Category Archives: Vegetarian

One vegan does not a movement make – less than 3,000 omnivores confirmed to have been “converted” by #Veganuary

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Burger grass-fed.jpg

Would a cheeseburger have tempted you away from #Veganuary?

Well, the official numbers have been published for #Veganuary, the 2018 attempt to entice people away from meat and towards the heady delights of almond juice and bean curd. The campaign has been cited as a magnificent success by such impartial publications as Plant Based News (has that been the guest publication on Have I Got News for You yet?) with 62% of survey respondents (who were not previously vegan) stating that they intend to continue with a vegan lifestyle.

On the face of it, that does sound impressive, admittedly slightly less so given that it means 38% of participants presumably thought “Sod that Veganuary lark, I’m off for a bacon sandwich with cheesy chips.”

Yet here’s the rub. Despite the claims of success, the survey was only sent to 50% of participants. That’s slightly odd given that, presumably, the majority signed up online with a valid email address. There was then a 14% response rate to the survey. That means that overall, only 7% of peoplea who undertook Veganuary actually completed the survey.

Let’s assume that those who replied and confirmed that they were going to continue a vegan lifestyle were a random sample of the Veganuary population. This is a bit of a stretch, as anybody who’d not enjoyed Veganuary and was happily chomping down on a bacon sandwich would be considerably less motivated to reply than somebody who thought it was the best thing since sliced tofu. The stretch is underlined by the fact that 99% of respondents would recommend Veganuary to others – so basically a sub-section of happy campers. However, we’ll give it benefit of the doubt.

40% of people who completed the survey had previously identified themselves as omnivores (compared to 16% pescatarian, 33% vegetarian and 11% vegan). If we extend that statistic out to all the people who undertook Veganuary (168,500 people), then 67,400 peopleb – just less than the population of Stafford in the West Midlands – were originally omnivores. So, if the assumptions made earlier hold true, 7% of those previously-known-as-omnivores replied to the survey (4,718 peoplec) and of those, 62% aimed to stay vegan.

So 2,925d omnivores have confirmed that they will remain vegan – are the rest enjoying a cheeseburger for lunch? Who knows. However, human nature being what it is, the “converted” number may be even smaller in a few months time.

Are vegan numbers increasing? Yes. Is it a massive trend? No. A fad prevalent in westernised society? Maybe. In 2016, 17.86 million babies were born in China. That’s 48,932 born per day, many of whom will choose to emulate the western diet. So, in just one day, 15.7-fold more babies are born in a country where meat and dairy consumption are predicted to increase over coming decades, than the number people who we know have actually pledged to stay vegan (having previously been omnivorous) after Veganuary. Was Veganuary a storm in a tea cup? Yes – with milk…and a cheese sandwich on the side.

a 50% x 14%
b 168,500 people x 40%
c 67,400 people x 7%
d 4,718 people x 62%

Many thanks to @davidbarrettvet for the conversation that suggested this blog post.

Is your dinner more intelligent than a baby…and should you care?

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Daisy the pig

If Daisy the pig can recognise herself in a mirror, does that mean she shouldn’t be turned into bacon?

In the wake of a seriously busy #Februdairy, where activist rhetoric was thrown around like confetti at a summer wedding (my personal favourite activist claim – milking cows just promotes patriarchal societies in which females are treated like objects…), this little gem just arrived in my Twitter messages.

It’s a interesting little animation, probably aimed at giving food for thought (groan…), with the premise that if the animals that we eat for dinner (pigs, octopi, etc) are more intelligent than something that we wouldn’t eat (a human infant*), then should we be thinking twice about eating them?

There’s just one fatal flaw in this analogy – most livestock species are precocial. That means that when they’re born, they can quickly get up, feed and, if necessary, run away from predators. Not surprisingly, that can be essential for herbivorous prey animals in the wild. Animals that are not precocial are altricial – young are relatively undeveloped and helpless when born and tend to be hidden away in nests until they’ve gained maturity (e.g. mice).

