Animal Food

Cows and climate

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Henry Mencken was an American journalist, satirist and cultural critic, who lived from 1880 to 1956. He may have been from a different era, but I find some of his observations are still entirely relevant: The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

The imaginary hobgoblin I wish to discuss here is the instruction to ‘eat less meat to save the planet’. There is a strong, well-financed, global anti-meat agenda which is constantly pushing us towards a 30% reduction in meat-eating. Some European Governments are intending to force farmers to cull large numbers of their herd in the name of the ‘Climate Emergency’. Call me old-fashioned, but I have always believed the food we choose to eat should be based on nutrition, rather than the weather. (Blaming the digestive system of cows for extreme weather sounds to me more like medieval witchcraft than science.)

‘Eat less meat’ seems so unscientific; it is advice for everybody whether you eat meat every day or once a week. It feels much more like an often-repeated nudge to slowly alter our behaviour. The ‘save the planet’ part of this slogan is surely designed to be make us feel guilty. Who would want to be the person who brought about a climate catastrophe because of their over-indulgence in animal protein?

The idea behind this is simple: cows and sheep burp methane; methane is a greenhouse gas; eating less meat will result in fewer cows and, therefore, less methane; if we eat less meat we will save the world from over-heating. This is the story being pushed upon us, but it is nonsense. Ruminant animals have been burping methane for about 50 million years without any effect on all the ice-ages and warm periods throughout that vast timescale. It is impossible for cows and sheep to add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. They simply recycle a few of them in the Carbon Cycle. The plants they eat grew by taking carbon dioxide out of the air in the first place via photosynthesis. The methane produced by their digestive bacteria is oxidised to carbon dioxide within 10 years, ready to be absorbed by plants again. (More details here)

We are told that the methane cows burp is a very potent greenhouse gas and we must reduce it. Whenever I hear this I remind them the concentration of methane in the atmosphere is 0.00018%, which is less than 2 parts per million. When I ask them ‘at what lower concentration of methane can you guarantee colder weather’, they have no idea. (George Monbiot of the Guardian blocked me on social media for asking him that very question). Nobody ever tells us to eat less rice to save the planet, despite rice paddies producing considerable levels of methane.

Whenever we are told what to do by self-appointed experts, I always wonder who is going to benefit from the actions we are advised to take. If we all reduce our meat intake by 30% it will make absolutely no difference to the climate, but it will make a big difference. Small family farms throughout the country will be forced into bankruptcy if they lose 30% of their turnover. Then the land will be bought cheaply by large corporations, who will probably obtain taxpayer-funded subsidies to put wind farms and solar panels in the fields. Our nutritious meat will be replaced by lab-grown, ultra-processed, synthetic meat, produced by a small group of global companies. These are the people pushing the anti-meat agenda because they foresee huge profits for themselves. People like Patrick Brown, the head of Impossible Foods, which makes plant-based meat substitutes like the Impossible Burger. He has said, “I want to put the animal agriculture industry out of business. It’s that simple. The goal is not because I have any ill will toward the people who work in that industry, but because it is the most destructive industry on Earth. In their place, my company’s scientists and food technicians will create plant-based substitutes for every animal product used today in every region of the world.” Do you like the idea of a megalomaniac having total control of the world’s food supply? One man who does like that idea is Bill Gates, who is heavily invested in lab-grown fake food. He is also a huge investor in land. He has already bought huge areas of American farmland, taking it out of production.

Of course, the attack on meat, and the farmers who produce it, is not coming from just one man. It is part of the UN’s Agenda 2030. This agenda talks about cosy ideas of sustainability and biodiversity, but those words are a cover up for a global power grab, and control over our lives, by an unelected few. The farmers of Europe are protesting and blockading roads because the dictats of European bureaucracy are so stringent they are going to drive the farmers out of business. This, it appears, is precisely the purpose. If we do not support our local farmers and resist this tyranny we will all be eating insects and ultra-processed fake food form a factory before we know it.

Meat is the most nutrient-dense food we can eat and we need our local farmers to keep producing it. (More details here)

The ‘Green’ Expert

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After the publication of the IPCC’s ‘Red Alert’ for humanity, the media has been full of ‘experts’ telling us what we can do to mitigate our role in the doomsday scenario. According to some of those who call themselves ‘Green Experts’, the most important thing we can do is to eat plants and stop eating animals. Here is a example from The Times:

First of all, I did not know there is a qualification which endows one with expertise in ‘green’. It would appear, from the first two advised changes, that a ‘green expert’ has no need to supply references for their numerical claims. Apparently, we each produce an average of 12.7 tonnes of CO2 each year and this is equivalent to eating 1,000 steaks. Why would you compare total CO2 emissions to a single food item instead of how many miles we drive in a car, or how much fuel we burn to heat our houses? I think the only reason you would do it is because you have an anti-meat agenda. It is a pointless comparison; nobody eats 1,000 steaks per year. I will explain why this statement is nonsense later.

