Michael Ault
California State University, Bakersfield
Monica Evans
Independent Researcher, Politics Research Center, California State University, Bakersfield.
*This manuscript is a work in progress. Any citation or reference to this manuscript must have the authors’ permission. As always, the authors are solely responsible for any errors or omissions.
The food a body digests provides it with the energy and sustenance upon which all other bodily functions rely. Anyone who has fasted or gone hungry for an extended period of time realizes the effects of inadequate nourishment. Renunciates who fast for long periods of time (sometimes up to 40 days or so), marathon runners, and other endurance athletes know that there comes a point where the body begins to search for nourishment by simply consuming itself. After exhausting its reserve intake of nutrients, it begins to search in its own fats, then its muscle, and if you wait around long enough, its organs. The body’s natural desire to fulfill its nutritional requirements (i.e., to survive) is perhaps one of the most fundamental aspects of being human. While we may not be able to choose the air that enters our lungs or the images imprinted on billboards, television commercials, and other forms of advertising that bombard our line of vision, we may choose the food with which we nourish ourselves. It is this choice -- its costs and its benefits -- that is the focus of this chapter.
Since Rachel Carson’s now classic Silent Spring (1962), the United States has witnessed two related but radically disparate revolutions in the food industry. On the one hand, there is the industrial farming revolution, which introduced large, industrial corporate farms dominated by the meat and dairy industries, processed and genetically modified foods, government subsidies for food suppliers, and numerous inexpensive fast food chains. In 1970, the four largest meatpacking firms produced approximately 21 percent of the cattle consumed in America. Today, however, the four largest meatpacking firms (ConAgra, IBP, Excel, and National Beef) produce approximately 84 percent of the beef consumed in America (Schlosser, 137). The poultry industry witnessed a similar transformation; today eight chicken processors control about two-thirds of the American market (Robbins, 2001: 139). Moreover, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, in 1952 approximately 25 groups were registered Washington lobbyists for the food and agriculture industry. Today the number is in the hundreds, if not the thousands (Nestle, 2002: 98-99). They also found that the food and agriculture lobbyists (called the Agribusiness Sector) spent roughly $59 million in the 2000 election cycle on food and agriculture issues (other than tobacco, which they spent an additional $67 million). Accompanying this industrial farming revolution, was a radical shift in the American diet. Today, according to nutritionist Marion Nestle, “Americans are eating more animal-based foods -- and more food in general -- to the point where half of us are overweight, even our children are obese, and diseases related to diet are leading causes of death and disability (Nestle, 2022: vii).”
On the other hand, there has been a much smaller but equally important revolution: the vegetarian or vegan revolution.[1] This revolution emphasizes a plant-based diet with fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and small to medium-scale, organic farming methods. Backed by the findings of independent researchers and non-profit health organizations such as the World Health Organization, the American Institute for Cancer Research, the American Heart Association, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, the National Cancer Institute, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the vegetarian revolution has taken issue with the consumption of meat for both ethical and health reasons. Ethical concerns primarily focus on the treatment of animals and livestock in the industrial farm process, but have also come to focus on issues of low-wage, dangerous jobs in the slaughterhouse food “assembly” lines and the irresponsible practice of global deforestation by cattle ranchers. On the health side of the ledger, researchers have found that, next to smoking, an animal-based diet is a leading cause of illness and death in America. For example, an animal-based diet is high in saturated fat, which is known to be the leading cause of high blood cholesterol. And, according to the American Journal of Cardiology, high blood cholesterol levels are consistently and significantly correlated to most heart diseases. As we will discuss below, heart disease happens to be the leading cause of death in America (Williams, 1989: 552).
In this chapter we examine the difference between these two revolutions. Specifically, we are interested in examining the costs and benefits associated with our food choices. While the health benefits of a vegetarian diet are well documented and established in the medical and scientific research, the economic benefits of such a choice have been emphasized much less. We begin in Section II with a review of the costs to human beings for eating animals. We explore the changes in the American diet over the past one-hundred years and the relationship between those changes and the causes of death and disability in America. In Section III, we discuss the societal costs associated with eating meat. We identify the indirect costs society pays for an animal-based diet. In Section IV, we discuss the environmental costs of an animal based diet. We conclude in the Section V with several recommendations for further reading and study.