Humans fall between these two extremes – gestation length is relatively long compared to other mammals, which favours increased foetal development and a higher birthweight, but human infants have smaller brains (29% of adult size compared to 40-45% in African apes) and have extremely immature motor skills. A significant amount of brain growth and development therefore occurs between birth and adulthood. Can an infant take the top off a child-proof medicine container? No. Can an adult? Absolutely. Does that mean that human infants lack intelligence? Not in the slightest. They just haven’t formed all the necessary brain and motor connections yet.

To try and compare the “intelligence” of a human infant with a fully-grown pig, octopus or sheep and draw any meaningful conclusion about whether or not we should eat the “intelligent” animal is an utterly futile comparison. Not quite apples to oranges, but close – after all, even the smartest apple can’t recognise itself in a mirror – or can it?

*Note that infanticide and cannibalism is practiced by some primates.

 

How to Argue with Vegans – A Cut-Out-and-Keep Chart (new and improved!)

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I will never criticise anybody for being vegan, vegetarian, pescetarian, flexitarian or any other diet. Always put popcorn on top of tomato soup (don’t knock it till you’ve tried it…) or fancy a pickled onion and herring cocktail for breakfast? No problem, we’re all entitled to choose the foods that suit our lifestyle.

Although I often promote dairy and meat production, I would never demand that somebody eat a steak or a cheese sandwich – it’s entirely their choice. Yet, with the rise of social media, a growing proportion of people feel entitled to criticise other’s diets, to the point where logic, science and civilised debate are lost in a rampant outpouring of emotive language and misinformation.

Having been engaged in countless online conversations with vegans, it appears that a handbook must exist, as the debate follows an identical pattern. The same inevitably tedious questions posed and claims made, often without any regard for the responses from the other side. In case you decide to argue with a vegan, I therefore present you with my updated handy flow-chart for how the conversation may go. Note that I do not intend to mock and I’m sure that there are many vegans who are both eloquent and well-informed, but, if you are vegan, perhaps consider whether you always rely on these rather asinine claims, without broadening your argument?

Screen Shot 2017-11-13 at 17.39.03For example, is suggesting that we shouldn’t drink milk past-weaning because other animals do not, either upheld by science (no, it’s not) or a sensible criticism? After all, humans also wear expensive anoraks, use iPads and write books on the intricacies of rugby – should we forgo these activities because they are exclusive to homo sapiens?

It’s absolutely true that some people cannot digest lactose. Furthermore, a proportion of the population have adverse reactions to gluten, some people have life-threatening allergies to strawberries, others break out in a rash after eating scallops. Does that mean that we should all remove these foods from our diets in somewhat misguided sympathy? No.

It should be obvious that using overly emotive language or suggesting that farmers are guilty of obscene acts with farm animals detracts from your message. Nobody takes Boris Johnson seriously when he makes outrageous claims or shows utter disregard for cultural and social norms – why should anybody embrace a lifestyle choice where the messaging suggests that eating cheese is equivalent to drinking breastmilk or implies that artificial insemination of cattle is morally, physically and emotionally equivalent to serious sexual assault in humans?

I don’t converse with vegans in order to try and change their opinions, but to show all the others who are listening in the background that it’s possible to have congenial, polite and scientific debate on these topics without resorting to insults, foul language or suggestions that the opponent should “get their fist out of a cow’s rectum”.

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I stopped engaging in a recent Twitter conversation when a vegan posted a screenshot of my Twitter bio and claimed that, as a breast cancer survivor, I was foolish to consume a “hormone cocktail” (milk). I may be biased, but using cancer, still a life sentence for far too many, as a tool for trying to promote veganism, utterly lacks the human compassion that the same person claimed should be extended to farm animals.

Screen Shot 2017-11-13 at 14.45.04

Let’s get real. If artificial insemination, housing cattle, removing the calf from the cow and all the other practices that are apparently abhorrent to vegans were outlawed, would those opposed to meat and dairy production on the grounds of exploitation and slaughter be appeased? No.

So, here’s the challenge to angry vegans. Blow away the smoke, mirrors and pseudo-animal welfare outrage, and ask the real question: Are you prepared to let animals be killed in order to enjoy meat? If the answer is yes, then move on, there’s nothing for you to tweet about here.

