The phrase “I could eat a horse†has acquired a new meaning in Europe in recent weeks, where horse DNA has been found in “beef†products on supermarket shelves.
As my colleague Harvey Morris reported last week, the horsemeat scandal has already changed the buying habits of some consumers and is likely to change the way Europeans think about inexpensive meat for good.
Now the lead author on a scientific study on the environmental effects of food production suggests that eating a lot â€" the original meaning of the phrase â€" of meat severely harms the environment in ways we don’t usually think about.
Mark Sutton and colleagues found that the natural nitrogen and phosphorus cycles are seriously affected by fertilizers used in farming and that the imbalance is causing a wide array of environmental problems, from aquatic dead zones to ozone depletion. The findings were pubished this week in the United Nations-sponsored study, Our Nutrient World.
According to the scientists, 80 percent of nitrogen-fertilizer pollution can be attributed to meat production.
This news comes on top of well-publicized studies that found meat production uses 20 to 50 times more water than the production of vegetables.
According to Mr. Sutton, who is with the Natural Environment Research Council in Britain, consumers in rich Western nations eat too much meat and can reduce their environmental footprint by cutting back. Mr. Sutton is advocating consumers become demitarians â€" cutting their current meat consumption, whatever it is, in half.
“Eat meat, but less often â€" make it special,†Mr. Sutton told the press.
Join our sustainability conversation. Would you ever consider giving up or limiting your meat intake for the sake of the environment
