What you’re getting yourself into
Cattle aren’t bad for the planet. They are the planet. Here’s a colossal demolition of anti-beef propaganda. No, I’ve not been paid by Big Beef.
Ever since the first wild aurochs were domesticated 10,000 years ago in the marshy plains of the Fertile Crescent, cattle have played an indispensable role in human civilisation. They’ve provided meat, milk, leather, draft power, and countless byproducts in the many millennia that have followed.
Cattle have ascended from being just one of innumerable species of megafauna, to becoming the second most important species on the planet. But their lofty perch has recently been put under siege. People are queuing up to question just how indispensable they are for both our health, and the future of the planet.
Nowadays, we have around 1.1 billion cattle strewn across the globe, with a mainstream belief that there are simply too many of them. You don’t have to look far to find books and articles whistleblowing the ‘inhumane’ treatment of dairy cows, the destruction that cattle farming wreaks on the environment, and the sheer unsustainability of feeding them grass.
The message is always the same. Eat less beef. Eat more plants.
This has been going on for decades, and we’ve reached a point where even the members of the public who ignore the demands, still accept that cattle are “probably quite bad for the planet”.
So I’m making the case for the defence of our cloven-hoofed friend, by dispensing with the many common myths that are waged against cattle farming. Because these myths aren’t just noise. They’re dangerous. Cattle are the linchpin of both the food and the ecosystems.
1. We’re Not Cutting Back On Red Meat
Back in 1974, the average person in the UK ate 500 grams of red meat per week. This doesn’t include pork, because I refuse to classify it as red meat. It’s just a different shade of white. Red meat should just be synonymous with ruminant meat, like cattle, sheep, goats, and deer.
I know that’s a controversial thing to say, but I’ve made my bed on this hill, and I’m happy to die on it.
The intake of this classification of red meat has since dropped by 48%. That’s a staggering amount. We’ve nearly cut back on our portions by half.
This isn’t the article for tackling the many health allegations of red meat (which I’ve already penned), but if it’s really as bad as they make it out to be, you’d think that cutbacks of these proportions would have had some ameliorating effects.
Of course, chronic disease in the UK has only skyrocketed since 1974.
2. We Have Too Many Cattle
There are a litany of holes in this popular notion that we’re buckling under the weight of wasteful and destructive livestock agriculture. It’s completely disingenuous, because it ignores the fact that the UK is the gold standard for sustainable beef and dairy production.
The number of cattle in the UK peaked way back in 1974, at 15.2 million head. In 2023, it was down to 9.5 million. And yet, total dairy production increased by 14% over that period.
The efforts of our farmers should be praised, rather than maligned because a few billionaires want to have their egos stroked.
3. We’ve Never Had This Many Ruminants
Another thing that escapes many people when talking about cows cooking up the ozone, is the fact that there used to be exponentially greater numbers of wild ruminants lumbering over grassy plains before humanity engineered their catastrophic demise.
North America, for example, currently has about 48 million cattle, including dairy cows. But back in the 19th century, the Great Plains hosted 60 million bison. During that same period, North America also had 10 million elk.
These populations were then swiftly driven to the point of near-extinction. And yet, they seemingly weren’t a problem. But by some logic, the smaller number of cattle that exist in North America today, are the problem driving climate change.
4. Cattle Are Mainly Kept In Feedlots
A large chunk of the public have their perspective on cattle farming shaped by vegan snuff films, like Dominion. Which naturally are designed to emotionally manipulate viewers by misrepresenting the livestock industry.
Hence why people hold onto this idea that cattle are typically kept in massive feedlots where they wallow in their excrement and share every disease known to bovines.
But feedlots are the rarest of exceptions in countries like the UK that have an abundance of land that is unfit for anything other than grazing. The likes of the US and Australia have more feedlots, but even then, the cattle aren’t spending most of their lives in these operations. They are merely moved into feedlots during the final stages so they can be finished on grain.
And being kept in a factory farm doesn’t mean they’re going to be suffering. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that most feedlot operations appear to be held to a high welfare standard. And that makes intuitive sense. When each cow is worth thousands of pounds, it wouldn’t be in the farmers best interests to risk a full paddock dropping to disease, or producing low quality tainted meat due to a lifetime of neglect.