How Many Vegans Does it Take to Change a Dairy Industry? It Depends How We Look at the Numbers

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Jerseys in parlourThe Advertising Standards Authority in the UK have just ruled that it’s permissible for vegan campaigners to use emotive terminology to describe dairy production, on the grounds that the claims made do represent dairy farming methods.  Thus, phrases such as “mothers, still bloody from birth, searched and called frantically for their babies” are sanctioned as legitimate, despite the anthropomorphic language and lack of sound scientific evidence for loss- or grief-type emotions in dairy cows.

Excellent animal welfare should be the cornerstone of every livestock production system, including the non-tangible and therefore difficult to measure emotional side of animal welfare, yet using these types of emotive phrases does not really appear to be advancing the vegan cause. As quoted in the Times article, 540,000 people in Britain enjoy a vegan diet at present, up from 150,000 in 2006.

That’s a considerable number, approximately equal to the population of Manchester (City, not Greater Manchester) or the number of people in the UK who are aged 90+, yet as a percentage of the total British population, less than one percent (0.82% to be exact) choose a vegan diet. Is the proportion increasing? Yes. The equivalent percentage in 2006 was 0.25%, yet even at today’s figures, 99.18% of the British population are non-vegans. Are there any other situations where we would consider than less than 1% of the population to have a significant influence? Possibly not.

Bad news bias factory farm

Given that it takes five pieces of positive information to negate the impact of one piece of negative information, it’s more crucial than ever to get simple, factual, attractive messages out to the general public about dairy farming. Rather than campaigning against emotive activist claims, we need to reach out to the 99.18% of people who have not removed animal products from their diet and reassure them that they’re making appropriate food choices for themselves and their children.

How Now, Old Cow? Do “Slaughter-Free” Dairy Farms Come at an Unsustainable Cost?

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As consumers, we’re more like sheep than we’d like to admit – that is, if sheep were tempted to buy food based on “free from” marketing. Gluten-free, fat-free, lactose-free, dairy-free and GMO-free labels are already firmly stamped on many of the foods we buy in shops and restaurants, and are associated with an invisible yet potent, virtuous halo. After all, if a slice of cake is gluten-free, it must be positively healthy.

The latest marketing wheeze appears to be “slaughter-free” dairy production – a 30 cow herd in Rutland, described as a bovine spiritual utopia, where calves are not weaned but run with cows as “grazing partners”; male calves (renamed as ”oxen”) are used for draught power rather than reared as beef; and once cows retire from milking, they are literally put out to pasture rather than being culled.

There’s no doubt that this ticks an entire list of ethical boxes – who doesn’t want to imagine that cows live a happy life browsing the buttercups once they’re too old to produce milk? Yet, given the critical need to produce food sustainably (in terms of economic viability, environmental responsibility and social acceptability), it also leads to a number of questions.

While there may well be a niche market of consumers who are prepared to pay £4.50 per litre for slaughter-free milk; in an era when we primarily choose foods based on price, is this endeavour going to achieve long-term economic sustainability?

Food purchases for EU consumers

The environmental impact of dairy production increases with the proportion of non-producing (dry cows, growing heifers or “retired” cows) in the population – keeping retired cows out on pasture would be expected to add a huge quantity of greenhouse gases to the carbon footprint per litre of milk produced. Carbon footprint and resource use per litre is also negatively correlated with milk production – the low yields associated with this type of hand-milking operation would further add to its environmental impact. How do we, as consumers, balance the relative values of animal welfare and planetary health?

FAO LCA 2

In a system where no cattle are slaughtered, but where cows need to have a calf on a regular basis to produce milk, the herd size will increase exponentially over time. In two, five or ten years time, how will the owners reconcile philosophical arguments against slaughter with the difficulty of supplying enough feed to fulfil the requirements of an ever-expanding herd using a fixed quantity of pasture?