It is well established in medical research that people who consume meat and dairy products have higher rates of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, gallstones, kidney disease, and colon disease.[2] Overall, meat eaters have shorter life spans, averaging about six to ten years less, tend to miss more days of work due to illness and, according to Robbins (2001: 14) , are less healthy “by every measurement we have of assessing health outcomes.” Nutrionist Marion Nestle found that “today, the leading causes of death are chronic diseases associated with excessive (or unbalanced) intake of food and nutrients (Nestle, 2002: 31).” Throughout the early part of the 20th Century, an average person could expect to live to roughly 47 years of age and expect to die from an infectious disease such as tuberculosis or pneumonia, which was aggravated by nutritional deficiencies and malnutritution (Nestle, 2002: 31). By the middle of the Century, the United States Government had intervened, funding medical research to find cures for these diseases and also encouraging people to eat more of a greater variety of foods. By the year 2000, life expectancy had risen, averaging approximately 77 years and with the rise, the leading causes of death changed. Table 1 shows the ten leading causes of death from the two time periods.
|
1900 |
% Total |
2000 |
% Total |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Tuberculosis |
11.3 |
Diseases of heart* |
31.4 |
|
Pneumonia |
10.2 |
Cancer |
23.3 |
|
Diarrheal diseases |
8.1 |
Stroke |
6.9 |
|
Heart diseases* |
8.0 |
Lung disease |
4.7 |
|
Liver disease |
5.2 |
Accidents |
4.1 |
|
Injuries |
5.1 |
Pneumonia and influenza |
3.7 |
|
Stroke |
4.5 |
Diabetes and mellitus |
2.7 |
|
Cancer |
3.7 |
Suicide |
1.3 |
|
Brochitis |
2.6 |
Kidney disease |
1.0 |
|
Diphtheria |
2.3 |
Liver disease and cirrhosis |
1.0 |
Data
from Hinman AR. Public Health Reports 1990:105:374-380. National Center
for Health Statistics. Health, United States, 1999. Hyattsvillem MD,
1999. Reprinted from Marion Nestle, Food Politics.
* Atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries – what we now call coronary heart disease—was not recognized as a clinical entry in 1900. Consequently, “heart disease” does no necessarily refer to the same condition for 1900 and 1999, and the 1900 figures may underestimate the extent of coronary heart disease in the population.
In short, diseases primarily related to diet and lifestyle choices -- colloquially called “affluenza” -- are today the leading causes of death in America. According to Robbins, each year “it is estimated that more than 1 million people will undergo coronary bypass surgery or angioplasty to relieve pain by enlarging the opening in clogged arteries (Robbins, 2001: 23).” The numbers are growing. While each of us is free to choose what we do and do not eat, many health experts have argued that next to quitting smoking, a change in a person’s dietary choices could possibly be the most important health change he or she makes. It has been found that blood cholesterol levels of vegetarians are roughly 14 percent lower than non-vegetarians (Williams 1989). Moreover, the risk of death from heart disease is about 50 percent lower for vegetarians than non-vegetarians (Williams 1989). In fact, according to Robbins, the annual medical costs in the United States directly attributable to meat consumption are as high as twice that for smoking related illnesses. In dollar figures, that works out to 65 billion in medical costs for smoking related illnesses and 60-120 billion in medical costs for animal-based diet illnesses (Robbins, 2001: 95).
One of the most comprehensive ongoing epidemiological studies of the health benefits of a vegetarian diet is currently being conducted by the Loma Linda University Medical Center in Loma Linda, California. Over the last 40 years, they have tracked the diets of 34,000 Seventh Day Adventists (who are vegetarians) and non-Adventists (who are also not vegetarians) and are presently in the process of gathering information on 125,000 more people in the United States and Canada. The results from the 40 year study have been published in some of the most prestigious scientific peer-reviewed journals in the world, from the Journal of American Medical Association to the International Journal of Epidemiology and the Journal of the National Cancer Institute just to name a few.[4] On almost every measure, the vegetarian diet of the Adventists produced less heart disease, lower blood pressure, lower rates of diabetes, lower rates of arthritis, and lower cancer rates, especially for colon cancer (Lemon and Walden 1966). They also found, “it is interesting to note that, adjusting for age and sex alone, vegetarians in the study population had a lower risk than non-vegetarians for every one of the cancers mentioned (Phillips, Garfinkel, Kuzma, Beeson, Lotz, and Brin 1980).” For example, they found “those who ate more fiber, defined as indigestible carbohydrates found only in fruits and vegetables, experienced a 40 percent reduction in their risk of colon cancer (Kahn, Phillips, Snowdon, and Choi, 1984).”
III: The Societal Costs of Food Production
Other costs associated with a vegetarian diet are societal costs: indirect health costs (i.e., costs society as a whole pays for meat eating), and political costs (subsidies and tax breaks for corporations and the amount spent on lobbying).
