SUSTAINABLE FOOD PRODUCTION
Climate change isn’t something that will theoretically affect the way people live many generations into the future. These changes are occurring at a rate far faster than what was estimated just a few years ago and are already affecting the lives of many people today. Almost every year, with a few fluctuations, the world is setting new records for temperature. If we continue to careen down the track we are on, by 2100—well within the lifetime of the next generation—global warming will change the face of the world and the ability of many populations to survive.
One recent model predicts that current trends in temperature increases will cause sea levels to rise by six feet, possibly as soon as 2100, putting about one-third of Boston under water regularly.3 Even half of that rise in the sea level would have enormous consequences. We can build dikes in Boston, but low-lying regions such as Florida, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Senegal, and other coastal areas can’t do this for geological or financial reasons.
Climate change has already slowed the increase in food production, a worrisome trend that will only increase. The continued growth of the world’s population, meaning there will be more and more people to feed, will only further stress food production and the environment. Because fertility rates haven’t declined as rapidly as predicted, the United Nations now predicts that the world’s population will increase to 9.7 billion people by 2050.4
These trends have created the triple challenge of feeding more people a healthy diet in a sustainable way. That’s a tall order, especially when 1 billion people around the globe don’t get enough food to eat and the diets of billions more in developed countries don’t meet national dietary guidelines. Making more food using current agricultural practices will further degrade water and land quality and create even more greenhouse gases.
Although the challenges facing us are daunting, the Sustainable Development Goals recently released by the United Nations (https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs) describe a way forward. I served on one of the dozen committees (focusing on health) that contributed to the creation of these goals. One of the high-priority items on the agenda is the development of sustainable food systems that can feed additional billions of people. Although details of such food systems haven’t yet been proposed, a sustainable food system would be one that can maintain healthy bodies without degrading land and water resources and that reverses or eliminates greenhouse gas production.
The Paris agreement of 2015,5 which focused on climate change, provided some specifics about sustainable food production. To avoid calamity, by 2050 food systems should have a close to zero net impact on greenhouse gas production. There’s no single remedy for reining in greenhouse gas production by agriculture. One step will be limiting consumption of red meat, poultry, fish, and other food from animals, which generates far more greenhouse gases than does eating food from plants. Another step is limiting the use of fossil fuels in the production of food. Emphasizing local production of seasonal fruits and vegetables will also play a role.
That is far from the current trend of increasing production of greenhouse gases due to food production, and will be difficult to achieve as newly affluent countries like China increase their consumption of meat.
I now cochair the EAT-Lancet Commission,6 which was assembled to investigate connections between diet, human health, and the health of the planet. We were charged with providing details on how the world can sustainably feed its growing population. Many of the solutions are based on the healthy eating principles I have been talking about in this book. What we’ve learned so far is that we won’t be able to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals without large investments by all countries of the world in education, primary health care, clean energy, and agriculture, and with billions of small, individual investments in eating less meat and eating more sustainably produced grains, fruits, and vegetables.
CONTRIBUTE TO THE EFFORT
Although these urgent global issues can seem overwhelming, together we can make a difference. Our daily personal food choices collectively have important effects on the environment. These personal changes are the focus of this chapter. Fortunately, choices that benefit planetary health are well aligned with individual health and well-being.
Eat Less Red Meat and Dairy Foods
The single most important step you can take to limit your carbon footprint is to eat less red meat and dairy foods.
Feeding grain to cattle to make steaks and hamburgers instead of just eating that grain wastes a lot of energy. That inefficiency is less important when cattle graze on plants growing all by themselves on land that isn’t usable for much else, although these cattle still produce methane every hour of every day they are alive. More and more, though, we eat beef, pork, chicken, and fish that have been grown for us. They’ve been fed corn and other grains sowed and reaped specifically for this purpose, which require increasingly large amounts of petroleum, fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides to produce. The concentrated wastes from feedlots also pose substantial pollution problems. The antibiotics routinely fed to animals raised for food poses a different kind of health problem (see “Antibiotic Resistance: A New Dietary Hazard” on page 142).
While beef represents just 4 percent of the United States’ retail food supply, it accounts for 36 percent of all diet-related greenhouse gas emissions.7 Making a pound of lamb generates five times more greenhouse gases than making a pound of chicken and thirty times more than making a pound of lentils.8
One very persuasive number is the total environmental cost of producing protein. The Union of Concerned Scientists has calculated that one pound of beef creates seventeen times more water pollution and twenty times more habitat alteration than 1 pound of pasta.9
DIETARY GUIDELINES DROP THE BALL AGAIN
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The scientific panel chosen to advise the federal government for the 2015–2020 update of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommended that Americans should eat diets that require fewer resources to produce—and specifically recommended eating less red meat for both human and planetary health, exactly what I recommend in this book.10 That statement was immediately criticized by the North American Meat Institute and other organizations, which claimed that the advisory panel had gone beyond “its scope and expertise,” despite the fact that the advisory panel and its consultants included experts on the environmental impacts of diet. The powerful lobbyists for the meat industry led Congress to insert language into the final 2015 appropriations bill that made it unlawful to mention the environmental effects of dietary choices in the national Dietary Guidelines. This not only censored the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, it prevented Americans from getting the best possible dietary advice.