Finally, and most importantly, animal welfare should be the cornerstone of any dairy farm. Euthanasia is upsetting, yet is the only option when animals are too sick or injured to survive. As consumers, we need to take responsibility for the fact that slaughter of both healthy animals (for meat) and sick animals (for humane reasons) is an unavoidable, if unpalatable truth. Just as the recent ban on cattle slaughter for beef in India is going to have negative impacts on food security, economic sustainability and environmental impacts, it’s time that we faced up to the reality of food production and stop thinking that we can have our slaughter-free dairy and eat it!

Cattle, Cowgirl Boots And Cancer

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581677_10153042743360587_388837289_nLast week I was lucky enough to chat with the fabulous Will Evans, a Welsh cattle and hen farmer on his Rock and Roll Farming podcast.

Unlike most of my media interviews, which are focus entirely on sustainability and have me spouting numbers like data is going out of fashion; this was a huge amount of fun and Will got me admitting to a celebrity crush, the fact that I have to put bacon and cheese on hot cross buns and the fact that, as an undergrad, I was so useless at presentations that even the lecturers felt sorry for me.

So if you fancy listening to a fabulous Welsh accent (Will) and a slightly overexcited Oxford/Shropshire/Montana-hybrid (me) discussing the best types of cheese, beating cancer at 25 and the perils of being a reformed vegan in addition to the best way to ensure future livestock sustainability (hint: there’s no one-size-fits-all), check it out here.

Low Meat, Faux Meat or No Meat – Should Retailers Really Reward Us for Buying Vegetarian Foods?

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All food have an environmental impact

There’s no doubt that eating more fruit and vegetables is a positive idea. Nationally we still don’t hit our 5-per-day and lifestyle diseases are major causes of premature death. However, as Sainsbury’s redesigns aisles to try and convince shoppers to swap meat for vegetables and plans to issue extra loyalty points to customers choosing vegetarian foods, are we in danger of applying myopic solutions to a seriously complex issue?

Most people in developed countries eat more than the recommended 70 g of meat per day. If (and this is debatable) the researchers who claim that meat consumption is linked to lifestyle disease are correct, then reducing the amount that we eat may be a positive step. However, much of the justification for cutting meat consumption appears to be on the basis of reducing environmental impacts.

So how do we ensure that we eat a diet with a low carbon footprint? It’s very simple. Drewnowski et al. (2015) showed that grains, syrups and sugars had the lowest carbon emissions per kg of food – considerably lower than meat and dairy products. So we simply reduce the proportion of meat and increase the quantity of sugar that we eat each day. Just replace meat products with Mars bars and golden syrup and we’ll save the planet, albeit in conjunction with a spike in type II diabetes and a significant protein deficit.

If Sainsbury’s is determined to reward consumers for making healthier choices, why not do so based on the proportion of fruit, vegetables, lean protein and dairy purchased vs. cakes, biscuits and crisps; rather than giving extra loyalty points for vegetarian products? After all, a snickers bar or a packet of oven chips are both vegetarian, but meat-free foods are not inherently healthy choices. Furthermore, where do fish and dairy fit into the new regime? Given the low nutritional value of soy and oat juices per unit of greenhouse gas emissions compared to dairy, the potential for child malnourishment is considerable if plant-based foods are mis-sold as being nutritionally-equivalent to animal products.

Bipolar “A is bad, B is good” panaceas do nothing to improve consumer knowledge of food production or environmental impacts. Strawberries may have a lower carbon footprint than beef, but cannot be grown on a rocky slope in Scotland. Pork may have a relatively high water footprint, but almonds use even more. Lettuce is a great source of fibre, but provides very little additional nutrients per kg compared to meat. In my experience as an ex-vegan, the majority of vegan restaurant dishes are largely reliant on pasta or rice to bulk out the vegetables. Is this really a healthier choice than lean meat and vegetables? Given that many young people have little or no interest in cooking, is the presence of spiralised courgettes or cauliflower rice at the end of the aisle going to engender a sudden interest in all things gastronomic?

