Don't eat meat and save the world?

The beef burger epitomises all the ingredients the modern consumer is hooked on

I am quite intrigued by a reader’s response to Mojtaba Tegani’s weblog on the World Poultry News.

Tegani’s reaction to the United Nation (UN)’s Dr Rajendra Pachauri’s prescription on our diet in the face of climate change (`give up meat for one day a week, and you’ll do the environment a lot of good’) was:

“Is it realistic to expect that a reduction in meat consumption influence factors associated with climate change? Additionally, will a vegetarian dietary style solve these problems?”

The said reader’s response to Tegani’s blog: “I think it is all about appropriate scale and management.”

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization told us in 2006 that animal manure and some agricultural practices contributed to some 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

We all have a hand in it. I contribute as well, just by breathing alone.

I agree that issues like antibiotics seepage in soil and water should be looked at closely. But before we allow the consumers to lay the blame solely on the industry practices, let’s remind them of our (yes, our – because we’re all in it) eating habits and our lifestyle.

A rich nation like the United States acquired the taste for meat, poultry and dairy products only as early as the 1920s.

Before that, they ate mainly bread. Before the Industrial Age in the 1800s – and the introduction of the milling plants where wheat could be processed efficiently – bread was not the staple food in Europe or in the US.

People survived on crops other than wheat. They ate things like gruel, porridge and soup. Meat was a delicacy. Bread was the food of the aristocrats.

The Western media reports on the Chinese as if they’ll eat through the entire world’s food supply

But meat, like bread, is the kind of luxury that cannot be let go easily once you acquire a taste for it. Even the introduction of sliced wheat bread in the 1930s could not water down the Americans’ love for meat. The consumers were hooked on it.

So when you have a capitalist system in place, driven by bottomline, and shaped by the demands of the consumers, how do you think the supply is going to look like? What kind of technology is created and employed to support this cause?

Of course, we can argue that some huge corporations manipulate the markets, and our diets, so we have very little choice but to consume what is on offer.

But we do have a choice. We want meat.

The New York Times reported that the upwardly mobile Chinese have acquired a taste for pork – they, too, are eating more meat.

This is another interesting thing I find about the way the West reports on the good fortunes of the Chinese. It’s as if they’ll eat through the entire world’s food supply, and leave us with nothing at all if they become rich. It’s a very Malthusian, dog-eat-dog, point of view that should be left in the Industrial Age, when it first came about.

Had we consume our foods – and our fuel and so on – in moderation, we would not have been in this predicament.

I believe that’s what the web reader meant when he mentioned “appropriate scale and management”. Do things in moderation.

Feeding the 300 million

It must be tough for food producers having to choose between profit margins and political correctness. Don’t use antibiotics and your productivity suffers. Use the drugs and you could be inviting a PR disaster Photo: Jonathan Ng

You can make your brand look good in two ways: by accentuating the positive and playing down the negative, or by making others look bad so you look good.

Although it might involve some omission of truth, the former is highly recommended. The latter invites bad blood and bad karma, and should only be left to political campaigns.

Recently, US chicken companies Purdue Farms and Sanderson Farms claimed that their rival, Tyson Foods, did the latter by running an advertisement campaign championing its “raised without antibiotics” chickens. Purdue and Sanderson claimed that in doing so, Tyson insinuated to the consumers that its competitions are using the drugs.

The outcome of the court case will not be known for some time, and we are not in the business to judge who is wrong or who is right. However, it is interesting to note how careful food marketers are when dealing with the word “antibiotics”.

In life science reporting, we don't normally discuss semantics or any obscure branch of sociolinguistics that dwells on the emotional association of a word, but even our own report author couldn't help but comment on the definitions of "antibiotics".

“The term ‘antibiotic’ has become somewhat debased in recent years, at least in the eyes of the animal health industry, as it has been used by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the media in a general in a pejorative sense,” says the Animal Pharm report on Antibacterials in the Animal Health Industry. “It has become associated with scare stories about super-bugs and over-intensive livestock farming.”

The report goes on explain the difference between ‘antibiotics’, ‘antibacterials’, ‘antimicrobials’ and ‘anti-infective’, and what the antibacterials are actually used for.

Antibacterials, it elaborates, do not have any direct effect on viral pathogens. Their use in outbreaks of clinical disease involving viruses is aimed at “combating any secondary infections by opportunistic bacteria which may be present either in the environment or as part of the normal commensal flora of a healthy animal”.

To change the consumers' perception of antibiotics, the public needs to be educated, and more research should be done into new ways of slowing down the much-feared antibiotic resistance, says the Ain Shams Scientific Pharmaceutical Students’ Association (ASSPSA) of the Faculty of Pharmacy, Ain Shams University, Egypt.