Indirect Health Costs. We define indirect health costs as the costs paid by society to support a meat eating diet. While these are not the direct costs to individuals, they are the costs that society must spend to support people who primarily consume an animal-based diet.
You may recall that for many years individuals who tried to sue the tobacco companies for liabilities and health problems caused by tobacco products were unsuccessful. Finally, in the historic Tobacco Settlement of 1998, the success came as a result not of individuals who had been harmed by cigarette smoking, but rather of states that paid the billions in Medicaid costs for health care treatment of smoking related illnesses. These health care costs associated with smoking were astronomical and the tobacco companies were forced to pay $368 billion to forty states over the next twenty five years. Of course society’s dietary choice might not be exactly equivalent to the decision to smoke, but the logic of the settlements suggests manufactures who knowingly distribute a product, which is known to cause illness, may be responsible for the indirect health costs associated with fixing the problems their product created. As the Scientists at the Center for Science in the Public Interest wrote in a 1999 newsletter, “If you had to pick a single food that inflicts the most damage in the American diet, ground beef would be a prime contender. Whether it’s tacos, meatloaf, lasagna, or the ubiquitous hamburger, Americans stuff themselves with ground beef without a second thought about its consequences. ‘Billions and billions served’ means ‘billions and billions spent’ – on doctor’s visits and hospital bills.”[5] According to Robbins, “even the American Meat Institute and National Dairy Council acknowledge that the primary suppliers of saturated fat in the American diet are animal products – beef, cheese, butter, chicken, milk, pork, eggs, and ice cream (Robbins, 2001:18).” While no one to our knowledge has calculated the exact cost to society from a meat eating diet, due to the level of illness, disease and death it produces in this nation, one wonders if states would someday decide to try and recover the Medicaid costs spent each year for health care treatment.
Political Costs. We define political costs as the costs paid by society for the political actions of the Agribusiness Sectors of the economy.
For many years, the
United States Government has subsidized the cost of water for ranchers and
growers in the U.S.. Without these
government subsidies, which are paid by U.S. taxpayer money, it is estimated
that the price of a hamburger would be
around $35 per pound and the cost of one pound of protein for beefsteak would
be approximately $89 (Robbins 1987).
When we contrast that to the current cost of one pound of protein from
wheat, which is $1.50, we can begin to see the disparate costs Americans pay to
remain a primarily meat consuming country (Robbins, 1987). One form of government subsidies to
corporate farms is the offering of tax breaks at both the state and federal
level. Due to their significant
political sway, corporate farms are able to lobby successfully for numerous
types of exemptions. As one example, in
1987 ConAgra and IBP – two of the largest meatpacking firms in the world –
approached the Nebraska governor threatening him that if the companies did not
receive tax breaks, they would relocate their operations to another state. In 1987, the Nebraska legislature passed a
law and was signed by the governor, which according to some accounts was
largely drafted by the meatpacking firms, giving a taxpayer subsidy of $13,000
to $23,000 for each new job they created.
Moreover, the bill exempted IBP and CongAgra from paying corporate taxes
for the next ten years and the executives of the two companies were allowed to
pay state income taxes at a maximum rate of 7 percent (Scholsser 164). At the end of the ten year exemption period,
IBP relocated its headquarters to South Dakota. In 2002, under the Nebraska Employment and Investment Growth Act
(LB775) which had been signed years before, it was estimated that the largest
farms in Nebraska (e.g., ConAgra, Excel, Cargill, and Omaha Steaks) did not pay
taxes on $735 million worth of property (Bauer 2002). In 2001, it is estimated that Nebraska gave $147 million in sales
and income tax rebates to qualifying companies (Bauer 2002). Which companies actually qualified for these
sales and income tax rebates is kept secret under the Nebraska statute. By giving companies tax rebates and
government subsidies, a community’s tax burden is shifted to home owners,
workers, and others who do not qualify for such rebates.
As was mentioned earlier, the Agribusiness
Sector gives millions of dollars to political candidates each election cycle,
and the companies that comprise this sector are remarkably strategic about
their spending. From 1987 to 1996, of
the 25 top U.S. Senate recipients of Agribusiness money, 18 of them sat on one
of the agriculture committees.
Similarly, in the U.S. House of Representatives, of the top 25 leading
recipients of Agribusiness money, 17 of them sat on agriculture committees
(Nestle 2002). To examine the issue a
bit more closely, Table 2 shows a list of food and agriculture political action
committee (PAC) contributors to Senate Richard Lugar (REP – IN), who was chair
of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. His total PAC contributions from the
agriculture and food industry amounted to approximately 36% of his total
contributions.