Most people’s diets are led (to a greater or lesser extent) by the foods available in the local supermarket, therefore retailers have huge opportunities to educate, encourage and improve our food choices. It’s not clear why Sainsbury’s would choose to launch this initiative, but it appears to be a box-ticking exercise, designed to address a single minor issue while ignoring the bigger problem.

The Future’s Bright; The Future’s…Meaty? A Response to Breakthrough’s Essay on Meat Production

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jims-charolais-in-feedyardThis week I was asked to respond to an excellent Breakthrough article on the environmental impacts of beef production. As ever, I hope the comments below provide food for thought (pardon the pun) and I urge you to read the full Breakthrough article as well as the other comments by Jayson Lusk, Maureen Ogle and Alison van Eenennaam.

Every food has an environmental impact, whether it’s cheeseburgers or tofu, coffee or corn.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of us and, as a scientist, sustainability consultant and parent, I don’t have a problem with food production being one of the biggest contributors to global environmental impacts. Why? Because food production is one of the few industries that are absolutely essential for human life. However, it’s clear that we need to take steps to reduce environmental impacts from human activity, and as such, the livestock industry is often criticised for both resource use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Although meat production is predicted to increase from now until at least 2050, it should be noted that the trends for improved productivity and efficiency within global livestock industries also reduce environmental impacts. As described in Marian Swain’s essay on meat production, the US beef industry cut resource use and greenhouse emissions considerably between 1977 and 2007. Meanwhile, the rise of modern feedlot-finishing systems cuts land use, water use, and emissions per unit of beef compared to grass-finished meat.

These findings may seem intuitively incorrect as we’re constantly exposed to marketing and media messages suggesting that only grass-fed meats are environmentally sustainable, and that intensive livestock systems are undesirable. The data speak for themselves however—the majority of extensive systems finish cattle at lighter weights (thus requiring more total animals to maintain beef supply), have lower growth rates (so cattle take longer to grow to their finish weight) and often have lower reproductive performance in female cattle.

All these factors combine to increase environmental impacts. But when I presented this data to a group of French Masters-level Livestock Engineering students earlier this month, they were (in their own words) shocked. Even among experts and students, there remains a great deal of misunderstandings when it comes to meat production.

Does this mean that every beef producer worldwide should embrace feedlot-finishing and reduce pasture use? Absolutely not. One of the major benefits of cattle compared to swine and poultry is that they digest and use human-inedible forages, such that dairy and grass-fed beef cattle actually produce more human-edible protein in the form of milk and meat than they consume; and feedlot-finished beef cattle have a ratio of human-edible feed intake to human-edible protein output similar to that of swine, despite their greater overall land use. In keeping with the themes discussed in the Swain’s essay, there is no magic bullet—it is essential to fit production systems to the cattle, climate, market, and culture within each region and to improve productivity within each and every system.

So rather than reducing animal protein consumption as we move towards 2050, we might ponder keeping total consumption relatively stable, with a more equitable distribution across the globe? This would allow for a decrease in over-consumption in high-income regions, while providing a greater quantity of milk, meat, and eggs to those who have dire need for adequate animal proteins to maintain health and to promote adequate child growth and development. While the environmental impact of beef production is a key concern, we also have to examine the role of livestock in economic and social sustainability.  For billions of small-scale farmers, cattle provideeconomic viability, improved nutrition, social status and a means to diversify agricultural production as well as tangible benefits in terms of fertilizer, hides and other by-products.

Should we insist that global beef production is abandoned in favour of increased legumes, nuts or lab-created proteins? No. We simply need to give producers worldwide the education, tools and technologies to make the best and most efficient use of their resources. Only then will we have a truly sustainable (environmentally responsible, economically viable and socially acceptable) global meat industry.

Having Your Beef and Spending It? Don’t Let Moral Indignation Overcome Common Sense.

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My Twitter feed has lit up like a firework this week with the news that cows are being murdered to produce the new plastic British £5 notes. Or, to correct the sensationalism with science, the notes contain a trace of tallow in the polymer that’s used to make them. Tallow is a by-product of beef production – it’s effectively the fat on the animal that we don’t want to eat, and has been used for centuries in a myriad of products.