Not to mention the fact that being a farmer these days means arduous back-breaking work for the slimmest of profit margins. They’re probably not going through that if they don’t take some pride in their profession and the quality of their product.
5. Most Beef Is Grain-Fed
If you’re running around UK supermarkets trying to find some beef that has a ‘grass-fed’ label, then it’s time to stop fretting. Virtually all beef made in the UK is grass-fed, as these cattle spend the majority of their lives on grass.
Such a label is therefore completely unnecessary. If there’s one thing we have in abundance here, it’s grass. Even in the US, where intensive feeding operations are more common, grain-fed cattle will be in a sharp minority.
The only difference worth noting with beef products, is whether the cow spends its final 4-6 months on grain or grass. In which case, you’d be looking for the label ‘grain-finished’ or ‘grass-finished’.
6. Grass-Finished Is Vastly Superior To Grain-Finished
Armed with the knowledge that the difference between ‘grass-fed’ and ‘grain-fed’ only extends to the final few months of a cow’s diet, you’ll be better set to tackle the question of whether the grass-exclusive is that much better than the one fed grain.
But you also need to consider what makes ruminants so special. Through the bacteria housed in the rumen section of the multi-chambered stomach, cattle have the miraculous ability to detoxify plant foods and convert them into bioavailable nutrition. An animal fed grain is going to be taking in a bunch of oils alongside the grain, and those oils will have plenty of inflammatory Omega 6.
With monogastric animals like chicken, pigs, and humans, that Omega 6 is getting stored in the body fat, creating the bedrock for systemic inflammation for years to come. The half-life of Omega 6 is 2-3 years.
Ruminants don’t have that problem, because the rumen converts most of that Omega 6 into saturated fat, the body’s preferred form of energy storage. Hence why grain-finished beef is often maligned for being higher in Omega 6, the absolute amounts of Omega 6 is well within the borders of insignificance.
A study comparing grain-fed beef to grass-fed beef, found that the former had 0.32 grams of Omega 6 per 100g serving, while the latter had, on average, 0.067 grams.
The same amount of pork belly would get 5 grams of Omega 6.
The same amount of walnuts puts you at 38 grams.
Worrying about the significance of Omega 6 in grain-fed beef is the epitome of majoring in the minors. The same follows for the whole nutritional package.
The healthiest food in the world is grass-finished beef. The second is grain-finished beef. Anything that’s not red meat is going to be lagging behind.
7. Cattle Are Major Contributors To GHG Emissions
According to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), meat and dairy account for 14% of all greenhouse gas emissions.
This is a serious number that’s often the main point of contention to the sustainability of cattle farming. But this is a global figure that includes plenty of systems that aren’t concerned about efficiency and environmental protection, like Brazil. And it includes other livestock, like pork and poultry.
If we narrowed it down to the emissions produced by sheep and cattle in the UK, we’d be at a much less significant 5.7%. That 5.7% is then dropped down further to a 3.7%, since cattle and sheep in the UK are grazed on permanent pastures that act as a carbon sink.
But leaving it that would be doing the cattle a disservice, because methane has a much shorter lifespan than C02. Whereas 40% of C02 released into the atmosphere will still be there after a century, methane has a lifespan of just 12 years. That methane will then drop back down into the earth, get pulled into some grass, chewed up by a cow, then belched back into the atmosphere.
It’s a flow gas. It can’t cook up the planet because it’s continuing rather than adding to the cycle. If a cow wasn’t there to chew that blade of grass, it would eventually rot, and leak methane into the atmosphere.
The only conceivable way we can accelerate methane emissions is by adding to the number of cattle. Except, as I’ve already addressed, those numbers in the UK have been dropping.
8. Land Is Being Wasted On Livestock
More than three quarters of the world’s agricultural land is used for livestock, despite meat and dairy only making up a small portion of caloric intake.
This is a problem that needs resolving. That’s a good chunk of land that still isn’t being used to create more steak.
Regardless, deploring the wasteful use of land is completely deceptive, because it dances past a very important clarifier.
