How to Be a Conscious Eater

24

THE CONSCIOUS CARNIVORE:

FIRST, LESS. THEN, BETTER.

W

hen cattle, goats, and sheep burp, fart, and poop, they

emit methane and nitrous oxide. Methane is roughly

30 times more earth warming than carbon dioxide.

Nitrous oxide is roughly 290 times more potent than carbon

dioxide. Water use is sky-high for livestock, as is land use for

not just raising animals but growing their feed, edging out land

to grow other crops that are often more nutritious and could

be eaten directly. Not to mention cutting down forests (which

store carbon) to make way for more pastureland. This activity

currently occupies an area the size of both North and South

America combined. All together, the whole operation of feeding,

raising, slaughtering, and transporting livestock accounts for

more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transportation

sector—every plane, train, and automobile combined. These

are some of the reasons why we should eat less meat. And less

red meat in particular.

But there’s more. Those who work in the industrial live-

stock industry or live nearby are exposed to toxic gases—from

ammonia to hydrogen sulfide—released from the waste of fac-

tory farms. The human health effects range from the direct

impacts—children raised near these “farms,” more appropri-

ately dubbed confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, are

more likely to develop asthma, for example—to the indirect cli-

mate change impact these farms incur: extreme weather events

and flooding ➔ contaminated water and the spread of disease

➔ disproportionate health burden on low-income families.

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