Let’s be very clear here. No cows are being slaughtered (murdered!) to make £5 notes. Cattle are either slaughtered for meat or euthanised due to illness – there are no Bank of England-sanctioned posses stringing up helpless cattle as a license to print money (literally). Fortunately, we are able to use the portion of the animal’s carcass that we can’t (or won’t) eat to manufacture products that would otherwise rely on synthetic chemicals.

Not surprisingly, the majority of the outcry has come from vegetarians and vegans. While I will defend the right of anybody to choose what they eat or wear (note that I am not criticising or denouncing anybody’s religious beliefs here), the current protests seem to be slanted towards choosing to be offended by a minor point, rather than any semblance of logic.

According to a rather nifty (yet accurate) calculation by the guys at Vice, it would take 23 kg of tallow to make all the new £5 notes that will be in circulation by the time the old ones are phased out. The total tallow yield per animal is ~40 kg, so it would take just over half of one animal (23/40 = 0.58) to produce all the tallow for the UK’s total £5 note requirements.

5-noteMany of those who are protesting are vegetarian (as opposed to vegan), thus still consume milk, eggs, honey and other non-meat animal products. Given that 20% or more of the cattle slaughtered in the UK are adult cows and bulls (i.e. they have reached the end of their productive life in the dairy or beef herd rather than being specifically reared for meat), it makes sense to utilise whatever components of their carcasses are suitable for industrial purposes rather than diverting them into landfill or incinerators. If dairy consumption is acceptable to vegetarians, can it really be claimed that bank notes containing a fraction of the spent dairy cow’s carcass as tallow are not?

by-products-from-animal-agAs I have mentioned in previous blog posts, myriad everyday products contain by-products from cattle. Given the current outcry, once can only assume that those who shun the new £5 notes also refuse to travel in cars, buses or on bicycles (as (t(as tyres contain stearic acid, again from tallow); do not drink from bone china mugs; or disavow beer filtered through isinglass. Or, as with so many other issues, is it an opportunity for a small minority to protest and promote their personal dietary choices behind the guise of population-wide offence?

The online petition against the new £5 notes currently has >129,000 signatures. Obviously we all have the right to protest against issues that alarm, anger or offend us, and social media gives those opinions far greater weight than we had in the past. Yet is this really an issue that is more important (as judged by media coverage) than 11-year-old girls being forced into marriage? Or livestock being slaughtered without first being stunned? Or asylum seekers being refused entry? Perhaps in this case, the moral minority need to examine the bigger picture, and consider the issues that really matter.

 

 

 

Cutting Meat? Or Just Cutting Corners?

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DexterIt is equally interesting, inevitable and lamentable to see that another study has come out claiming that the only way to reduce climate change is to cut meat consumption per person.

Meat consumption appears to be the only human activity subject to continuous “we must cease/reduce this” claims on the basis of environmental impacts. If we compare to other greenhouse gas sources, a considerable proportion come from transportation. Yet rather than insisting that every car-owner cut their annual mileage by 25%, the focus has been on reducing emissions by producing more fuel-efficient vehicles. Similarly, no one has yet claimed that we should reduce household lighting by four hours per day, but the compact fluorescent lightbulb (CFL) has become the poster child for improving household energy efficiency.

We have demonstrable proof that beef and dairy producers have improved greenhouse gas emissions (as well as land use, water use, energy efficiency, etc) over time through improved efficiency, and can continue to do so into the future. So why are the gains made by livestock producers dismissed, and reduced meat intakes seen as the only solution? I have an absolute hatred of conspiracy theories, but it is difficult not to see an latent agenda in the preponderance of “Cut meat consumption” papers. Jumping on the bandwagon? Promoting individual dietary opinions as science? Or simply bowing to NGO/media opinions and looking for easy funding and publicity?

As the global population increases to over 9.5 billion people by 2050, with the majority of this growth occurring in the developing world, the demand for milk, meat and eggs is going to increase by 60%. If we are serious about cutting greenhouse gas emissions, it’s time to examine the impacts of all of our actions and concentrate on further efficiency improvements rather than constraining dietary choice.