Meatless Monday
One of the Northwest’s own was invited to speak at the 2011 American Meat Institutes Animal Care and Handling Conference and she had a lot to say about proposed Meat less Mondays. I’m Susan Allen Open Range will be back after the break. Doctor Judith Capper, PhD from WSU recently spoke about sustainability in the beef industry at the 2011 American Meat Institutes Annual Conference , she tackled the topic of a mandated Meatless Monday that anti-animal ag groups are working to institute, contending that cutting meat consumption improves the environment. According to the good doctor from WSU that simply isn’t true. Environmentalists like to quote a Carnegie-Mellon study claiming Meatless Mondays impact on carbon emissions, from skipping one day of meat, would create even more green house gas reduction than if all of us only bought locally grown food. Capper highlighted many flaws with the study like not taking into consideration other carbon emissions like driving a car or using computers . The consequences of Meatless Monday would be far reaching, if you have a right to mandate food choices what’s, next ? What replaces all of the bi- products lost, the skins, tallows, leathers, even pharmaceuticals. And if meat and dairy are cut from a our diet what is the methane output in our digestives systems from alternative foods like soy. Capper also said if Meatless Monday was mandated throughout the US it would cut carbon emission by .44percent, far less than even 1 percent and that’s considering that everything else we consumed on Meatless Monday had no methane contribution.