The ‘Eat Plants’ recommendation suggests that we can reduce our carbon footprint by 73 per cent by switching to a plant-based diet. Is that 73% of our dietary carbon footprint or our entire carbon footprint? It is not clear. How does anybody come to the figure of 73%? How can a cow fed on grass in my local farmer’s field and sold by my local butcher be compared to green vegetables flown from Kenya and driven 200 miles by truck? These are the sort of calculations, full of assumptions, which are used to measure the ‘carbon footprint’ of different foods. Even the author, Lucy Siegle, warns about the poor environmental profiles of some of the most popular vegan foods like avocados and almonds. Despite this she states that ‘a careful switch to plants is the biggest change you can make’. Green experts always make these broad claims without any reference to nutrition. It should be illegal to recommend, in print, a plant-based diet without warning the readers of the dangers of vitamin B12 deficiency.

I regard the entire realm of ‘dietary carbon footprints’ as a complete waste of time. All foods, whether plant or animal, obtain their carbon from the air. Plants grow when the process of photosynthesis uses the energy from sunshine to convert atmospheric CO2 into cellulose and other carbohydrates. Whether we eat the plants directly, or the animals that ate the plants, or the animals that ate the animals that ate the plants, the carbon in the food came out of the air. How can it be regarded as adding to greenhouse gas when it is simply recycled. It is absurd to compare the carbon burped by a cow with the carbon from coal or oil, which has to be dug out of the ground.

The argument against cows is always based on methane. The bacteria in the rumen of cows and sheep digest plants by fermentation and a by-product of this process is methane, which is produced at a rate of 5% of the food eaten. Methane is said to be a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 and laboratory tests suggest it is 23 times more effective at capturing heat. This is the main reason cited by most climate-based, anti-meat proponents. The important thing to remember is these are laboratory results; they are not real measurements from the atmosphere. In a lab gases are tested individually but in the atmosphere they are mixed with all the other gases.

Methane can only absorb heat radiation in a narrow band of wavelengths. Methane exists in the atmosphere as a rare trace gas with a concentration of less than two parts per million. Water vapour is by far the most important greenhouse gas. It absorbs heat over a wider range than other gases and exists in the atmosphere as at least 10,000 parts per million. This diagram shows the infra red absorption spectrum of all the greenhouse gases.

The red lines in the diagram denote the wavelengths at which methane, CH4, is able to absorb heat radiation, and is taken from Methane, the Irrelevant Greenhouse Gas. These specific wavelengths are already being absorbed by water vapour, H2O. Because water vapour is almost 10,000 times more concentrated in the atmosphere it absorbs almost all the heat at those specific wavelengths. Consequently, there is almost no heat for methane to absorb and reducing it by avoiding meat (and having fewer cows) will make no difference whatsoever. Green experts need to Stop Feeding Us Lies.

The Folly of Carbon Taxes

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It has recently been announced the Government intends to introduce a carbon tax on meat, cheese and gas boilers as part of its commitment to tackling climate change. This is the conjunction of two ideas, which are constantly repeated in the media and believed by a great many people, even though neither of them makes much sense. The first is the universally held belief that our climate is controlled by the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The second is the modern notion that the rearing and eating of meat is bad for us and the planet.

The climate of Earth is a complex and chaotic system influenced by many variables, which include changes in solar radiation, cloud cover, ocean currents, volcanic activity, planetary orbits and El Nino events. Changes in the climate occur slowly but continuously. For millions of years the planet has been either warming or cooling. Carbon dioxide is a trace gas with a concentration of 0.04% of the atmosphere. It has the ability to absorb a narrow band of energy and prevent that particular wavelength of heat from escaping to space. It can, therefore, be called a greenhouse gas. However, its effect on the climate is so small as to be insignificant when compared to water vapour and, more importantly, the sun. Boris Johnson’s belief that that he can turn down the thermostat of the entire planet by tweaking the level of CO2 is naïve and unproven. It also ignores the recent decline in solar activity which has created a Grand Solar Minimum; an event likely to decrease global temperatures.

An interesting website called Weather-Report.com collects daily data from 28 weather stations around the UK and they state, “For the last 22 years, the weather has been very stable; with no statistically significant change in temperature, pressure, humidity, wind speed, sunshine, rainfall volume or duration.” World-wide observations also show that the climate crisis does not exist other than in the extrapolations of computer models.

