This is a video about how much beef is raised and consumed / eaten in America, and the impacts of that on the environment and human health.
NB. I don’t own the rights to this video.
TRANSCRIPT
The Hidden Costs of Hamburgers
Carrie Ching, Sarah Terry-Choo, Arthur Jones
It’s time to confront a major threat to our global environment: cows
Yep, turns out that worldwide, livestock are a major contributor to greenhouse gas pollution, right up there with cars, planes and trains
And at the rate we’re producing beef worldwide emissions from cows, along with other harmful practices in beef production, threaten to mess up our climate land and water … big time
On average America eat three times more meat than people in other countries
From the end of World War II to the mid-1970s, beef consumption per person doubled
The US is now the largest beef producer in the world
Our beef industry is a powerhouse worth 74 billion dollars a year and providing millions of jobs
Today more and more Americans are choosing chicken and pork, even tofu but much of the meat we eat is still beef
Let’s look at an all-American food; the hamburger
On average we eat about three burgers per week
So let’s see, if all 313 million (three hundred and thirteen million) American eat three burgers per week that’s 156 burgers per person per year
Altogether that’s more than 48 billion burgers every year
A quarter-pounder at a fast food joint costs about three or four bucks – that’s pretty cheap
But what we don’t pay for at the counter we end up paying for in other ways
What are the hidden costs?
First of all, cows take up a lot of space
Worldwide, livestock use 30% of the Earth’s entire land area
That’s counting pastures and land used to grow grain for feed
We use about 8x (eight times) as much land for feeding animals as for feeding humans and in places like Brazil, acres of forest are still being cleared for livestock, which creates pollution and also removes a perfect sponge for absorbing carbon dioxide
And did someone mention water?
It takes about 1800 (eighteen hundred) gallons of water to make a single pound of grain-fed beef
That’s about 4x (four times) the amount for chicken and more than ten times the amount for a pound of wheat
Why does it take so much land and water to feed cows?
Well, for one thing cows eat a lot
During the first six months a calf eats and eats and eats
When it’s about 700 pounds it’s sold at auction usually to a feedlot, which is like a very crowded cow city
At most feed lot, the cow continues to eat, and eat and eat
At most feed lots, cows eat a mixture of soy and corn
This whole feed system is pretty new
Before the 1970s cows ate mostly grass
Then congress passed a farm bill that changed everything
The government started paying farmers to grow feed crops like corn and soy and also helped pay for more fertilizer
So, voila, now corn is in everything from sodas to cereal and most of the country’s 90 million cows now get corn for breakfast, lunch and dinner
Unfortunately, cows are built to digest grass
Corn makes cows bloat with gas, and cows make a lot of gas – this is no joke
See cows are ruminants meaning they create methane gas when they digest food – chickens and pigs don’t
Methane has 21x (twenty-one times) more climate changing power than CO2 (see-oh-two)
In America, cows produce more greenhouse gas than 22 million cars per year
America’s cows create about 500 million tonnes of manure in a year
That’s 3x (three times) as much as we humans do
Cow manure also produces nitrous oxide, which has 300x (three hundred times) the global warming effect of CO2
Cow manure is responsible for 2/3rds (two thirds) of all the nitrous oxide pollution in the world
There is another source of nitrous oxide in a cow’s life cycle; fertilizer
We Americans use about 17 billion pounds of nitrogen fertilizer to grow feed for our cows
When run-off from fertilizer and manure flow into rivers and then to the ocean
They create huge algae blooms which suck the oxygen out of the water and leave dead zones, where no life can survive
Anyway, back to the feed lot
Once the cows are fattened up, they head to the slaughter house
Slaughter houses create about 30 million pounds of contaminants a year, mainly nitrates and ammonia, used to disinfect meat
From the slaughter house the beef is shipped to big processing centres where California beef is mixed with Texas beef and Colorado beef
One burger patty can contain the DNA of more than 1000 (a thousand) cows
That means a single case of E coli could easily spread to thousands of burgers
Trucking all that beef around creates pollution too
This isn’t an exact science
And the numbers vary depending on how the cows were raised
But a single quarter pounder clocks in at about 6 ½ (six and a half) pounds of greenhouse gases
That might not sound like much
But with Americans eating three burgers per week
That is more than 158 (a hundred and fifty-eight) million tons of greenhouse gases per year
About the same amount as 34 (thirty four) coal-fired power plants
It’s not the cows’ fault, it’s the system we’ve created to mass produce beef – that is the problem
Too many burgers take a toll on the environment — they can take a toll on your body, too
This is the recommended daily diet and this is how most Americans actually eat
We eat too much meat, grains, fat and sugar and not enough fruits and vegetables
Many studies show that eating too much red meat can lead to heart disease, high blood pressure and even diabetes
The hidden costs add up
One research group figured the cost just in greenhouse gases, water for growing cattle feed and health care at about $1.51 (a dollar fifty-one) for every burger
Multiply that by the 48 million burgers Americans eat every year and that is more than 72 billion dollars
We don’t pay for it at the store or at the fast food joint but we pay for it in other ways
So what can we do?
Well, we don’t have to give up meat to change our impact
Cutting out just one burger per week would remove as much greenhouse gas pollution as taking your car off the road for 350 (three hundred and fifty) miles
If all Americans ate no meat or cheese one day a week, it would have the same climate change prevention effect as taking 7.6 million cars off the road for one year
And while it’s more expensive, grass fed beef does less damage to the environment
Even the smallest choices make a big difference; to the environment, to our neighbours, to our health
In the US people are starting to eat less meat but the rest of the world is eating more
Just imagine – what if all 1.3 billion people in China ate three burgers a week, like we do
Could our planet keep up?