In a recent post on on their goveg.com website, PETA claims that eating 1 lb. of meat emits the same amount of greenhouse gases as driving an SUV 40 miles."1 That's great. Except they don't say what kind of meat. Or where the meat is raised. Free-range cattle actually contribute to sequestering carbon since they are raised on grasslands.2 But things are always black and white with PETA. Meat bad. Vegetables good. This kind of thinking drives me crazy.
Let's look at the root of the "meat eating destroys the environment" thought process. It's really quite simple if you're a militant-vegan:
1. Meat eaters raise cattle.
2. Cattle emit massive amounts of greenhouse gas while in captivity.
3. Greenhouse gas destroys ozone.
4. Everyone bursts into flame.
Now let's look at the "Sven sees in color" scenario:
1. Vegans and vegetarians eat foods that cause cows and humans alike to produce excess gas.
2. Vegans and vegetarians convince the entire human population to do the same.
3. 6.6 billion people start flatulating at an unprecedented level, which destroys ozone.
4. Everyone bursts into flame.
At this point, I'm sure you're having a good laugh over this, but there is an element of truth to my prophecy of global flatus.
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A normal adult human expels between 1 and 4 pints of gas a day. Most foods that contain carbohydrates cause gas, while foods containing fats and proteins cause little gas. Foods high in the sugars raffinose, fructose, and sorbitol cause excessive gas. Beans are incredibly high in raffinose. Fructose and sorbitol are found in high concentration in fruits and vegetables.3 Furthermore, studies show that people on a vegetarian diet produce about 4.5 times the methane that an omnivorous person produces.4
So what does all of this mean?
Meat eaters: sometimes gassy.
Vegetarians and vegans: smelly, bloated sacks of environment-destroying carbon and methane. Hey, if PETA members can throw paint on people for not following their beliefs, I can call vegetarians and vegans smelly.
So stop eating meat. Hell, stop us all from eating meat. You might look good with third-degree burns on your scalp. Or, you could help save the planet. Eat a cow. That's right. I went there.
Why no, I don't make this crap up:
1 PETA/GoVeg.com, http://www.goveg.com/environment.asp
2 Soil Carbon Coalition, http://www.soilcarboncoalition.org
3 National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse, http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/gas
4 The Human Methane Fingerprint, http://www.science.uwaterloo.ca