NASA satellites have shown the increase in atmospheric CO2 over recent decades has made the Earth greener. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant; it is vital plant food. A further increase in CO2 would boost the growth of vegetation, but if extreme measures are taken to reduce levels to below 0.02%, the zealots of ‘climate-change’ risk crop failures and famine because plants cannot grow below that concentration of carbon dioxide.

Despite all this evidence, Boris Johnson is going to push through legislation to ban petrol cars and gas boilers. As with lockdowns to contain a virus, he has not given the slightest thought to the consequences. He has no plan to replace all that energy with a viable alternative. Solar panels covered in snow and stationary windmills during a lull cannot provide enough energy to heat our homes during cold winters. Man-made climate change is not real; it is an agenda which makes certain people a lot of money.

The other hoax which has been dove-tailed into this deception is the ‘eat less meat to save the planet’ agenda. The argument states that because ruminant animals, like cows and sheep, belch methane into the air they are adding to global warming and we must reduce their numbers. Even if you still believe that trace gases containing carbon trap enough heat to alter the climate, this argument is still nonsense. The methane is a by-product of a ruminant’s digestive system and involves up to 5% of the carbon atoms in their food. Cows and sheep eat plants and all the carbon in those plants was originally extracted from the air during photosynthesis. Farm animals do not emit carbon-containing trace gases; they recycle some of them. Ruminant animals evolved about 50 million years ago and have been belching methane throughout the many hot periods and ice-ages that have occurred across that timescale.

There is a huge and co-ordinated anti-meat movement operating across the world. It began in the 1860s with the Seventh Day Adventist Church, which still has considerable influence over official dietary guidelines. The World Economic Forum has declared that by 2030, ‘you will eat less meat’, whether you like it or not. British newspapers have been paid considerable sums to write regular articles condemning the meat industry. An organisation called the EAT-Lancet Commission has devised a Planetary Diet, which has very strict limits on the consumption of any animal sourced foods. The idea of a prescribed diet for the whole planet is typical of authoritarian regimes who have no respect for the essential part that food plays in the world’s vast array of cultures, customs and environments. None of this is based on nutritional science; it is entirely driven by a group of people with a fervent desire to prevent everyone else from eating meat. The trick they are trying to perform is to reduce meat consumption to such a low level that livestock farming becomes unviable. Then there will be no alternative to a plant-based diet.

Meat is the most nutrient dense food we can eat. It contains all the essential amino acids we need and is referred to as complete protein. Meat contains a wide variety of vitamins and minerals. Many of these are in either the active form required by humans or in a more easily digested state than those in plants.

Long chain omega-3 fatty acids are often associated with fish and fish oils but red meat contains a significant amount of these vitally important fats too. They are usually referred to as DHA and EPA and plants do not contain any. They are essential for brain function and development; they help fight depression and anxiety; they reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and ADHD. DHA is a major component of the retina of the eye and is vital for vision.

Red meat is an excellent source of vitamin B12. It is essential for a multitude of functions related to both the circulatory and nervous systems. Plants possess neither of these structures and consequently contain no B12. A deficiency of this essential vitamin can lead to depression, Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, hallucinations, seizures, anaemia, macular degeneration, failure to thrive, birth defects, brain atrophy (especially in children of vegan mothers) and severe cognitive decline.

It is typical of politicians to think they can alter the climate by making people pay more tax. I am genuinely frightened by how ill-informed our Government ministers are. A carbon tax on animal foods will not make one iota of difference to the climate but it will inevitably make nutritious food too expensive for the poorest people in society. These are the people who already suffer the worst levels of ill-health. Boris Johnson’s inability to consider the consequences of his virtue-signalling is about to make that situation even worse.

I urge you all, please, write to your MP and demand that a tax on animal foods never becomes law.

Meat for Health

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The media frequently report that people are cutting back on their meat consumption with the implication that eating less meat is better for our health. This misconception is often based on the idea that meat contains lots of saturated fat and has been associated with colon cancer. Neither of these things are strictly true. What meat contains a lot of is protein. The fat content varies considerably depending on the cut of meat but typically consists of more mono-unsaturated fat than saturated fat. (You can read more about why saturated fat is not to be feared here.)

The reports linking red meat to a possible rise in cancer have been severely criticised by many independent experts and I explain more about that in Stop Feeding Us Lies.

