Eat Local Meat
I love pork. As someone who grew up with Puerto Rican grandparents, pork was a mainstay in our house, especially for big family dinners on Sundays. My great-grandmother, who we called Nanny, would roast a pernil in the oven for hours, filling the house with smells of melting pork fat and crackling skin. It’s fitting that I married a chef, and that he opened a pork-focused restaurant several years ago. He wanted to serve truly farm to table food, and found a local farmer to source whole pigs from. We got to know this farmer and his children, and he showed us pictures of his pigs, gave us details on how he fed them and took care of them, and every couple of weeks would load up a whole hog in his truck to deliver to the restaurant for my husband to butcher and serve up in a variety of ways for customers, making sure he utilized every single part of the pig. It was, to this day, the best pork I’ve ever had (sorry, Nanny).
Tasting that pork from a small farm in Ohio, and how much better it was than anything I’ve bought at the grocery store, led me to look into the differences in animals raised on factory farms compared with small family farms. Large industrial animal farms, or concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), have become more prevalent over the last 50 years, and it’s estimated that 99% of animals raised for food now come from CAFOs (1). While CAFOs have helped increase animal production to make meat more readily accessible to consumers, that may not be such a good thing, for our health, the environment, or for those who work in and live near CAFOs.
Environmental impact. Production and processing of feed for CAFOs contributes 45% of the total greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture (2). CAFOs also produce a large amount of animal waste, which can contaminate local water supplies (3). Small farms that have pasture-grazing animals can help reduce these emissions, as well as improve plant diversity and soil levels while also decreasing water usage (4). Sustainable farming practices are necessary if we want to be able to continue feeding the world's population into the future.
Health. There have been studies suggesting that pasture raised meat and dairy are more nutrient dense and have anti-inflammatory properties when compared with grain fed animals typically found on CAFOs (5). Additionally, hormones and antibiotics are commonly given to animals raised on CAFOs given the crowded conditions, which can lead to drug-resistant illnesses in humans (6).
Community. Consolidation in the meat industry can lead to unsafe working conditions and low pay for workers at CAFOs (7). Supporting small farms with sustainable practices keeps money in your community, contributes to growth and job creation, and can help reduce poverty (8).
Not every small farmer is going to raise their animals in a humane and sustainable way, but most will, and if you purchase your meat from a small farmer, you’re able to ask questions and learn about sustainable farming practices, how the animals are raised, and what they’re fed, something you won’t be able to do if you don’t know where your meat came from.
Making a commitment to eat local, sustainably raised meat isn’t always easy. I’ve lived in 3 different states since I changed my diet, and while not always convenient, it has always been doable. Not everyone will have equal access to small farms or the financial means to do so, but there are some easy things you can do to change your diet:
Find a local farmers market or farm stand. Farmers markets are a great way to get to know small, local farmers in your area and learn more about what they do and how they raise their animals. Farmers markets can be seasonal in many areas, but in talking with local farmers, you may find that they have stores or farm stands that operate year-round or offer a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) meat share. [If you’re local to Dallas, try the Dallas Farmers Market or Good Local Markets!)
Search for local butchers in your area. Many small butchers partner with local farmers to source their meat, so talk with a butcher in your area and find out where their meat is from and if it’s sourced from a farm with sustainable and humane practices.
Support restaurants that source their meat locally and utilize the whole animal, and ask about how the animals are raised.
Try some vegetarian recipes. A commitment to eating sustainably raised meat means you probably won’t have access to every cut of meat at any given time. Eating meatless just one day a week can help make significant progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as improving your health (9).
Would eating a plant-based diet without meat be better for our health and planet? Of course (1). As Americans we need to eat less meat if we want to mitigate climate change and improve our health (10). Realistically though, Americans (myself included) love meat and we might make more progress in improving our health, the environment, and our communities if we focus on smaller shifts that naturally decrease our meat consumption and shift dollars back to our communities to farmers using sustainable farming practices. If we can commit to knowing where our meat comes from and how it was raised, we can make significant progress in meeting those goals.
References
(1) Moore, Thomas C., et al. “Cafos, Novel Influenza, and the Need for One Health Approaches.” One Health, Elsevier, 8 Apr. 2021, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352771421000367#bb0005.
(2) “Key Facts and Findings.” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, https://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/197623/icode/.
(3) Burkholder, JoAnn, et al. “Impacts of Waste from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations on Water Quality.” Environmental Health Perspectives, vol. 115, no. 2, 2007, pp. 308–312., https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.8839.
(4) Van Vliet, Stephan, et al. “Health-Promoting Phytonutrients Are Higher in Grass-Fed Meat and Milk.” Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, vol. 4, 2021, https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2020.555426.
(5) Dean, Tori. “Nutritional Comparisons between Grass-Fed Beef and Conventional Grain-Fed Beef.” Understanding Ag, 21 Mar. 2022, https://understandingag.com/nutritional-comparisons-between-grass-fed-beef-and-conventional-grain-fed-beef/#:~:text=Research%20results%20show%20that%20grass,compared%20to%20grain%2Dfed%20beef.
(6) Barrett, Julia R.. “Airborne Bacteria in CAFOs: Transfer of Resistance from Animals to Humans.” Environmental Health Perspectives vol. 113,2 (2005): A116–A117.
(7) Stuesse, Angela, and Nathan T Dollar. “Who Are America's Meat and Poultry Workers?” Economic Policy Institute, 24 Sept. 2020, https://www.epi.org/blog/meat-and-poultry-worker-demographics/.
(8) HLPE. 2013. Investing in smallholder agriculture for food security. A report by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the Committee on World Food Security, Rome. https://www.fao.org/3/i2953e/i2953e.pdf
(9) “The Benefits of Meatless Monday.” The Monday Campaigns, Meatless Monday, 28 July 2020, https://www.mondaycampaigns.org/meatless-monday/benefits#:~:text=For%20Your%20Health,-Consuming%20less%20red&text=Eating%20less%20meat%20and%20more,of%20getting%20type%202%20diabetes.
(10) Kim, Brent F., et al. “Country-Specific Dietary Shifts to Mitigate Climate and Water Crises.” Global Environmental Change, vol. 62, 2020, p. 101926., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.05.010.