Eat To Save The Environment?

Foods are not inherently neutral in the context of the earth, and most have an environmental toll. A few, however, can give mother nature a helping hand and reverse the chronic degeneration underway on much of the earth. Your food can actually save the environment.

The soil we walk on seems infinite, but billions of tons of topsoil have been lost in the last 50 years due to unsustainable land management practices. We cannot save the environment if we can't feed ourselves.

Our world is also vulnerable to toxic fungicides and pesticides which are liberally spread over crops, endangering us and polluting the earth. We can't save the environment if we continue to pollute it.

It's clear that one diet actually helps the planet, and that's a raw, organic, fruit-based diet that also includes plenty of vegetables as well as nuts and seeds.

Below, and in subsequent articles, I hope to show you why adopting such a diet is best not only for you, but for the earth as well.

Eat all you care for, but choose foods that save the environment.

The Destruction of Our Forests: Can Meat Eaters Save The Environment?

Lowermilk described a spot in Syria where old ruins sat atop barren rock in the section of his report entitled "A Hundred Dead Cities".

"Here, erosion has done it's worst," he wrote. "...If the soils had remained, even though the cities were destroyed and the populations dispersed, the areas might be re-people again and the cities rebuilt, but now that the soils are gone, all is gone."

But despite such lessons, we're not listening. The United States loses seven billion tons of topsoil a year, which could coat an area roughly the size of Connecticut. About Eighty five percent of this is caused by livestock grazing and the clear cutting of forests to create pastures and fields to grow food for animals. (1)

By 2005, 260 million acres of forest had been clear-cut for animal agriculture in this country. (2) With the population growing and per capita meat consumption increasing, deforestation is only increasing.

It's clear that our other conservation measures will not equal the good that simply giving up meat would bring about.

Destroying South America

There are few natural pastures in this heavily-forested land, so they're steadily being carved out of pristine woodland. A Smithsonian study estimates that the need for grazing land and grain feed leads to the destruction of a land area equivalent to seven football fields in the Amazon basin every single minute (3).

We cannot continue this rate of forest destruction if we're to have any hope of saving the environment.

No Trees, No Topsoil, No Dice

Studies analyzing the effect topsoil loss on crop productivity find that losing an inch of topsoil reduced corn and wheat yields an average of 6 percent. An inch of topsoil takes centuries to form without human intervention, so losses at current levels are irreversible on a human-scale time frame. (4) We are reducing our ability to feed ourselves as the population continues to grow, as well as slowly degrading out breadbasket into something similar to what Lowdermilk saw in Syria.

If you find this a ridiculous claim, and you say that Middle-Eastern Syria has nothing to do with with the Midwest, then I invite you to look at pictures of the dust bowl. In the 1930s, farmers were plowing from "fencerow to fencerow".

They cut down trees and didn't allow the land to go fallow. When a two-year drought hit, the soil just blew away. The humanitarian toll of this disaster is well recorded by history, and it wasn't until the land was stabilized with tree, grass, and windbreak plantings that some degree of normalcy returned to the region

But the U.S. is still bleeding topsoil at an alarming rate, and the dust bowl can happen again. The middle east, after all, was covered with forests and renowned for its orchards until man cut them down. (5)

An unbroken forest once stretched from Main to Texas, but much of that is gone too, with more being cut down all the time.

Meat Wastes Our Water and Pollutes What's Left

If you shower for 7 minutes every single day, at 2 gallons of water per minute coming out of your low-flow shower head, that equals 100 gallons a week. Eating a single quarter-pounder hamburger, then, at 484 gallons of water, is the equivalent of giving up four weeks of luxurious showers.

The only more wasteful agricultural system imaginable would be feeding meat-fed humans to cannibals.

Livestock feces is also a huge pollutant, and regularly gets into our water supply.

People in the U.S. produce 12,000 pounds of excrement per second, and we've got sewage systems in just about every municipality to handle it. The country's livestock produce 250,000 pounds of excrement per second, and almost none of it is treated (7)

Even the EPA identifies animal excrement and animal agricultural chemical pollutants as a major contribution to the destruction of the environment (8) The manure created from the billions of animals killed for food has to go somewhere, and it often ends up in rivers and streams, killing millions of fish (9).

Manure and agricultural chemicals seep into our waterways and groundwater, eventually making its way into the oceans and creating massive dead zones, or areas so toxic that neither plant or animal life can survive there. These spots, like the dead zone created where the Mississippi spews animal waste into the Gulf of Mexico, are visible from space.