Table 2: Senator Richard
Lugar, Chair Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, 1997-1998*
|
Agricultural
Retailers Association |
Nabisco Brands |
|
Agri-Mark |
National Broiler
Council |
|
American Dietetic
Association |
National
Cattleman’s Beef Association |
|
American Feed
Industry Association |
National
Confectioners Association |
|
America Frozen
Food Institute |
National Food Processors
Association |
|
American Meat
Institute |
National Grain and
Feed Association |
|
American Peanut
Shellers Association |
National Pork
Producers Council |
|
American School
Food Service Association |
National
Restaurant Association |
|
American Sheep
Industry |
National Turkey
Federation |
|
Archer Daniels
Midland Co. |
Nestle, USA |
|
Central Soya Co. |
Novartis
Corporation |
|
ConAgra |
PepsiCo |
|
Farmers’ Rice
Cooperative |
Snack Foods
Association |
|
Florida Citrus
Mutual |
Sunkist Growers |
|
Food Marketing
Institute |
United Egg
Association |
|
Grocery
Manufacturers of America |
United Fresh Fruit
and Vegetable Association |
|
Kraft Foods |
Western Pistachio
Association |
|
Monsanto |
|
*Reprinted from Nestle 2002: 105.
Along with damaging people’s health and being costly to the American taxpayer, a carnivorous diet is also harmful to the environment. Animal livestock production requires tremendous amounts of natural resources, leads to water and air pollution, and is responsible for harmful changes to the natural environment, such as soil erosion and the deforestation of rainforests.
Natural Resources. According to a 1999 Audubon Society study, "[n]early half the water consumed in this country is used for livestock, mostly cattle” (quoted in Robbins 2001:238). In fact, “beef production alone uses more water than is consumed in growing the nation’s entire fruit and vegetable crop” (Montavalli 29). According to the Water Education Foundation, it requires 2,464 gallons of water to produce “every pound of California beef" (quoted in Robbins 2001:236). Table 3 lists the amount of water used to grow a variety of foods.
|
A pound of lettuce |
23 gallons |
|
A pound of tomatoes |
23 gallons |
|
A pound of potatoes |
24 gallons |
|
A pound of wheat |
25 gallons |
|
A pound of carrots |
33 gallons |
|
A pound of apples |
49 gallons |
|
A pound of chicken |
815 gallons |
|
A pound of pork |
1,630 gallons |
*Data from the Soil and Water Division from the University of California Agricultural Extension (Schulbach, et. al. 1978; reprinted from Robbins 2001: 236).
One observer, Marc Reisner, author of Cadillac Desert, noted, “In California, the single biggest consumer of water is not Los Angeles…It’s the irrigated pasture: grass grown in a near-desert climate for cows….The West’s water crisis – and many of its environmental problems – can be summed up, implausible as this may seem, in one word: livestock (Reisner 1993).”
Water and Air Pollution. The industrial farming methods used to produce livestock create tremendous animal waste. According to Schlosser (2002: 150), “each steer deposits about fifty pounds of urine and manure every day.” The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that “20 tons of livestock manure is produced annually for every U.S. household” (Montavalli 2002:29). The huge amount of animal waste has been detrimental to water supplies. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that a single U.S. factory farm “pollutes American waterways more than all other industrial sources combined” (Montavalli 2002:28). Rather than sending animal waste to treatment plants, the industrial farming method is to dump excrement into pits forming huge pools the industry calls “lagoons” (Schlosser 2002:150). The danger of these lagoons is that they are not always secure, threatening the water supply of an entire region. In 1995, an excrement lagoon in North Carolina burst leading to the release of “25 million gallons of putrefying hog urine and feces,” which, quickly spilled into the New River," killing ten to fourteen million fish (Robbins 2002:242). Another major leakage also occurred in North Carolina during Hurricane Floyd in 1999. A lagoon overflowed and ruptured, resulting in “hundreds of acres of land and miles of waterway flooded with excrement.” The end result from this accident was massive numbers of fish killed and millions of dollars in cleanup costs (Nierenberg 2003:14).
Damage to the water supplies is not only harmful to animals whose habitat is polluted, but also to people who rely on the polluted water supplies. An increasing danger to water supplies today is the microorganism pfiesteria piscicida, also known as the "cell from hell." Although pfiesteria is believed to be a naturally occurring organism, it is believed to have increased rapidly due to hog waste entering water supplies, which “creates conditions in which pfiesteria thrives” (Robbins 2002:243). Some estimates claim, “more than 1 billion fish have been killed by pfiesteria in North Carolina waters in the last few years” (Robbins 2002:243). Humans have also been harmed by pfiesteria. Exposure to pfiesteria through drinking water or skin contact may lead to “sores, severe headaches, blurred vision, nausea, vomiting, difficulty breathing, kidney and liver dysfunction, memory loss, and/or severe cognitive impairment” (Robbins 2002:243).
