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I was reading an EPA report that states beef cattle is the biggest contributor of methane and CO2, and CH4 (whatever that is) than anything else in the agricultural industry with the dairy industry being second.
I picked this up from the United Nations News Centre:
29 November 2006 – "Cattle-rearing generates more global warming greenhouse gases, as measured in CO2 equivalent, than transportation, and smarter production methods, including improved animal diets to reduce enteric fermentation and consequent methane emissions, are urgently needed, according to a new United Nations report released today.
“Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems,” senior UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) official Henning Steinfeld said. “Urgent action is required to remedy the situation.”
Cattle-rearing is also a major source of land and water degradation, according to the FAO report, Livestock’s Long Shadow–Environmental Issues and Options, of which Mr. Steinfeld is the senior author.
“The environmental costs per unit of livestock production must be cut by one half, just to avoid the level of damage worsening beyond its present level,” it warns.
When emissions from land use and land use change are included, the livestock sector accounts for 9 per cent of CO2 deriving from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 per cent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure.
And it accounts for respectively 37 per cent of all human-induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 per cent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain.
With increased prosperity, people are consuming more meat and dairy products every year, the report notes. Global meat production is projected to more than double from 229 million tonnes in 1999/2001 to 465 million tonnes in 2050, while milk output is set to climb from 580 to 1043 million tonnes.
The global livestock sector is growing faster than any other agricultural sub-sector. It provides livelihoods to about 1.3 billion people and contributes about 40 per cent to global agricultural output. For many poor farmers in developing countries livestock are also a source of renewable energy for draft and an essential source of organic fertilizer for their crops.
Livestock now use 30 per cent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 per cent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes. As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 per cent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.
At the same time herds cause wide-scale land degradation, with about 20 per cent of pastures considered degraded through overgrazing, compaction and erosion. This figure is even higher in the drylands where inappropriate policies and inadequate livestock management contribute to advancing desertification.
The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earth’s increasingly scarce water resources, contributing among other things to water pollution from animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and the pesticides used to spray feed crops.
Beyond improving animal diets, proposed remedies to the multiple problems include soil conservation methods together with controlled livestock exclusion from sensitive areas; setting up biogas plant initiatives to recycle manure; improving efficiency of irrigation systems; and introducing full-cost pricing for water together with taxes to discourage large-scale livestock concentration close to cities."
India is predominantly, isn't it? (More googling . . . )
Yeap and someone mentioned once about how old and prematurely aged they look by age 60 as they stated it was do to all the Glycation in their bodies from all the high amounts of carbs and blood sugars. Also stated that there is no super longevity in India like Japan (Soy and Fish) or Sardinia (Veal and Milk).
Yeah, but here in the USA, where vegetarians have access to better quality food, the opposite is true. Vegetarians generally look and act much younger than their meat eating contemporaries. If you ever make it up to Grand Junction, I invite you to join me for a workout at the gym. Even thouh you are about 15 years younger than me ( I'm 59 ), and you've got at least a 30 lb weight advantage ( my weight is 165 ), we'll both use the weights and reps ( if you can do them all ) that little old me uses and we'll go at my pace. I'll be surprised if you can keep up with me. I'm basing this on my observations from my gym. Most guys half my age with more muscle mass than me couldn't do my workout ( same weights, same reps, same pace ).
Last edited by CosmicWizard; 04-26-2008 at 07:51 AM..
Yeah, but here in the USA, where vegetarians have access to better quality food, the opposite is true. Vegetarians generally look and act much younger than their meat eating contemporaries. If you ever make it up to Grand Junction, I invite you to join me for a workout at the gym. Even thouh you are about 15 years younger than me ( I'm 59 ), and you've got at least a 30 lb weight advantage ( my weight is 165 ), we'll both use the weights and reps ( if you can do them all ) that little old me uses and we'll go at my pace. I'll be surprised if you can keep up with me. I'm basing this on my observations from my gym. Most guys half my age with more muscle mass than me couldn't do my workout ( same weights, same reps, same pace ).
lol....i appreciate the invite and if i ever make it up to Colorado it's a deal. Besides it would be great to meet you anyway dude even if i wasn't at the gym. Talking about outworking the youngers look at my hero Jack LaLane who at 94? now as he averages 2 hours a day working out at 6 days a week and says he can do 500 pushups as he's got me beat there.....
mommabear, thanks for the United Nations clue. Now I can go look up the study and see how it was conducted and whether or not it was written with an agenda (you'd be surprised how often that happens, even when the designer of the study is trying to avoid bias).
Vegetarians generally look and act much younger than their meat eating contemporaries.
Interesting theory. My personal observations don't bear that out, however, but I guess it all depends on what you mean by "healthy" and "younger".
My mother was a great meat eater. She also had cholesterol that they got down to 300 with a strict 10% or lower fat diet AND medication, when she was older. She died at 80, of complications of a broken hip she got when she fell running from the shower to the phone because she thought it was her boyfriend calling.