With their hands tied by the language in the appropriations bill, the heads of the USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services, the two agencies that create the final Dietary Guidelines, announced that “we do not believe that the 2015 DGAs are the appropriate vehicle for this important policy conversation about sustainability.”11 Sadly, they offered no alternative “vehicle” for this essential discussion.
The final Dietary Guidelines for 2015–2020 made no mention of limiting red meat and actually encouraged its consumption as long as it was lean.12
If you are interested in the uncensored science, read the report of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee—which comes very close to the recommendations in this book—instead of the final Dietary Guidelines. An updated review on the environmental effects of dietary choices, written by members of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee after they were discharged from their official role, was eventually published.
This is one of many ways the Dietary Guidelines are out of step with the science and the policy of healthy eating (see chapter two).
Some argue that consuming grass-fed beef instead of feedlot beef is one way to reduce the environmental impact of eating beef. It isn’t that simple (see Grass-Fed Beef or “Regular”? on page 248). If we
collectively stopped feeding grain to beef cattle, the result would be far lower beef production, much less land use for grain production, less water use and contamination, and less antibiotic resistance. That’s a multiple win solution. I cover the direct health effects of grass-fed versus grain-fed beef in chapter seven.
For individual and planetary health, we should be rethinking the role of beef in our diets entirely. If you like beef, think of it as an occasional splurge instead of a daily food—the way most of us think of lobster. Many people, out of interest for their health or the environment or both, are taking meat off the list of foods they eat, even if they aren’t becoming vegetarians. Beef consumption has been in decline for almost 50 years, and a 2017 USDA report indicated that Americans are now eating about 12 percent less beef than we were in 2002.13 As someone who grew up in the Midwest consuming beef twice a day, I’ve made this shift and my diet is much more varied—and enjoyable—than what I ate then.
Dairy foods also have a large environmental footprint, though not as much as beef. Pork has less, and poultry even less, but not quite as low as most vegetable sources of protein such as soybeans or lentils.
Fish, shrimp, and oysters can be extremely efficient converters of feed to flesh, in part because they are cold-blooded and don’t need to burn calories to stay warm. Like other forms of agriculture, aquaculture can be done carefully, with minimal impact on the environment, or it can be done poorly, using industrially farmed grain, releasing highly polluting fish waste into the environment, and using large amounts of antibiotics. This type of food production deserves investment and monitoring to optimize production methods, because it can be an important sustainable source of protein in the future. The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program (www.seafoodwatch.org) helps consumers and businesses choose seafood that’s fished or farmed in ways that have less impact on the environment.
“Urban Local Agriculture”
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Rural farms aren’t the only places to grow food. More and more city dwellers and suburbanites are growing vegetables, fruits, beans, and other foods in their backyards, on balconies and rooftops, in community gardens, and in other open spaces.
Some entrepreneurs see urban farms as a business opportunity. Using hydroponics and other technologies that optimize temperature, light, moisture, and fertilizer, these “farms” produce food efficiently. A company called Gotham Greens has built and operates rooftop greenhouses in New York and Chicago. They use recirculating irrigation systems to grow leafy vegetables year-round for use in local restaurants and for sale in grocery stores. A Boston-based company, Freight Farms, recycles refrigerated shipping containers into high-tech food-growing pods that can be installed almost anywhere. The company says that an average Freight Farms box can produce nearly 50,000 mini-heads of lettuce a year, which is the equivalent of two acres of farmland. Some are parked a few feet behind the restaurants that own or rent them, ensuring a very short trip from farm to table!
This concept isn’t really new. In the 1800s, Boston had a system in which horse manure, a by-product of transportation, was scooped from the streets and delivered to solar flats outside the city. There it was used to fertilize lettuce and greens during the cold months. This was the origin of Boston Bibb lettuce.
A vegetarian or vegan diet will, in general, have a lower environmental impact, although it depends on how the food is grown, transported, and processed. Eating out-of-season fruits and vegetables that are grown far across the country or overseas has a substantially greater environmental impact than eating regionally produced seasonal fruits and vegetables. Research is under way around the country to find ways to better produce local fruits and vegetables year-round.