Two thirds of the world’s agricultural land isn’t fit for growing crops, and can only be used for grazing. The soil may be too shallow, or the land too rocky, or steep. If we weren’t using those pastures for cattle, they would just lie fallow.
9. Livestock Are The Main Culprit For Crop Deaths
When comparing wheat against grass-fed beef, the former causes the death of 25 times more sentient deaths per kilogram of protein. This is a thorn in the side of vegans who bank their moral superiority on their ability to ensure the peace and prosperity of all animal species.
It’s an unfortunate fact of life that all life cannot exist without other creatures dying to feed it. Livestock animals need to be slaughtered for their meat, and crops need to take over teeming ecosystems and then be protected from pests. Regardless of what you eat, you’ll have blood on your plate.
Some vegans attempt to sidestep this by pinning crop deaths on the livestock. But when you understand that crops are primarily grown for human consumption, because that’s inherently the most valuable option for farmers, then you’ll also appreciate that this is something the vegans can’t dodge.
The death of thousands of rodents, rabbits, and birds that went into their bagels and tofu are ultimately on their doorstep.
10. Cattle Are Cutting Down The Amazon
The Amazon rainforest is being decimated, and the blame is being laid squarely at the feet of Big Beef, thanks to the much-cited claim that 80% of the deforestation is due to cattle ranching.
I’m not going to put Brazil as the pinnacle of sustainable cattle farming, but it’s a little ridiculous to pin this on cattle when they only provide the necessary precursor to much more lucrative soybean crops.
After some international outcry back in 2006, the soy industry agreed to stop buying soy grown in newly deforested areas. And it worked out great. Since 2006, the amount of land soy occupies in the Amazon region is up 260 percent, but only a bit more than one percent of that soy is being grown in newly deforested areas.
These figures shouldn’t raise any suspicion about the sanctity of the soy industry. The forests are cut down, cattle are moved in, help clear the fields for soybean crops, while also disguising the connection between Big Soy and deforestation.
Fortunately, the people that conceded soy’s destructive role in the Amazon have a second defence to fall back to. That 80% of soy goes to feed animals.
Again, it’s artfully deceptive. 80% of the weight of soy goes to animal feed. That doesn’t mean 80% of the Amazon acreage is dedicated to livestock.
This comes in the form of the soymeal that’s left as a byproduct after the more valuable oil has been extracted. If it wasn’t for the convenient use as animal feed, it would go to waste. The primary use of soy is ultimately soybean oil, for biodiesel and human consumption.
Regardless, only 4% of global livestock feed comes from soy, and most of that is in the form of chicken feed. So there’s virtually no chance that the beef you’re picking up in the supermarket is tainted with the destroyed rainforest habitats.
10. Red Meat Contains Hormones
You’ll still hear from people worried about the growth promotants used to boost weight gain in livestock, even if countries like the UK have outright banned growth hormone since 1989. But what about the likes of Australia and the US, where such hormones are still used?
Even if hormone implants are used, the amounts are residual, designed to release slowly over time, and untraceable at slaughter.
A pre-pubertal boy would have to eat eight entire cows worth of beef every day to get as much hormones as he is already producing daily.
6 ounces of untreated beef gets you 2.6 ng of oestrogen.
With hormone implants, that goes up to a staggering 3.8 ng.
Compare that to 4 ounces of cabbage, which has 2700 ng.
1 tbsp of soybean oil has 28,370 ng.
The concept of ‘hormone-free’ meat is basically a marketing scam.
11. Red Meat Contains Antibiotics
Just like hormones, antibiotics also get an unnecessary stigma without any of the context. The UK has one of the lowest levels of antibiotic use in Europe, dropping 53% between 2014 and 2018. In this country, humans use 2.4 times more antibiotics compared to livestock.
A second point is the fact that antibiotics are used specifically to prevent disease, meaning that it’s both critical for animal welfare, and food safety. You probably want to avoid any beef that’s been through a feedlot and marked ‘antibiotic-free’.
The antibiotics that are used don’t appear to have any effect on humans, and are subject to strict withdrawal periods before slaughter, preventing them from getting into the food supply.
As for the worries on antimicrobial resistance, or the presence of the bacteria that resist antibiotics, less than 1% of beef samples in the UK have been shown to have traces of E. coli.