I'm constantly told that I look considerably younger than my advanced years - my sister, well into her 40's, was constantly mistaken for a teenager (haven't asked her lately - she's 70 now and still squaredancing competitively and looks, oh, maybe 50 on a bad day). Good genes, in spite of our omnivorous proclivities.
These are just the most personal of a wide range of observation over many decades. But they are, of course, anecdotal.
Again, when I tried a very well regulated vegetarian diet, it made me sickly. It's all individual.
I frequently wonder just what it is about people (and, unfortunately, particularly vegetarians) that makes them so uncertain about the validity of their choices that they insist that everyone else must make the same choices in order to bolster that validity. If vegetarianism works for you, more power to you. It doesn't work for me - why is it so important that you (generic you) prove that it is the best choice for everyone? Why isn't it enough that everyone find what works best for them and eat accordingly?
I frequently wonder just what it is about people (and, unfortunately, particularly vegetarians) that makes them so uncertain about the validity of their choices that they insist that everyone else must make the same choices in order to bolster that validity. If vegetarianism works for you, more power to you. It doesn't work for me - why is it so important that you (generic you) prove that it is the best choice for everyone? Why isn't it enough that everyone find what works best for them and eat accordingly?
Thankfully I am one of those vegetarians who doesn't need any validation regarding my choices and I don't impose my beliefs on others. I've been a vegetarian for well over 20 years (I'm only in my late 30s) and it works for me and I'm happy. The only issue I have with meat (I'm not getting into the farming arena) is the amount that the majority of people consume. It's staggering and obviously isn't healthy.
I know more about Dairy Cows than beef producers. However, I was curious why Grass Fed is more humane for the animal? How do you store all that grass in the feed barn during the winter?
Hay and silage, but not in the barn. We kept it under cover but usually not inside.
For anyone looking for locally grown food, you might be able to connect with local farmers through Local Harvest.
She is absolutely beautiful and has been on Oprah and PBS Specials and on Womens Magazine Covers and has alot of Hollywood Stars as clients and guess what .........she is an high meat and high fat eater. I'll posted a link where she shows herself at around 20 y/o and was eating 7 different types of grains a day and on a low fat diet and now her current photo of her at 45 and she looks younger now then at 20. She swears that meat and fat and vege's (no fruit) has saved her and transformed her beauti. She uses very little makeup as she likes the natural look.
Here's the link and scroll down to see her at 20 and at 45 and which looks more beautiful.... Meet Kat James
Thankfully I am one of those vegetarians who doesn't need any validation regarding my choices and I don't impose my beliefs on others.
That's the key....just follow the golden rule
The vegetarians who tun into meat Nazis, IMHO, aren't much different than some alcoholics, religious fanatics, ex-smokers, etc. They are people who want to dictate every aspect of others lives and tell them how to live. This thread is a fairly decent illustration of how people WILL demonize behaviors that they disapprove of.
I'm constantly told that I look considerably younger than my advanced years - my sister, well into her 40's, was constantly mistaken for a teenager (haven't asked her lately - she's 70 now and still squaredancing competitively and looks, oh, maybe 50 on a bad day). Good genes, in spite of our omnivorous proclivities.
These are just the most personal of a wide range of observation over many decades. But they are, of course, anecdotal.
Again, when I tried a very well regulated vegetarian diet, it made me sickly. It's all individual.
I frequently wonder just what it is about people (and, unfortunately, particularly vegetarians) that makes them so uncertain about the validity of their choices that they insist that everyone else must make the same choices in order to bolster that validity. If vegetarianism works for you, more power to you. It doesn't work for me - why is it so important that you (generic you) prove that it is the best choice for everyone? Why isn't it enough that everyone find what works best for them and eat accordingly?
My grandmother was a life long meat eater too, though she ate rather lightly. She and her sister a few years her junior tended their own backyard garden and mowed their own samll yard with a push mower when they were in their 90's. So, I guess that my youthfulness and good health it at least partly attributed to my genetic makeup and not totally from my vegetarian lifestyle.
While I strongly encourage everyone to eat a vegetarian diet or at least eat much less meat, I've not pushed it on anyone for the past 25 years. ( I did enough of that during my first 10 yrs of vegetarianism to last me a lifetime. Boy did I alienate alot of people! ). I might rile a few people by pointing out to meat eaters, that their choice to do so involves the murdering of animals. Some people can't handle the blunt truth of that, so they think that I'm pushing vegetarianism on them becasue I bring that fact to light. Eating less meat means fewer animals would need to be murdered for food consumption and there would be less violence on the planet. I truly believe that the planet would be a happier place if we stopped murdering animals to feed ourselves.
Last edited by CosmicWizard; 04-26-2008 at 02:42 PM..
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) that little old me uses and we'll go at my pace. I'll be surprised if you can keep up with me. 
