Just How Bad IS Meat?

There is an increasing body of evidence that meat is bad.

Not just bad for your body, but possibly bad for the planet.

A study by the National Cancer Institute indicates those who ate even 4 oz. of red meat a day (which includes pork) had increased rates for some cancers up to 20%, and were in general more likely to die earlier. This wasn't one of those studies involving mice or with 2 1/2 participants. No, the NCI studied a half-million subjects over a decade. Scientists aren't sure why eating meat increases cancer risk, but point to things like possible carcinogens produced during cooking, or the high fat content of meat. Those in the study who ate chicken or fish were less likely to die.

The connection between meat consumption and heart disease has already been established, so the study has added more pressure on the meat industry.

Now it turns out meat production may be bad for the environment. For one thing, the amount of resources required to produce meat is huge. Not only do livestock raised for human consumption require lots of feed themselves (which "eats up" fertilizer and demands pest control measures), but they soak up medical resources, since confining large herds of them in industrial feed lots makes them more susceptible to disease. This doesn't take into account the residue of the antibiotics and hormones given to raise bigger, healthier, more-profitable livestock that ends up in our bodies when we eat industrial food farmed meat.

The other issue is the impact meat farming has on the planet in general and on global warming in particular. A 2006 United Nations report claimed that 18% of greenhouse gases could be attributed to meat and meat production. Now as you can well imagine, the meat industry doesn't think too much of these studies. When they're not fighting PETA, the animal rights crazies, they're trying to undercut scientists who have tried to argue that meat eating is just plain bad for you.

One mouthpiece for the meat industry is the Center for Consumer Freedom, a phantom "think tank" devoted to serving the interest of restaurants and food companies. They have focused their wrath on Dr. Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina, hardly a fly-by-night diploma mill. Dr. Popkin has written that meat production "in the United States accounts for 55% of the erosion process, 37% of pesticides applied, 50% of antibiotics consumed, and a third of total discharge of nitrogen and phosphorus to surface water." Nitrogen and phosphates in rivers, lakes and streams nourishes algae blooms which can suck the oxygen out of the water and kill off fish stocks.

It may surprise you to learn that China produces the greatest total volume of meat (28.5% of the annual global volume), but is outstripped by the U.S. per capita meat consumption (270 lbs./123 kg vs. 119 lbs/54 kg).

The CCF insists Dr. Popkin has stretched his research, and the good professor says the meat industry is obfuscating the situation with the same tactics the tobacco lobby employed in the past. In fact, some are calling the food industry dangerous in the same way that Big Tobacco once was.

I find that sort of hyperbole contributes not only to a hardening of opinion on both sides, but clouds that debate. The food business has some blame for the current problems associated with the American diet, including putting too many things in processed foods that don't belong there, among them salt and preservatives. But Americans have to take some measure of responsibility for what they eat and not expect those who enable their obesity, diabetes and heart disease to look out for their interests.