Besides releasing unpleasant odors, animal waste stored in lagoons also increases air pollution. According to the Worldwatch Institute “livestock account for 15 percent to 20 percent of (overall) global methane emissions” (Durning and Brough 1991). Methane is also produced by livestock emissions, which is “24 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide” (Ciborowski 1989). Another dangerous chemical released from lagoons is hydrogen sulfide, which “causes respiratory problems and headaches, and at high levels can cause permanent damage to the nervous system” (Schlosser 2002:165). In 2000 the Justice Department sued IBP for violating the Clean Air Act at a Dakota City plant since “as much as a ton of hydrogen sulfide was being released into the air every day” (Schlosser 2002:165).
Antibiotics and Hormones in Animal Production. Global consumption of meat has drastically increased, which has changed the conditions of animal production. The majority of animals produced for consumption live in crowded factories, which facilitate the spread of disease and stress among the animals. While stress may sound like a silly concept for animals, the producers have become concerned with it because it can potentially taint the taste of the meat, thus lowering profits. In order to combat the numerous diseases and stress animals face, producers have turned to numerous types of drugs for relief. For example, antibiotic use for livestock in America is 8 times higher than it is for humans. Annually, humans consume approximately 3 million pounds of antibiotics a year; for livestock the amounts reach as high as 24.6 million pounds (Grady 2001). Greider (2003:36) explains one of the dangers of widespread antibiotic use is “it encourages the development of resistant strains of bacteria that then may migrate in the environment at large, including perhaps human bodies.” According to a 1999 New England Journal of Medicine study, during the years 1992 and 1997, the rate at which humans developed infections from antibiotic-resistant bacteria increased about eightfold (cited in Robbins 2001: 140). They argued the increase was linked to the use of antibiotics in chickens.
Hormones such as Zeranol, trenbolone acetate, progesterone, testosterone, and estradiol are also routinely used in cattle production to increase the size of a cow in a short amount of time. It is estimated that more than 90 percent of the cattle raised in America are given these hormones (National Catttlemen’s Beef Association 2000). While the Cattlemen’s Beef Association claims these hormones are completely safe, the European Union recently banned their use because several of the hormones are known to cause human cancers and types of reproductive dysfunction (Robbins 2001:143). In a 1999 report from the European Union’s Scientific Committee on Veterinary Measures, they argued, “the hormone 17 beta-oestradiol (widely used in U.S. beef production) has to be considered as a complete carcinogen. It exerts both tumor initiating and tumor promoting effects. In plain language this means that even small additional doses of residues of this hormone in meat, arising from its use as a growth promoter in cattle, has an inherent risk of causing cancer.”[6]
Deforestation. The global demand for beef has also led to global rainforest deforestation. For example, the population of cattle in the Amazon has greatly increased over a ten year span -- “from 26 million in 1990 to 57 million in 2002” (Prugh 2004:8). An Indonesian based non-governmental organization, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) estimates that “the area lost in 2002-2003 is expected to exceed 25,000 square kilometers” (Prugh 2004:8). CIFOR also estimates that “nearly six times as much land is cleared for ranching as for crops” (Prugh 2004:8). This is troubling to many scientists because rainforests contain 80 percent of the world’s species and the forests are necessary for the global oxygen supply. Robbins (2001:255) cites biologist E.O. Wilson who found as many species of ants on one tree in the Peruvian rainforest as existed in the entire British Isles. Rainforest Action Network (RAN) estimates that “55 square feet of tropical rainforest…are destroyed for the production of every fast-food hamburger made from rainforest beef” (Robbins 2001:256).
To say that all of this
information is daunting is to understate the point dramatically. Please check back to the website for the
conclusion. I did not want to delay the rest of the paper any longer.
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[1] There are two main categories of a vegetarian diet: a vegan diet, which does not include meat or diary products, lacto-ovo vegetarian, which does not include meat but does include dairy products.
[2] For a summary, see Messina and Messina, 1996. P. 58.
[3] Reprinted from Nestle 2002: 32.
[4] A complete listing of the medical center’s 280 scientific references can found at their website: http://www.llu.edu/llu/health/references.html (accessed February 2005).
[5] The Center for Science in the Public Interest. “Here’s the Beef.” Nutritution Action. September 1999.
[6] This statement appeared in the article “European Scientists Say U.S. Beef Unsafe.” Santa Cruz Sentinel. May 4, 1999. A-8.