A report by the United Nations recommends reducing or eliminating the amount of meat people eat in order to help preserve the climate. Cattle are considered particularly bad because of the amount of methane in their belches, and methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The UN Environment Programme states that methane has a Global Warming Potential more than 80 times greater than that of carbon dioxide (CO2) during the 20 years after it is released into the atmosphere.
But to pin the blame for climate change on cattle is dubious. Methane is the primary component of natural gas and is estimated to be responsible for about 25 percent of the global warming being seen today. Natural gas is used widely for heating, cooking, and industrial production. It leaks from uncapped oil wells, landfills, and from permafrost that is melting because of the warming climate.
The environmental implications of eating beef depend on how the cattle are raised and many other factors, local rancher and retired teacher Katy Turnbaugh said.
“I think whether or not you put cows in a bad or positive light environmentally depends on how they are raised, the breed, how they are processed and how far the meat is transported,” Turnbaugh said. “If they are raised in a location that otherwise would not be used for more conventional agriculture, they can be beneficial. A well-managed grassland sequesters more carbon even than trees. People who have studied this carefully have concluded animals like buffalo or cattle on grasslands can help sequester a tremendous amount of carbon.”
Also, the food needs of people need to be taken into consideration. Carroll County is one of the top cattle grazing counties in the state. Without pastures, mostly what would be growing would be brambles and trees.
“People may get some nutrition from brambles, but not necessarily the trees, especially those growing in an unmanaged state,” Turnbaugh said. “What it comes down to is if you don’t transport the animal long distances, don’t ever put it in a feedlot, and sell it locally so you don’t have a hydrocarbon expense for transportation, that animal can actually offset its belches and everything else, and you have produced a lot of quality food for people. We think we can just resort to soybeans and things of that nature. But manufactured meat grown from soybeans and other grains doesn’t have the same nutrient content as grass-fed beef.”
It used to be considered OK to primarily eat processed food, but now that is proven to be a contributor to obesity. Fake meats are highly processed.
“All in all, I feel like a well-managed ranch that raises beef in an environmental and sustainable manner is one of the best things we can do,” Turnbaugh said. “Do I think people need to eat less of it? Yes. We get what we need from four ounces, which is about the size of a pack of playing cards. We tend to overeat beef.
“The other thing is the beneficial Omega fatty acid profile in grass-fed beef rivals that of salmon, especially when you are talking about genetically modified salmon that are being farmed, which are displacing the wild salmon. And when we say we are not going to eat beef, are the consequences of that to strip more desert land and irrigate it to produce more grain crops? What people are doing in South America, burning down the rainforest to raise beef, I am opposed to that. Raising cattle the right way on grass close to where the beef is consumed in the U.S. is a good idea.”
She sees some hypocrisy when people will shun beef for fake meats, then turn around and burn hydrocarbons in their SUV and throw large amounts of trash into landfills that produce a lot of methane. “I don’t know that garbage is as beneficial to humans as highly nutritional beef,” Turnbaugh said. “You have all the inert oil wells that haven’t been capped to prevent methane emission. Going after cattle when you have these other things producing a large amount of methane is ironic.”
The saliva in a cow’s mouth has an enzyme that stimulates grass growth which then sequesters more carbon. Raised properly, cattle will mitigate a lot of their emissions.
“The grass will grow faster with an animal on it,” she said. “It is not the trees. It is the grass. That is what is going to save us. Even if we do everything we should to reduce fossil fuel usage, we still need agriculture to sequester the balance of carbon needed to preserve the climate. You are carrying manure down below ground to feed the dung beetles and enzymes. Think about the circle of life. Are you helping the circle? That is where we need to go with beef with a balanced perspective and practice.”
Turnbaugh is not in favor of meat purchased in the grocery store in Styrofoam trays with plastic over it. She considers that an unbalanced system.
“When I was a kid, people would have a freezer,” she said. “People would buy local beef and pork wrapped in butcher paper and it was there when needed. They weren’t always driving to the grocery store. Even people who were not wealthy did it that way, and saved money.”
Dr. Allen Williams, a founding partner of Understanding Ag LLC and the Soil Health Academy, works with grass-fed producers across the world. Williams is critical of research that pins major blame for climate change on cows. He said every bit of the research was based on theoretical models that made the wrong assumptions.
“If you have the wrong data going in, you are going to be making erroneous assumptions from erroneous data,” Williams said. “We have had hundreds of millions of wild ruminants roaming the face of Earth for millennia. Every ruminant, domestic or wild, processes vegetation the same way, by burping methane. We had more ruminants in the past on Earth than we have now. If ruminants eating plants and methane produced from them destroyed the planet, we started that process eons ago. That makes no sense. The same people who want to get rid of cows would recoil in horror if we said we need to go slaughter all the wild ruminants like buffalo, giraffes, camels and deer in the world to solve this problem. Why do that?”
He contends animal grazing done properly is the solution, not the problem.
“We need to do regenerative farming or grazing because the proof is very strong that this is completely rebuilding broken ecosystems,” Williams, who is based in Mississippi, said. “Many species out there can’t exist in the absence of grazing animals. Get rid of those, and you harm numerous other species including many migratory and ground nesting bird species. Get rid of grazing animals, and plant diversity declines. Grazing fosters greater plant species diversity and we need that related to soil health, ecosystem health and bird population health.”
Williams’ consulting group has done work with Duke University studying the nutritional analysis of grass-fed beef compared to plant-based protein. They have been looking at more than 2,000 different nutritional components of food.
“It goes far, far deeper than the typical nutritional panel on the back of a food product that really just gives us calories, fat, protein and carbs,” he said. “That is poor in terms of telling consumers the true nutritional value of food. It is almost meaningless. We compared grass-fed ground beef to a couple of the most well-known fake meats.
“We compared the nutrient density between the two. There are issues with fake meats, which are highly processed food. They are not just a little unhealthy for you, but grossly unhealthy. The ingredient list reads like chemistry set. The number one ingredient is water, so you are paying more for water than anything else. These products contain a lot of anti-nutrients – compounds in food that will tie up and bind other nutrients so they aren’t available.”
Most consumers don’t realize that many plant-based proteins are made from genetically modified soy and peas that are grown in the U.S., shipped to China, manufactured, then shipped back to the U.S.
“I thought plant-based proteins were supposed to reduce the carbon footprint, but all the shipping increases carbon footprint,” Williams said. “Many fake meats are loaded with genetically modified products and glyphosate residue. They have high levels of Omega 6 fatty acids compared to Omega 3. We already get too many Omega 6s in our diet. If you want to eat vegan, that is a personal choice, but eat whole, healthy foods. Eat whole beans and whole peas instead of a highly processed manufactured food that is not good for you.”