What a typical media reports fail to mention is the exceptional nutrient density of animal-sourced foods, especially red meat. A wide range of vitamins and minerals are available in significant quantities and in a bio-available form. For example, how much iron a food contains is nowhere near as important as how much of that iron can be absorbed and used. In red meat, iron exists as heme-iron, which is readily absorbed from the intestines. Plants contain an inorganic form of iron which is difficult to absorb.

A typical piece of red meat contains:

Protein There are 20 different amino acids which the body uses to create the proteins we need. The liver can make 11 of them but 9 are regarded as ‘essential’, which means they have to be present in the food we eat. Red meat contains all of these essential amino acids and is, therefore, referred to as complete protein. Edible plants do not contain complete protein because they are invariably lacking one or more essential amino acids. You have to eat a wide variety, and large quantity, of plants to obtain an adequate supply of all the amino acids. These are the percentages of protein in 100g of a selection of animal and plant foods:

Chicken breast
Beef steak
Lamb chop
Pork chop 		32.0
31.0
29.2
31.6
Kidney beans
Baked beans
Red Lentils
Chickpeas		6.9
5.2
7.6
8.4

Fat An adequate intake of natural fat is essential to our health. We need saturated fat for a variety of metabolic functions. Red meat does not supply ‘too much’. Oily fish, nuts and olive oil have 2 times, 9 times and 14 times the total fat, respectively, of a sirloin steak. Oily fish, nuts and olive oil contain 1.5 times, 3 times and 7 times, respectively, the saturated fat of a sirloin steak.

Vitamins Red meat provides a wide range of essential vitamins. Sometimes people do not realise how important these are to our overall health.

AHealthy eyes, skin, teeth, bones and immunity. Cell division and growth. Protects DNA from damage
B1Healthy metabolism, brain, nerves, heart. Boosts immunity, learning and memory
B2Aids digestion, memory, heart, red blood cells, skin and hair; boosts mood and energy levels
B3Helps reduce risk of heart disease, arthritis, impotency, diabetes and depression
B5Helps reduce stress, acne; aids wound healing, skin and mental performance
B6Aids healthy blood vessels and sleep; reduces anaemia, PMS, nausea and kidney stones
B9Reduces birth defects, ageing, heart attacks, depression, cancer; builds muscle
B12Essential for brain function and cardiovascular system. No B12 in plants
DEssential for immunity, reduces risk of CVD, MS, autism. Strong teeth and bones
EAnti-oxidant. Good for skin, scars, wrinkles, nails
KRegulates blood clotting. Prevents calcification of arteries. Reduces osteoporosis

Minerals Red meat contains a wide variety of minerals. They have important roles in the correct function of an array of bodily functions. Listed below are some of their actions.

CalciumVital for bones, teeth, muscle contraction, red blood cells
CopperImportant for bones, nerves, blood vessels, immunity, collagen
IronOxygen carrying, brain function, concentration
MagnesiumMuscle, nerve function. Heart rhythm, energy, blood sugar and pressure
PotassiumBlood pressure, muscle strength, water balance, anxiety
PhosphorusDigestion, protein formation, cell repair, hormonal balance
SeleniumImmunity, fertility, thyroid, heart health, anti-oxidant
ZincImmunity, protects DNA, wound healing, growth and development

Meat is also a source of choline. It is not classified as a vitamin or mineral but it is an essential nutrient.

  • Cell structure: It is needed to make fats that support the structural integrity of cell membranes.
  • Cell messaging: It is involved in the production of compounds that act as cell messengers.
  • Fat transport and metabolism: It is essential for making a substance required for removing cholesterol from your liver. Inadequate choline may result in fat and cholesterol build-up in your liver.
  • DNA synthesis: Choline and other vitamins, such as B12 and folate, help with a process that’s important for DNA synthesis.
  • A healthy nervous system: This nutrient is required to make acetylcholine, an important neurotransmitter. It’s involved in memory, muscle movement, regulating heartbeat and other basic functions.

Omega-3 Long chain omega-3 fatty acids are usually associated with fish and fish oils but red meat contains a significant amount of these vitally important fats. The important fats are usually referred to as DPA, DHA and EPA.

  • They are essential for brain function and help fight depression and anxiety
  • DHA is a major structural component of the retina of the eye and is vital for vision
  • They are essential for brain growth and development in infants
  • They help to lower risk factors for heart disease
  • They can reduce ADHD in children
  • They reduce the risk of age-related mental decline and Alzheimer’s disease
  • Omega-3s reduce inflammation, which is a component of many modern diseases

This is nuts

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The Times newspaper ran a story today (6th March 2020) which perfectly exemplifies why we should be very careful about getting our scientific knowledge and dietary advice from newspaper articles. The headline was Serving of nuts rather than meat could lower heart and cancer risk. The article claimed that “Replacing one daily serving of any red meat for nuts — without increasing the number of calories a person ate — was linked to a 17 per cent lower risk of dying of a heart attack.”

