USDA: We will not steer people away from meat to protect the environment

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/06/usda-we-will-not-steer-people-away-from-meat-to-protect-the-environment/

by noondip • 11 years ago

21 33 11 years ago

washingtonpost.com

hugh42• 11 years ago

Wow, it's like there's a government department which sees its job as serving the people instead of ruling over them.

emj2• 11 years ago

Because the meat worship we have today is totally a grass root movement.

001sky6• 11 years ago

WTF they already pushed carbs for 30 years

turns out cheetos and coke is a vegan diet

that strategy backfired massively, tho

venomsnake• 11 years ago

It is. Also grass fed. Tasty tasty grass fed.

Meat has always been the food of the rich, of the higher classes and is damn tasty. Meat is also terrific source of proteins, fat soluble vitamins and fats.

hugh42• 11 years ago

I'm not sure what you're saying. Perhaps if you could say what you mean instead of sarcastically saying something you don't mean, you could communicate more clearly.

If you're implying that a meat-heavy diet is some kind of US government conspiracy as opposed to the sort of diet which people across many cultures and eras have gravitated towards when they were able to afford it then I think a better study of history might be in order.

ghubbard• 11 years ago

USDA: The United States Department of Agriculture

The U.S. federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal government policy on farming, agriculture, forestry, and food.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Ag...

marricks• 11 years ago

This is a sad day, this really should have been established... at least the discussion brought attention to the thunderous impact of animal ag on the environment, given that it produces more CO2 emissions than the combined exhaust from all transportation.[1]

Also quite revealing the meat industry's objection,

The meat industry disputed the claim, and the notion that dietary guidelines ought to consider the environment.

They, of course, didn't dispute the impact, just that people should even consider it in a dietary guideline.

[1] http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM

Reason077• 11 years ago

I always assumed that USDA was some kind of industry body set up to promote the U.S. beef industry. I'm surprised to learn that it actually has other roles!

mc324• 11 years ago

The USDA should advise on nutrition not on environment, likewise the EPA should advise on environment and not nutrition. So, while I eat little meat, I think they made a good call. It's not in their direct scope. At the same time, the meat producers should be reserved, one day they may find that less meat is better nutritionally and if they do find so, tell it like it is.

Not sure what the WAPO is trying to imply here. It's as if they want the USDA to go outside their scope --you know, not printing newspapers might also be beneficial to the environment, WAPO, but I don't see you ditching printing out of benevolence but rather necessity as fewer people buy newspapers.

sdenton4• 11 years ago

On the contrary, the mandate of the USDA is to provide guidance and regulation relating to the meat and dairy industries. As the meat and dairy industries have definite environmental impact, they have space to make recommendations relating to the intersection of the meat industry and the environment.

It's foolish to think that we should all live in tiny, proscribed silos of expertise, and simply ignore all areas which other silos might have some claim to...

mc324• 11 years ago

That's why we have other departments of the gov't to advise on their proscribed silos of expertise. No, I think this is the right thing to do. Stick to your area of expertise. I don't want gov't departments going rogue using up resources.

They should stick to their scope like nutrition, food safety, etc. They have too few food inspectors as it is.

rvense• 11 years ago

You can't realistically separate agriculture, nutrition and the environment. Any body that deals with nutrition has to worry about agriculture, and any body that has to worry about agriculture has to worry about the environment. The way people get food is one of the biggest factors in the changing of the environment.

mc324• 11 years ago

No I get that. But that's for someone like the EPA to regulate, not the FDA to give an opinion on. They should be _unbiased_ as to what constitutes a good diet and nutrition (not conditional recommendations).

Imagine getting medical care and the doctor says, well, yes, there is this cure, but if I put on my accountant hat, it would be too expensive, you know what, instead let me recommend this course of action instead. It's not as effective, but it's better for the budget.

brazzledazzle• 11 years ago

No man is an island. Advice and guidelines that don't take context into consideration are useful mostly as some kind of utopian ideal. The various agencies should be working together on things like this. And they sometimes do where their goals overlap. The dietary guidelines are actually an example of that since they're jointly issued by the USDA and HHS.

If the PH in our oceans became so unbalanced they could no longer support any kind of commercial fishing and it became a delicacy would they continue to push a certain percentage of fish as part of our diet? Considering the distortion lobbies create with respect to the balance of democratic power it would surprising if there weren't a certain amount of undue influence.

qrendel• 11 years ago

There is no shortage of meat consumption in the US to the point of adverse health effects - in fact the opposite would seem to be the case. The amount of meat consumed per capita has increased around 54% since 1950 (up to something like an average of 222 lbs per person per year)[1].

