A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists shows that meat consumption plays a large part in the problematic deforestation, especially tropical forests and the Amazon. Animals raised for meat tend to use up a lot of land for raising crops and grazing.
Eating too much meat can be extremely bad for your health, but did you ever stop to think about the environment while divulging into that juicy slab of steak? From an economic standpoint, beef consumption has been found to be inefficient because it uses nearly three-fifths of the world’s land used for raising crops and livestock but manages to produce less than 5 percent of the world’s protein.
Comparable to other sources of protein, beef is exceptionally low. Other sources include milk, which accounts for 10 percent, poultry at 9.1 percent and pork coming in at 5.6 percent.
The production process of beef is incompetent as well. It creates global warming with its use of feed and forage, and from methane, a heat trapping gas.
So what do you do if you love meat but want to help the problem of deforestation? Simply change your diet up a bit. If you look to chicken as your main source of protein, you will receive many health benefits and lessen the impact of the damage on the environment.
Other alternatives that would be beneficial include increasing the productivity of livestock and moving production to already-cleared land rather than the world’s forests. Buying deforestation-free meats may also encourage government officials to step in and take a stand.
– The Alternative Daily