12. Beef Uses Up Ridiculous Amounts Of Water
“It takes 39 bathtubs filled with water to produce just one pound of beef”
What they don’t tell you, is that more than 90% of that water comes from whatever rain that’s falling on the particular meadow that the cow has been standing on.
While only 4% is actually taken out of the tap. The former is green water, meaning it’s a renewable resource. The latter is blue water, which has been extracted from the local water supplies, such as aquifers.
A recent estimate of the water footprint of beef in the US put it at 2331 litres per kg. With 4% of that coming from blue water, that gives it 93 litres of non-renewable water.
Compared to beef, almonds require 10,240 litres per kg. They get 5.5% of their needs from green water, 52.5% from blue water, and 42% from grey water, which is untreated household wastewater. That’s 5376 litres of water drained from the local supply. Which has the larger water footprint?
Look at those cows just standing there, stealing our precious rain.
13. Rewilding Pastures Into Forests Will Reduce C02 In The Atmosphere
Forests have long served the planet as a critical carbon sink, holding onto a lot of the carbon that would otherwise sneak into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, the cattle are busy using up vast swathes of land that could otherwise be turned into dense and vibrant climate-saving forests.
As one noble article puts it: “Reducing our consumption of farmed meat by 70%—in line with the dietary recommendations made by the EAT-Lancet Commission—would ultimately free up enough land to sequester 332 gigatons of carbon by 2050, through restored vegetation and soil. If humanity took a more drastic global step and switched to an entirely vegan diet, the sequestering potential of freed land would rise to 547 gigatons.”
It’s a lovely thought, but grasslands are more safe and efficient carbon sinks than forests, because 97% of the carbon is stored in the soil, safe from wildfires and other disturbances. Hence why a study showed a 59% decline in carbon stocks of grassland converted into cropland, and a 10% decline when converted into forest plantation.
Grass isn’t an unnecessary species to discard because trees look nicer. It’s a crucible of carbon capture, soil health, and biodiversity. The mild moist climate of the UK’s temperate ecosystem provides the best conditions for the growth of grass and its ability to play a major role in ensuring the sustainability of planet Earth.
Habitats like hay meadows and permanent pastures, grazed by the right amount of livestock at the right time, can support an astonishing 770 species of wild flower and are crucibles of biodiversity.
Nearly 1,400 species of pollinators and other insects rely on species-rich grassland for their survival and they, in turn, support a myriad of bird and animal life.
Re-creation of these open habitats must be seen as a priority as urgent as planting trees.
14. Cattle Damage The Landscape By Overgrazing
Overgrazing can cause problems with soil erosion and the loss of rare plant species. This was largely due to the fact that farming subsidies were paid for each animal so rearing more animals meant more money.
Now, in England, agricultural payments from the Common Agricultural policy (CAP) are paid to farmers according to how much land is being farmed. In some places, undergrazing is now an increasing problem.
This is just a case of using sensible grazing methods, like rotating cattle through different pastures, so they can work their magic without chewing the land dry. Because the very act of grazing improves both the growth of grass and the health of the soil beneath it.
The way cattle remove grass causes a tugging sensation that tells the plants to grow more robust root systems in order to anchor themselves better. The poop they deposit on the pasture provides the perfect fuel for soil-dwelling creatures to thrive. The grazing itself prevents the grass from growing too high and rotting away.
Cows are good for the grass, and grass is good for the planet.
Verdict – Cattle Are Unimpeachable
Cattle are often painted in the mass media as an environmental catastrophe that needs to be replaced by far-superior methods of plant agriculture.
This Garden of Eden solution only works if you have no concept of farming beyond what’s fed to you by the likes of the Guardian, who curate content to suit the whims of their vegan sponsors, and the bottomless pit of vegan blogs.
Anyone with some sense should be able to see the sheer infeasibility of replacing marginal grazing land with monoculture crops, and the keystone position that ruminants have occupied in the ecosystem for millions of years.
Cattle upcycle grass and inedible crop byproducts into the pinnacle of human nutrition, help sequester carbon, promote soil fertility, maintain the habitat of countless plant and animal species, and are backed by strict animal welfare standards.
They aren’t the problem. They are the solution.