There is likely a shortage of healthy vegetable consumption compared to what's been reported to reduce all-cause mortality.[2] Meanwhile beef production uses something like 160x the amount of land per calorie of crops like potatoes, wheat, rice, and around 28x that of other meats.[3]

[1] http://grist.org/article/2010-03-25-corn-ethanol-meat-hfcs/

[2] http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2014/03/03/jech-2013-20350...

[3] http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/07/among-meats-beef-has-...

001sky6• 11 years ago

Isn't the issue that poor people cannot afford fresh food? The calorie/dollar of veg+fruit is not a good value because in places like NYC or SF the markets are completely gentrified and the prices are astronomical. The other consideration is that the poor cannot live in nice real estate areas -- they live in grocery ghettoes. Take a look at the un-even distribution of places like trader joes around the uS and compare that to wal-mart. TJs is only in NFL metros for the most part (with upscale exceptions proving the rule). All of these public health "concerns" reeek of 1st world problems by weatlthy urban people who don't farm or have extensive familiarity with subsistence living. Remember that food stamps were created for poor white people in rural appalccia. The urban poor have completely different health concerns tied to the economics of real estate and transportation. None of this is served or in the scope of normal by the usda.

qopp• 11 years ago

Here's the actual price data of U.S. cities compared to the midwest:

http://www.bls.gov/regions/mid-atlantic/data/AverageRetailFo...

thephyber2• 11 years ago

Current US grocery prices are distorted by farmbill subsidies. Beef, dairy, corn, wheat, soy, sugar, etc are all heavily subsidized by the Federal government's farming policies and tax deductions.

This doesn't change the fact that, relatively speaking, food is more expensive where the cost of living is more expensive and I do not dispute the fact that there are so called "grocery ghettoes".

This also doesn't change the fact that McDonald's burgers are vastly cheaper per Calorie than consumer-packaged vegetables or raw meats, but that is to be expected. The dressing on a salad is almost always more calorie-dense than the salad itself.

Symbiote• 11 years ago

Don't Walmart sell fruit and vegetables?

The British supermarket they bought, Asda, is the cheapest major supermarket in the UK and it certainly sells fresh fruit and veg.

https://www.google.dk/search?q=asda&prmd=imvn&tbm=isch#tbm=i...

It's not fantastic quality, but it's very cheap.

peterwwillis• 11 years ago

It's possible that we could run out of food by ignoring the environment.

If we overfish, there will be no more fish for the FDA to regulate. If we pollute the earth, water and air, there will be less clean earth, water and air with which to grow crops to eat. The crops are fed to the land animals we farm, too, so those are also affected.

There is no government agency dedicated to making sure we have both good quality food and enough ("sustainable") food. The FDA and USDA are concerned with food safety and not availability or quality.

There aren't ecosystems, there is one giant ecosystem that everything is a part of. Until the majority of our food is grown in underground caves, both the FDA and USDA should make an interest in the environment a major priority so we can have the best quality (and most abundant) food possible. But this doesn't happen.

Why? Because the people with the greatest financial incentives to create food will profit more now by caring about the environment less now. Politicians don't get increased campaign funds to make sure your tomatoes are healthier for you. They get increased campaign funds to make sure the tomato seeds are copyrighted by a corporation.

Fish fall through the cracks in a big way because we never needed to "grow" them before. Between 1970 and 2010, fish stocks worldwide fell to 26% of their former levels. About 70% of current worldwide fish stock is overfished or at its limit. But USDA only regulates farmed fish like catfish. The rest is handled by the U.S. Department of Commerce National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service. The EPA in collaboration with the FDA sets limits on acceptable levels of contaminants in fish products.

thephyber2• 11 years ago

USDA was the department that bought us the "food pyramid"[1] and somewhat controversial[2] plate[3][4] marketing campaigns.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_pyramid_%28nutrition%29

[2] Controversial due to the details surrounding the including the replacement of a water drink with a dairy drink placeholder. See [4]

[3] http://www.webmd.com/diet/20110602/plate-replaces-pyramid-as...

[4] http://friedmansprout.com/2011/10/04/harvard-vs-usda-dishing...

USDA: We will not steer people away from meat to protect the environment

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