What did you learn about dietary choices from using the footprint calculator? Now imagine that you could translate what you learned into an effective societal policy on food- what would it be? And how would this policy effect the need to alleviate world hunger?
925 million people on earth do not have enough to eat according to the FAO [Food and Agricultural Organization]. That's almost 1 in 7 inhabitants of our planet!
Food & Hunger >
Cows and the Environment
Before using the Carbon Footprint Calculator, I was unaware that dietary choices have such an intense affect on greenhouse gas emission into the atmosphere. I was pleased to see that my personal diet releases only about half the kgs of CO2 as the average person in my region. After doing further research, I discovered this is because I only eat red meat about once a week if that.
Raising cattle to produce the red meat we eat is extremely harmful to the environment. This is because it is difficult for cattle to digest the grass they are fed, which causes them to produce methane. In addition, raising cattle takes much more land than it takes to raise other animals such as chickens.
If this information could be translated into a policy on food, I would hope that there would be a restriction on the amount of red meat purchased on a weekly basis. Perhaps red meats could only be bought on a specific day of the week. This would most certainly cut down on the red meat consumed in America without asking a majority of population to become vegetarian or pescetarian. Therefore, there would not be as much greenhouse gas released into the air because the amount of cattle raised would be reduced.
This policy would also help the need to end world hunger because it is said that the amount of grain used to raise cattle could feed 2 billion people over a certain amount of years.