If we want to save the environment, we need to control our water use and pollution.

Meat Squanders Fossil Fuels and Causes Global Warming

It turns out that eating 2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for more greenhouse gas and other pollution emissions than driving for 150 miles while leaving a 100-watt bulb on for nearly 20 days. (10)

Driving a hybrid car instead of an gas guzzler would conserve around a ton of carbon dioxide per year. A great thing if you're trying to save the environment.

A diet without meat and dairy, though, actually conserves a ton and a half. A hybrid will cost you an arm and a leg, but giving up unhealthy, expensive meat and dairy will cost you nothing, and help you save the environment. (11)

Save The Environment: A Slightly Better Way

Here's some food for thought:(12)

• Percentage of food grown in United States eaten by human beings: 20
• Percentage of food grown in United States eaten by livestock: 80
• Percentage of U.S. agricultural land used to produce beef alone: 56
• Number of pure vegetarians who can be fed on the amount of land needed to feed 1 person consuming meat-based diet: 20
• Number of people who could be adequately fed by the grain saved if Americans reduced their intake of meat by only 10%: 60 million
• Cost of common hamburger meat if water used by meat industry was not subsidized by U.S. taxpayers: $35 a pound
• Leading source of pesticide residues in the U.S. diet: Meat—55%
• Second leading source of pesticide residues in the U.S. diet: Dairy products—23%
• Total pesticide residues in U.S. diet supplied by vegetables: 6%
• Total pesticide residues in U.S. diet supplied by fruits: 4%

The Best Way To Save The Environment:

In terms of water, it's clear that fruits use the least:

Water Used To Produce 2.2 pounds of:(13)

• 2.2 pounds Beef - 16,000 Gallons
• 2.2 Pounds Cheese- 1,321 Gallons
• 2.2 Pounds Eggs- 872 Gallons
• 2.2 Pounds Barley- 343 Gallons
• 2.2 Pounds Potatoes- 142 Gallons
• 1 Apple- 18 Gallons
• 1 Quart OJ -5 Gallons

Orchards absorb C02, thus reducing the problem of global warming. They also stop soil erosion with their extensive root systems and start to regenerate it through the annual leaf die off. Leaves fall to the ground, rot, and add to the topsoil. Jim Sloman, author of "A Global Vision," writes, "If the earth were covered with orchards (much like Tikopia) it would be possible to feed humanity using even less water and soil while most likely greatly increasing overall health."

He mentions Tikopia, an island settled 3,000 years ago. By 100 B.C., Tikopia was throttling towards destruction, much like the Easter Island civilization that wiped itself out by destroying its own trees. (14).

The difference is that Tikopia pulled back from the brink. Its people halted the practice of clear cutting their forests for agriculture and in its place turned the entire island into a huge fruit orchard, with dozens of fruit varieties. They even unanimously decided to slaughter all the pigs becuase it took so much food to raise them. (13)

In their own small way, they were able to save the environment, and in doing so saved themselves.

Fruit Is The Way To Go to Save The Environment

Fruit crops yield the most usable food per acre, as well as the highest pound yield per acre, and the entire U.S. population could be fed on a quarter of the current agricultural land if they were turned into orchards.(15)

We can feed two and a half times more people with an acre of fruit trees than with an acre of grain. (15)

Its through these kind of efficiency increases that we can really start to save the environment.

For a practical example, a mature apple tree will produce 20 bushels a year. A half acre of apple trees would yield enough fruit to provide about 115 apples, or 12,677 calories per day, more than enough to feed a person.(16). On a half acre, grains can produce 14 cups of cooked grain, or 9,583 calories a day (brown rice).(17).

Right now, America's animal-centered eating habits require that 3.5 acres be set aside to support each citizen, a huge waste. (17)

These lands could be better used as forests, forested parks, or other recreational spaces.

This does not even touch upon the huge energy savings brought about when a civilization doesn't have to cook its food (statistics sought).

Though this simple dietary shift was can go a long ways toward saving the environment.

Save the Environment, Eat A Raw Food Diet

Even a grain-centered vegetarian diet has its flaws.

The best way to go, for your own health, and for the health of the planet, is a delicious diet of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds.

Eat Fruit, save the environment. Simple as that.

And remember, it's tasty, as well as healthy. The raw food diet that will save the environment can also fight disease.

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