Buy Local and Seasonal Food or Sustainably Raised Food
It makes sense to buy foods with the fewest steps from farm to plate, because processing, packaging, and transporting foods add to their carbon footprint. However, there are many exceptions. How your diet affects the environment is usually determined more by the foods you choose (for example, beef versus chicken or soy) than the effects of processing and transportation. For example, per unit of food, greenhouse gas emissions may be less for transporting carloads of fruit from Florida to Boston by train than moving a small amount by pickup truck from the western part of the state to a farmers’ market. The idea of “food miles” by itself isn’t a reliable indicator of environmental impact. In fact, there is no single, simple yardstick.
But combining the concept of local and seasonal may help. Flying perishable fruits across the continent so we can eat them year-round doesn’t make sense. Of course there are other values that do, and should, affect our decisions, such as the quality of food and support for local communities and farmers. For example, limiting your tomato consumption to the season when they can be produced without long-distance shipping—and with more flavor—will add to your eating enjoyment and have environmental benefits.
Watch your waste
Americans throw away as much as 25 percent of the food they buy.14 On one level, that’s a huge waste of money and a lot of garbage to be buried in landfills, which emit tons of methane into the atmosphere. On another level, it’s a huge waste of water, fossil fuel, pesticides and herbicides, packaging, and transportation.
Grass-Fed Beef or “Regular”?
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Before the dawn of industrial agriculture, family farms often raised a few cows for milk and meat. These animals would graze on whatever they could, supplemented with some hay or oats if needed. Today the vast majority of our steaks, burgers, and other cuts of beef come from animals raised in large feed lots eating corn, soy, or other grains raised specifically for them.
Is so-called grass-fed beef better for you and the planet than feedlot beef? It’s a hotly debated topic.
When it comes to human health, there’s no evidence. No study has directly compared the effects of grass-fed beef and feedlot beef on heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and other outcomes.
Some grass-fed beef proponents say that cows grazing on their own yield more healthful meat that is leaner and health promoting, because it has higher amounts of omega-3 fats. But the amounts of omega-3 fats in beef are small—especially compared to those in fish—and they come with a large amount of saturated fat, cholesterol, and other nutrients that contribute to higher risk of heart disease. In addition, it’s still unknown if the fats in beef are fully responsible for the increased risks of diabetes and heart disease linked to eating red meat. My bottom line is that grass-fed beef is probably not importantly different for your personal health than feedlot beef.
And although the concept of grass-fed beef sounds more environmentally friendly, especially with regard to greenhouse gas production, it really isn’t. The environmental impact of feeding a cow or bull grain on a daily basis is definitely larger for feedlot beef than grass-fed beef. But it takes only about two years for a feedlot cow to come to market, compared to about four years for a grass-fed cow. Every day these animals are alive they are producing large amounts of methane and carbon dioxide. So the grass-fed cow produces about the same amount of greenhouse gases over its lifetime as the feedlot cow. Pound for pound, the impact on greenhouse gas production of raising grass-fed and feedlot beef is about the same.
That said, feeding grain to cattle is a hugely inefficient way of producing food, and it has major environmental impacts. Stopping this practice is one of the most important steps we can take to reduce those environmental impacts of our diets. This will also likely reduce problems of antibiotic resistance (see page 142), because huge amounts are used to deal with the unsanitary conditions and crowding in feedlots.
Eating less beef and other red meat and more poultry, fish, and plant sources of protein would lead to healthier people and a healthier planet.
PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE
Eating a diet that is largely plant based won’t put an end to global warming. But it could help feed the world as we search for new and better ways to prod
uce food and improve the health of the planet.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
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Putting It All Together
AS I HAVE LAID OUT in the preceding chapters, much of the nutrition advice we commonly hear is steering us in the wrong direction. The low-fat, high-carbohydrate approach promoted for years has been a national disaster. The high-fat, low-carb approach once known as the Atkins diet correctly identified high consumption of refined carbohydrates as a problem, but loading up with red meat and dairy fat is far from healthy. Today’s gluten-free fad isn’t based on evidence and has led many people to eat in unhealthy ways.
The road to good health isn’t one of blandness and deprivation. Instead it’s paved with hearty, tasty, and satisfying foods. The Healthy Eating Pyramid and Healthy Eating Plate, both built with the best available nutrition science as a blueprint, can guide you to better health and a satisfying diet. They recommend:
• maintaining a stable, healthy weight
• eating plenty of vegetables and fruits
• consuming more unsaturated fats, less saturated fat, and no trans fat
• eating whole grains and foods made from them in place of refined grains
• choosing healthier sources of protein by trading red meat for nuts, beans, chicken, and fish
• drinking water, tea, or coffee instead of juice or sugar-sweetened soda and, if you drink alcohol, keeping it moderate (no more than two drinks a day for men or one a day for women)
Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy Page 32