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Big Beef Is In Big Trouble – What You Should Know
The USDA and the US Department of Health & Human Services are updating their dietary guidelines, as they doevery 5 years. Big beef is having a cow over this.
But this time, as far Big Beef is concerned, something has gone terribly wrong.
It all started innocently enough, when the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans Committee decided to recommendthat the guidelines include, for the first time, sustainability in their recommendations. If the U.S. government did indeed recommend food that is good for both our health and the environment, the impact would be felt in schools and other government facilities across the country – and across our entire food system. It might also be good for the future of our planet.
Beef Livestock Production Not Sustainable
Why? Because livestock production, and most especially industrialized beef production, is responsible for 15% of global carbon emissions. Halve your meat intake, and you could cut your diet-driven carbon footprint by more than 35 percent. Go vegan, and the difference could be 60%.
In drought-ravaged California, water is part of any sustainability equation. And here again, the livestock industry is not happy with the data. A quarter of the state’s entire water budget is used to produce meat and dairy. Stunningly, California’s livestock industry uses more water than all the homes, businesses and government in the state combined. And even with all that water, California still imports most of the meat consumed in the state.
One thing California exports is Alfalfa. And alfalfa is a thirsty crop. California, it turns out, exports more than 100 billion gallons of water per year in the form of alfalfa to countries like China, who use it for livestock feed. How much sense does it make, in a state that is facing a devastating water crisis, to in effect ship away more than three times enough water to meet the needs of every household in the city of San Francisco, so China can eat more beef?
Want to conserve water? Since it takes 1,799 gallons of water to produce a single pound of grain-fed beef, it is apparent even to the meat industry that, if you want to save water, reducing industrialized beef consumption could be the most powerful single step you can take.
Be AWARE truthisscary.com
Source: http://truthisscary.com/2015/04/big-beef-is-in-big-trouble-what-you-should-know/