This is a very powerful message; people are likely to be swayed by the idea that they can reduce their risk of heart attack by nearly a fifth simply by swapping meat for nuts. Of course, If you read on beyond the headline and opening paragraphs the article correctly states, “Their study was purely observational. That meant that it could not prove that swapping meat for nuts, wholegrains and legumes caused people to have better health.”

1. Observational studies on diets are notoriously unreliable. All of the data comes from Food Frequency Questionnaires which participants have to complete over long periods of time. Can you remember precisely what you ate a week last Thursday? No, neither can I. Inevitably, some of the data is a guess which invalidates the whole process as a scientific study.

2. Studies like this have to be interpreted by the researchers and adjustments made for confounding factors. This research was done by Harvard Chan School of Public Health. A cursory examination of their publications shows a clear and significant bias towards plant based foods. 

3. It is well known that people who eat more nuts and vegetables are generally more health conscious. They tend to be non-smokers, drink moderately, take exercise and sleep well. Among the ‘meat-eaters’ in these studies are people who eat fast food most of the time. They consume meat but eat it with a bread bun, fries cooked in inflammatory seed oils and washed down with a large sugar-laden ‘Coke’. They also do not look after themselves in other ways. We are not comparing like with like.

4. Heart disease has many contributory factors including: high blood pressure; systemic inflammation; high blood sugar/high insulin levels/type 2 diabetes (most diabetics eventually die from heart disease); toxins from cigarette smoke and air pollution; high levels of the stress hormone cortisol; high levels of homocysteine (due to a lack of B vitamins); low levels of vitamin D; drug abuse (especially cocaine); high levels of the clotting agent fibrinogen; and bacterial infection. None of these things are made worse by eating red meat. In fact, meat is a very good source of B vitamins which are protective against heart disease. There is simply no mechanism by which the consumption of meat can induce heart attack.

5. Our species has been eating red meat for millions of years. If it was as bad for as Harvard Chan continually tell us we would have died out long ago. Also, our skeletal muscle is the same substance as red meat. An average adult male is 42% red meat and an adult woman is typically 36% red meat. It is completely illogical to imagine that eating something which makes up more than a third of our bodies could do us any harm.

Evolution

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The ecosystem of Earth evolved over hundreds of millions of years. It flourishes because it is always in balance. Plants grow in the ground, herbivores eat the plants and carnivores eat the herbivores. This process evolved because it works. We evolved into exactly what we are today because our ancestors ate a largely carnivorous diet for a couple of million years. How can we be sure this is true?

1. Sweat glands. Unlike all other primates, we have lost our body hair and gained a multitude of sweat glands. We have the greatest ability on the planet to run long distances in hot weather because we can lose body heat from the evaporation of sweat on our skin. We developed this ability by chasing large animals across the grasslands of Africa. They struggle to lose heat by panting and eventually collapse and die from heat exhaustion. The Bushmen of the Kalahari still hunt for food this way. (Watch a 7 minute Attenborough video of this here) There is on reason to develop this ability if we were eating plants.

2. Nutrient density. We are closely related to chimpanzees and the other apes. Some of them are entirely herbivores while others are more omnivorous. Gorillas are herbivores and they possess very large intestines and small brains. We have large brains and small intestines. The difference is because we evolved to eat the nutrient and energy dense meat and fat of animals, which are easily absorbed. The Gorilla’s plant diet is difficult to absorb and they need large intestines to extract any nutrition. In fact, they find it necessary to be ‘copraphagus’, which means they eat their own poo in order to improve their diet.

3. Stomach acid. We have exceptionally strong acid in our stomachs. The only other creatures with comparable acidity are all scavengers of dead animals. This suggests that our meat-eating past began by cleaning up the remains of a big cat’s kill. This nutrition helped us to develop the ability to catch our own animals.

4. Vitamin B12. All animals need B12 to form red blood cells and to build the protective Myelin sheath around all our nerves and allow for proper brain development and function. Plants have no blood, nerves or brains and therefore do not need, nor contain, any of this vitamin. We definitely need an adequate supply which get from animal-sourced foods. Herbivores also need B12 but do not eat it. They rely on bacteria in their rumen or caecum to create vitamin B12. In the very distant past, we had a caecum to do this for us, but as we ate more meat the caecum became redundant and shrivelled to what we now call the appendix. This fact alone proves that we evolved into what we are by eating meat.