Is beef good or bad for you and the environment? You Decide!

While surfing around the web, I came across and interesting article in COSMO magazine regarding red meat consumption. Most humans’ diet is based around meat consumption, especially here in the U.S. According the USDA in 2011, the United States beef cattle industry had a retail equivalent value of $79 BILLIONS. Moreover the consumption of 25.6 BILLIONS pounds of beef, all in the same year. Livestock products provide one third of humanity’s protein intake.  This modern form of agriculture contributes to 18% of the global greenhouse emissions, as well as 8% of the total global water that is used for feeding and watering the cattle. As any business, the beef industry claims that meat provides good nutrients to the humans’ diet, such as: protein, iron, zinc, vitamins such as B-12, and omega-3 fatty acids. It might be true that meat is rich in these good nutrients; but veggies, grains and diary products also contain the nutrients previously mentioned and more. The National Health and Medical Research guidelines suggest that the necessary intake of meat a day should not exceed 100 grams. This is the equivalent to a really small portion. Currently people eat two or four times the amount recommended.

Vegetarians tend to be healthier than meat eaters, mainly because they have less risk of suffering from high cholesterol, heart disease, stroke, bowel cancer, type 2 diabetes, etc. Meat is not only bad for you, but to the environment as well. Beef requires more resources, because livestock’ animals need to be fed huge amounts of grains in order to be ready for slaughtering.  For instance, it takes 8 pounds of grains to produce one pound of beef. On the other hand, chicken and fish require less amount of resources. In my wellness class, my professor mentioned that the best and healthiest choices of protein are those with no feet at all. Making fish not just the healthier, but best protein substitute for meat. Fish only consume a pound and half of grain. The most sustainable choice of fish is those plant eating fish, such as: catfish, tilapia and trout. Also wild-caught salmon and Pollack from the Pacific Ocean contain high amounts of omega-3 and healthy antioxidants. My role here is not to change the way you eat, because in the end I LOVE MEAT too! But just make you ponder on what we consume daily and the impact that it’s causing in our environment. 

Read more about this in the following links:       http://nutrition.about.com/od/changeyourdiet/a/green_diet_tips.htm
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/features/online/2965/reducing-your-red-meat-footprint

http://www.ers.usda.gov/news/BSECoverage.htm