With meat consumption twice the global average, citizens of EU27 have to reconcile environmental concerns and culinary traditions
So we’re all terrible people for eating so much meat. Except of course the number itself is staged. The 500 million folk in Europe are – near totally all perhaps – in the top 20% of the global income distribution. Certainly all in the top 40%.
Meat – hell, protein – is a luxury good, in that more of our incomes goes on it as incomes rise.
So the actual statement is “rich folks have eating habits of rich folks” which isn’t, to be honest, all that much of a surprise.
But it is also clear that if there is to be any hope of reducing the impact of global heating, that consumption level will have to fall rapidly.
And there’s the petitio principii. That’s not something that is clear in the slightest. Oh, sure, it might be true, but it’s something that has to be proven to be true. Which no one has as yet.
Greenpeace estimates that it will need to drop by 70% by the end of the decade, and down to 300g by 2050. That translates (since not all the meat that leaves slaughterhouses ends up being either sold or eaten) to each European actually eating, per week, a quantity of meat equivalent to about two good-sized hamburgers.
And that is the purest bollocks.
So, pasture locks up carbon better than any other land use. Yep, better than forests. Because it keeps doing so, year after year, it doesn’t grow then become carbon neutral when mature.
How do you farm pasture to get it to do this? With animals. At which point Greenpeace can go badger feltching.
the European Commission suggests that despite clear and growing public awareness of the importance of sustainability, EU meat consumption per capita, left to its own devices, is likely to fall by little more than 3kg a year.
Government intervention, then, will be essential,
Didjaguess that this was going to lead to some cretin in an office somewhere being able to tell you what you may do?
Germany’s Greens have suffered in recent years from being seen as a Verbotspartei, intent on banning the joys of life. A 2013 “veggie day” initiative for meat-free days at state-subsidised canteens saw the tabloid Bild complain that “the Greens want to take our meat away”.
Instead, the environmental party has used its first weeks in power to initiate a less politically exposing campaign against junk meat sold for junk prices.
Weird, we’ve a word for “junk meat sold at junk prices” which is “sausage”. Germans might even have some local lingo equivalent of that word too.
When reading such propaganda, just replace “sustainabilty” with “stagnation” because that’s what it actually means.
Those advocating stagnation somehow imagine that a completely stagnant peasant economy will still be able to provide them an ever expanding cornucopia of goodies.
It’s a detachment from reality mindset my addled old brain just can’t get into.
Beware the Single Issue Fanatic. They have no sense of proportion or awareness of the messiness of the world.
Where is the comparison with other activities that generate ‘global warming’? Could people be given the choice of eating less meat or banning private jets and mega yachts? Banning polluting log burners? The production of newsprint paper?
It seems to me that *some* people find it too easy to ‘ban’ what other people enjoy. What and why are almost irrelevant.
If they try to sicc Plod onto meat-eaters then be ready to punch Plod’s faces flat enough to use as a rule and be ready to stop collaborating with scum courts. By passing “NG” verdicts like a computer.
Make it clear to political scum thinking to prosper by anti-meat BS that its not happening for them either.
Same with cars.
This time the mid-wit middle class Marxists don’t get what they want.
Perhaps the Greens could volunteer to substitute long pig for beef. But I bet they’d taste lousy.
Where is all the milk and cheese going to come from?
This is now the wurst of all possible worlds.
BitFR wins today!
Have just returned from Tavistock Farmers Market with the usual eighty quids worth of locally produced grass fed protein. Dinner is game casserole. It’s almost as if I have to compensate for the growing number of veggies in support of my farming neighbours by eating more than I used to.
300G/week. This is communist country levels of protein. Actually I think it is worse than what pre-1990 Eastern European nations promised their citizens (though possibly not much worse than what was actually delivered)
“A row over meat consumption in Spain over the last month”
I didn’t notice that. There was a bit of a heated discussion here last night about whether to go Argentinian, Brasilian or Colombian. Settled on the Brasilian churrasquería. A dozen different meats carved at the table. Pork, ham, bacon, chicken, chicken legs, various sausages, several different cuts of beef. Eat as much as you want. You ask, they’ll keep bringing it. There’s also salad stuff available, I think. Reckon we put away the European 1.5 kg weekly average meat consumption each.
We’re doing our bit, chaps.
BiS, there is a place in the town park in Catral, Spain that does a magnificent platter of assorted BBQ’d meats.
My favourite though is “Bolero” in Calgary. Meat on big skewers bbq’d then brought to your table. Wooden ‘traffic light’ thingy on the table. Green on top = keep it coming. Red on top = give us few minutes to empty our plates. Then turn it over to green again until not even a waffer thin mint will fit. Wonderful.
If God didn’t want us to eat meat he wouldn’t have made it taste so good.
Incidentally, I can recommend Medallin’s signature bandeja paisa. It’s a sort of wet dream of a Full English with added rice & yuca. Pork, ham & bacon. Steak. Sausages. Fried eggs. Beans. Extends across a very large plate. Can be quite challenging when you first encounter one.
@Addolff
There’s the same signal system in the churrasquería. Although the latinas tend to nick one off another table so we can be showing both green & red simultaneously.