Not long ago, the association published a paper on the importance of antibiotics. Entitled Antibiotics Abuse, the paper maintains that “the discovery of antibiotics was a leap in modern medicine. Antibiotics are the cornerstone for the prevention and treatment of numerous respiratory infections”.

It explains the reason behind the abuse of antibiotics in farming. “Cleverly, the antibiotics are called ‘antimicrobial growth promoters’, or AGPs. The reason why they are so desirable is that they increase growth and feed efficiency in animals by 2% to 4%,” the paper says.

“If you are a livestock farmer, 2% to 4% may be more than even your profit margin. To the farmers, there could be perceived negative ramifications to not using antimicrobial growth promoters”.

A diner (pictured, left) enjoying his all-you-can-eat breakfast in New Orleans, Louisiana, US. Mass food consumption means mass food production Photo: Kess Bohan/Sojournposse

Apparently, the US livestock farming cannot do without growth-promoting antibiotics, according to Peter Hughes and John Heritage of the Division of Microbiology, School of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Leeds.

In their paper, Antibiotic Growth-Promoters in Food Animals, published on the FAO website, the authors state: “The Animal Health Institute of America (AHI, 199) has estimated that, without the use of growth promoting antibiotics, the USA would require an additional 452 million chickens, 23 million more cattle and 12 million more pigs to reach the levels of production attained by the current practices.”

It must be tough for food producers having to choose between profit margins and political correctness. Don’t use antibiotics and your productivity suffers. Use the drugs and you could be inviting a PR disaster.

Like many rich nations, the US diet consists of a high proportion of meat. Ironically, not every American is rich enough to afford alternative diets inspired by ethics or healthy lifestyles. Without the use of growth promoting antibiotics in livestock farming, how is it possible for the US to feed her 300 million?

Bird flu: It's not just about the bottomline

I expected the Malaysian government's emphasis on commerce and manufacturing to gradually push the locals away from their agricultural roots, but I didn't expect the avian flu pandemic to be killing the people's lifestyle like this.

Three weeks ago, I brought my other half, of British and Australian descent, to the regions of northern Malaysia and Thailand for the first time. We drove down from Penang to a maritime disctrict called Lumut, home to the country's biggest naval base and to a huge shipping industry.

He was impressed by the quaint Malaysian villages, but wondered where on earth the chickens were. Except for one or two cows, there were no other animals to be seen alongside the village roads.

Well, the bird flu pandemic happened.

Up until four years ago, it was common for the locals, even those with office jobs, to keep poultry at home. Poultry was kept not only for consumption. My mother kept hers as pets. You might find it strange to have chickens as pets, but these birds - although not clever enough to perform various tricks like dogs - are very good at recognising their owners (they don't like to be fed by strangers), and that they are actually homing birds, like pigeons. You can let them out during the day, but they always come back to you in the evening. Even better, they lay you eggs. Dogs and cats can't do that.

Of course, the pandemic meant that many had to be culled. I never was keen on poultry - I used to be quite embarrassed by my mother's hobby - but I did feel sorry for her when she had to give away her geese. She didn't have the heart to kill them.

She will, however, be very glad to know that water fowls could be the culprits behind the spread of avian flu in Southeast Asia. It is just not wise to have them around the house.

Recently, we reported on an FAO research which finds that ducks in rice cultivation areas could be behind the spread of avian influenza in Southeast Asia (Animal Pharm, 7 April 2008).

"The researchers modeled how different factors contributed to the spread of the highly pathogenic virus in Thailand and Viet Nam. The numbers of ducks and people, along with the extent of rice cultivation, were the most significant factors, even though each country had pursued its own disease control strategy," according to our news report.

"Ducks graze on leftover rice grains in harvested paddy fields. In Thailand, the number of young ducks in flocks peaks in September to October, when rice paddies become a haven for wild birds. Ducks are slaughtered in late winter at the time of Chinese New Year, when sales-related duck movement is at its highest. The peaks in duck congregation increase the likelihood of virus transmission."

Imagine no ducks on Chinese New Year. Could you imagine Christmas without turkeys at all?

The veterinary industry's role is so much more than preventing diseases and curing sick animals. It's not simply about improving the agricultural bottomline by limiting the damages done to the economy.

In this part of the world, poultry and humans have lived side by side for centuries. It is a relationship that has defined their diet, and their ways of living. Some people keep horses or dogs; this lot prefers poultry. Advances in avian influenza research will save not just human lives, but also a people's culture.