Is your McDonald's burger killing the rainforest?

Recently I read that the main reason people are cutting down the rain forest, at a rate of 72 acres a minute, is so they can use that land to grow cows...to export to the USA! Who's eating all this beef anyway? This claim was targeting McDonald's specifically, so I wanted to investigate. My feeling is that big beef has big money, and they might 'have a cow' if McDonald's was importing beef. According to McDonald's website, their sole beef supplier is Lopez foods (it is also of interest that they only actually have three food suppliers total). Upon examining Lopez's website, they actually only process meat, they don't raise cows. They did not have a list of their suppliers on their website, but are themselves based in Oklahoma. This proved to be a dead-end. I decided to investigate with the feds, they always provide a lot of data if you have the patience to find it. As it turns out the USDA regulates imports of beef and poultry to the US. They have a list of who we imported beef and poultry from in 2008. Since I'm a fan of basic statistics, and the 'cumulative' column on this list lacked explanation, it looks like the statement from earlier just isn't true. According to my calculations, only about 5% of the US imported beef and poultry is actually from Central and South America. The US consumes nearly 20 billion pounds of beef annually (an excessive amount, averaging out to everyone eating beef once a day). Imports comprise only 3 billion pounds of this (this assumes that all imported meat is beef, so technically we import less beef), so Central and South American beef is actually less than only .003% of all US consumed beef. I think that we eat much more McDonald's in this country than that. This cutting down the rain forest for McDonald's burgers just doesn't hold water for me. But the source is actually from 1996, perhaps our food policy is improving. Why I bring this up is that, what IF your burger was literally destroying the rain forest? Would you do all this research to find out if it were true? Likely not. The real value of this questionable claim is that it makes you think about the impact of traveling food, and question where your food comes from in the first place. Truth be told, the CO2 output from transporting beef from farms in the US to Oklahoma and then to every McDonald's in the country is quite high as it is, it's a giant impact! Put that on top of the environmental impact of beef farming alone and it's ridiculous. Even if your burger isn't cutting down trees, it could have a significant impact regardless. I would urge you to choose vegetarian/vegan options when you're eating out and have no way to determine the source of that food, and therefore it's impact on the greater world. When and if you choose to eat meat, do so mindfully. Take it to heart that the higher on the food chain you climb, the more resources were used to produce this food. And if you ARE going to choose to have an increased impact by eating an animal, at least let the transport of that food be minimal. Most of all, think before you eat.

The Power of Ten

Fact 1: If all Californians were to buy 10% of their food locally, an extra $848 million would go to California farmers, and extra $1.38 billion would go to the California economy, $188 million in tax revenue would be created, and 5,565 jobs would be created in that state (Jones 2008).

Fact 2: If 10% of each of America's trips were taken on public transportation instead of in a car, we could eliminate 40% of our oil consumption, the same amount that we import from Saudi Arabia each year (Jones 2008).

Fact 3: If the average weight of a US citizen dropped 10 pounds, the airline industry would burn 350 million gallons less fuel per year (Jones 2008).

Maybe buying local could solve our economic crisis. I am sure that the effects of buying local food from California would be similar throughout the country. That's a huge impact! And if you buy as much of your food as possible from local sources, the impact could be even greater. Here in Philly, I think it is entirely possible for us to get at least 80% of our food from local sources, the variety is that great. You can even get local popcorn and butter here. Some areas of the country aren't this lucky, but if those in less diverse markets started shopping for what they could and getting to know their farmers, my guess is that those markets would start to expand. A good place to start buying locally is starting with buying things that are grown here instead of elsewhere, e.g. while you can't get a local banana; you certainly CAN get a local potato or tomato...so why are you buying the potato from Idaho and the tomato from Mexico? Start eating seasonally so you can work in more local foods, e.g. make strawberries a special treat for June and enjoy acorn squash and apples in the fall.

And take the bus to the market! If only 10% of our trips is all that it takes to cut our oil consumption nearly in half, we should do it. Imagine what could happen if we walked or rode our bikes, or increased that public transportation percentage. There are some places where public transportation just isn't available; I've lived in some of them. But the good news is that these are smaller towns, where you can take a bike easily. Further, it is likely that you could eliminate 10% or more of your car trips by planning ahead and carpooling. Buying local can reduce fuel consumption further because the food is taking a shorter trip.

If you buy local produce, and subsist primarily on that, overweight people are bound to drop a few pounds, reducing our country's overall weight. If obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and other diet related health problems were to decrease, imagine the decreased medical costs in our nation. That wouldn't be bad for the economy!

I hope that you reflect on your own potential to reduce your fuel consumption boost the local economy, and improve your own health. The impact of one person making small steps really CAN make a huge difference.

Reference: Jones, V. 2008. The green collar economy: how one solution can fix our two biggest problems. HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY, 237 pp.

A matter of life or death

Corina mentioned something in class last night. "People perform better if they believe that what they do matters." I know that at my job, I can get pretty down, usually because I get the feeling that it doesn't matter if the deadline is met, or even if I show up tomorrow. Do you know what the leading cause of death among US farmers is? It's suicide. (Gorelick, 2000) Put yourself in one of our local farmers' shoes. Sam takes his time to grow delicious, nutritious veggies. It takes him a whole year to produce that succulent offering at the farmer's market. He packs up his precious produce and drives into the city every Thursday and lays out his wares in an orderly fashion. Two scenarios could play out here:

1. You, me, and the other guy all know that today is Sam's day. But we end up having a long day at work. It seems like a better idea to go out for happy hour, and then maybe end up staying until 9:00 because we're having in such a good time. The farmer's market closed at 7:00. Oh well, we can just pop by the grocery store on the way home and pick up some veggies from California, it's the same thing, right?
2. You, me and the other guy have a long day at work. Instead of heading straight to the bar at 5:00, we go visit Sam instead. We chat with Sam and he puts a smile on our faces as we pick up the week's produce. we totally score because this week Sam has peaches that we've been waiting all year to bite into! Hey, while we're at it, he has some pie...sounds like dessert to me.

How does each of these options make Sam feel? How do they make us feel? Maybe one person or one day isn't a huge deal, but if week after week you pass him by, Sam will start to wonder if his farm is really worth it. If he decides it isn't, the best case is that another development pops up in Lancaster county, and I need another post to discuss those ramifications. I know what you're going to say, "A farmer grew the California produce too." This is true, but let's see some rough economic analysis. for argument's sake let's say that tomatoes, Sam's and the California farmer's, both cost us 50 cents. Sam's costs: growing the tomato, crates for transporting the tomatoes (which he will reuse), transport from Lancaster Count to Philadelphia County (~78 miles) in the farm truck, and dinner (a quiche from another stand at the market). California farmer's costs: growing the tomato, crates for transporting the tomatoes (that get recycled at the grocery store, not reused), transport from California to Philadelphia (~2875 miles) via tractor trailer, and the grocery store shelf space. My bet, although I'm no accountant, is that Sam keeps the bulk of those 50 cents, where the California farmer makes pennies. The California only gets that much profit if he's selling locally in San Francisco. Who is more likely to be able to support a family and a farm from those sales? Who feels like it's worth it to be a farmer? And to bring it all home...who needs farmers to stay in business? You, me, and that other guy...because we like to eat. Reference: Gorelick, S. 2000. Facing the Farm Crisis - poor economic health of farmers. The Ecologist, June 2000.