Aranda de Duero up near Burgos is a must for lechera. Suckling lamb. For the intrepid, they serve a half. Only problem’s most of the restaurants do it close around eight. The locals don’t believe it’s wise to sleep on a full stomach. The town’s built over a labyrinth of interconnecting wine cellars. Sort of place one might pray to get lost in for several years.
It would be more bearable if we could use genetically modified crops and grow bananas on Ben Nevis.
Come to think of it, could we invent a genetically modified crop that yields bacon?
If I thought I could make it work there is a part of me that would up sticks and buy a 1000 acre ranch in the middle of Argentina and try not to fail at some level of self sufficiency.
A libertarian commune might be a nice thing to do.
bis,
I want you to take me on a grand tour of your favourite haunts when we are allowed out. It’s mouthwatering just reading your posts. I’m familiar with the high standards Barcelona sets, your neck of the woods sounds at least as good.
Germany’s Greens . . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauerkraut
So Greenpeace state that rich Europeans should only eat 60% of the amount of meat eaten in poorer countries, as a first step, and then improve to 40% of the amount that poorer countries eat!
Do they ever think?
A 10% reduction in the meat consumption could be a reasonable target but to reduce it to below that in poorer countries is obviously blatantly unreasonable.
Sometime someone should tell them that 70% of land used for agriculture world-wide is unsuitable for growing crops and switching to a vegan diet would require several billion people to starve to death, with most of the survivors suffering from vitamin deficiency diseases.
It’s all right if you avoid Spanish, BiG. What they do to vegetables is a major crime & then there’s the preference for yellow. Basically, we eat South & Central American with Eastern European for variety. Although I recently found a restaurant seems to be some sort of Turkish-Swedish fusion is interesting.
You’re welcome to come & sample the delights. The food’s not bad, either.
You’re considering buying a small garden in Argentina? That could have possibilities.
A libertarian commune might be a nice thing to do.
Everyone’s going to be free
But they’ll have to agree to be free
They’ll have to agree to be less free than me
‘Cause I rule the ranch, you see
(apologies to 10cc)
bis, I very much appreciate the invite, but have a hunch Mrs BiG may exercise her veto.
So, who is up for establishing a liberal commune in a small garden in Argentina?
I love meat.
While on business in the US, some pals and I went to some famous steak house in Dallas (Butchers Shop or something). The menu included 56 ounce steaks, which you could bbq yourself. A bit beyond me so I went for 16 oz – best I’ve ever eaten. Some South Africans went for 56 oz and ate the lot! And the fries too.
BiS, I’ve eaten churrasquería in Brazil. Amazing.
So best of luck to the anti meat brigade. The opposition could be as Mr Ecks describes.
To be fair to the greeniacs – not a policy should be recommended – a switch from animal to plant protein would, of itself, increase the sequestration of carbon. Ploughing creates more carbon rich soil than grazing on the same area of land. And it would require less land to produce an equivalent amount of protein.
But then there’s a problem. Ungrazed land doesn’t stay as grass. Grass is a plant can survive grazing because it grows from the bottom not the top. It’s evolved for that ecological niche. Without grazing other plants out-compete it. So ungrazed land would very rapidly become scrub or forest. Which doesn’t create carbon sequestering soils. So you get a brief carbon sequestration followed by a carbon neutral cycle where the carbon captured is balanced by the carbon emitted.
Of course you could just let animals graze the land without eating them. But that doesn’t result in anything different from having livestock. Animals themselves, whatever they are, are a carbon neutral loop producing the same emissions as they’re born, live, die & decay
Incidentally, I’ve never heard any ecologists demonstrating they have any understanding of the carbon cycle. Which is weird, because you’d think they’d know about the topic they’re so keen on. But then, ecology is a religion like Scientology, not a science like biochemistry.
“switching to a vegan diet would require several billion people to starve to death”
That’s not a bug.
Don’t treat these suggestions as if they were not the feverish imaginings of a fucking nutcase. Deny, refute, reject. NEVER accept them. We can all be rich or we can all be poor. We have a choice.
Many years ago I used to be ‘our man in Argentina’. Have eaten my fill of asado, and (for a Black Country lad) their black puddings, chitterlings and sweetbreads were a treat. You can argue that Scottish beef – or my local Devon produce – is, as I believe, superior. Would suggest, however, that the Argentinians appreciate their food and take more enjoyment and pride in what they produce and eat than we do ours.
So, who is up for establishing a liberal commune in a small garden in Argentina?
You might get some tips from descendants of blokes from the Third Reich.
PJF, the thought did occur to me, but I don’t think they are anywhere on the classical liberal-libertarian spectrum.
“Come to think of it, could we invent a genetically modified crop that yields bacon?”
Already there. They’re called pigs. Which breeds give the best bacon is up for a looooong discussion though. Preferable holed up in those wine cellars BiS teases us with.
Important question on the argentinian garden idea: Are there restrictions on hunting the Ecofreaks/salon communists that will inevitably try to infiltrate? Inquiring minds and all that.
But then, ecology is a religion
I remember that back in the 1950s ecology was a respectable branch of the biological sciences and practitioners had a sound understanding of the carbon cycle – and a lot more besides.
In related news, the egregious Roger Harrabin has been moved and this is what his replacement is saying:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51281986
No surprise there for anyone who’s been paying attention, but could the narrative be changing?