everybody to visit this website and to explore it. I am sure most of you will find a talk that will captivate and inspire you. You will have the option to choose subtitles in up to 28 languages.

Now, let’s talk about Mark Bittman. Mark is a journalist and a food writer. He has published several books about food. His last book “Food Matters” explores the link between overconsumption of meat as well as fast food, and environmental degradation.

Ok, let us now come to the core of this post. In his talk (to access it click here). Bittman presents to the audience several arguments that will make most of the viewers reconsider its meat consumption. These go from the emission of greenhouse gases, to antibiotics, and deforestation. Here are some facts: Livestock is, after energy production, the second largest contributor (18%) to the increase of potent greenhouse gases. He also points out that half of the antibiotics administered in the USA are not given to people, but to animals.

One of the most predominant issues is that whereas the world population has “only” doubled in the last 60 years or so, the consumption of meat increased fivefold.

Bittman also makes the American government responsible for people’s bad eating habits as the consequence of the overproduction of meat, soy and corn.

What Bittman wants to achieve with his talk is to make people aware of the negative consequences of their consumption of meat. He is not directly an advocate of strict vegetarianism. All he says is that people should eat less meat, and more plants. He himself is not a vegetarian.

I invite all of you to think about how much of the meat you eat is actually necessary. Maybe, some of you could occasionally do without it. I’m pretty sure you can. All you have to do is give it a try. I am keeping my fingers crossed.