Germany's environment czar says: Eat less meat

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[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/23/german-diet-meat-environment]

 

Schnitzel off the menu as Germans are told to cut down on eating meat

 

* Environment agency calls for return to prewar level

* Diet 'should model that in Mediterranean nations'

 

Kate Connolly in Berlin

The Guardian, Friday 23 January 2009

 

 

For a nation that loves its bratwurst and schnitzel, the message is not a

welcome one. Germans have been urged to rethink their meat-eating habits if they

want to help the planet.

 

Germany's federal environment agency has issued a strong advisory for people to

return to prewar norms of eating meat only on special occasions and otherwise to

model their diet on that of Mediterranean countries.

 

Germans are among the highest meat consumers in Europe, obtaining around 39% of

their total calorie intake from meat and meat products, compared with 25% in

Italy.

 

" We must rethink our high meat consumption, " said Andreas Troge, president of

the UBA, the government's advisory body on environmental issues.

 

" I recommend people return to the Sunday roast and to an orientation of their

eating habits around those of Mediterranean countries. "

 

Speaking on the sidelines of Berlin's Grüne Woche (Green Week), one of the

world's largest agricultural exhibitions, he said agriculture was responsible

for around 15% of Germany's greenhouse gas emissions and meat production was the

most energy-intensive form of farming. With that in mind, he suggested that

reducing meat consumption was a logical step forward.

 

" It hardly means sacrificing quality of life, " said Troge. " I don't believe that

the Italians are particularly unhappier than us as a result [of eating less

meat]. "

 

Troge's comments were criticised by farming experts and politicians. Edmund

Geisen, agricultural adviser to the liberal Free Democrats, accused Troge of

effectively calling for a boycott of German products. " Andreas Troge should stop

trying to damage the nation's appetite by discrediting agricultural production, "

he said, calling his attack on meat " populist and one-dimensional " . " Our

enlightened consumers should decide for themselves what they want to eat. "

 

Hilmar Steppat, of Germany's vegetarian association, VeBu, welcomed the move,

saying: " It's good to see politicians are finally waking up to the fact that the

amount of meat we eat is unsustainable. " He added that although the number of

vegetarians had increased from 0.4% in 1983 to around 10% today, Germans were

still very big consumers of meat.

 

" Unlike in Britain, though interest in it is growing, vegetarianism here is

still not widely practised, " said Steppat. " The economic upswing after the war

meant that people ate meat because it was a luxury. Before and after the war,

people only ate meat about once a week, and maybe boiled some bones. Now it's

normal to eat meat every day. "

 

Meatless dishes are frowned upon, he added, and meat products such as goose

liver pate and veal - which are increasingly being regarded as unethical

elsewhere - are widely available.

 

Troge cautioned that not only is meat production energy intensive, the methane

gas emitted by cattle and the nitrous oxide produced by their dung, which

farmers often leave in the fields from where it enters the atmosphere, also

harms the environment.

 

Findings by the World Wildlife Fund also supports the claim that meat production

is environmentally damaging. In its recent Living Planet report it said that a

single kilogramme of beef requires 16,000 litres of water, taking into account a

three-year lifespan for a cow, the grain it eats in its lifetime, and the water

it drinks.

 

According to Destatis, Germany's federal statistics agency, meat consumption in

the country has fallen from an annual 64kg (141lb) a head in 1991 to 58.7kg

today. Health concerns are the main reason for the drop, it said.

 

According to VeBu, young women are particularly motivated by environmental

concerns to give up meat.

 

" It's harder to get German men to do it, " said Steppat. " For too many, eating

meat is too closely connected with manliness. "

 

Meat and heat

 

Meat production accounts for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions,

the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates, though other experts believe

that figure is too high.

 

In the UK food consumed by people accounts for nearly a fifth of national

emissions, and meat and dairy products for just over half that, finds the Food

Climate Research Network.

 

The high impact derives from the farmstock fodder grown with chemicals,

transport fuels, and the potent greenhouse gas methane from belching cattle and

sheep. The government estimates that, kilo-for-kilo, compared with bread,

emissions linked to poultry farming are more than four times as high, to pork

six times as high, and to beef and lamb 16 times. Besides this, tropical forest

is cleared to allow feed-crops, also a source of emissions.

 

Compassion in World Farming says halving meat-eating would be more effective

than halving transport use.

 

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Related articles in German:

http://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-zeitung/archiv/.bin/dump.fcgi/2009/0122/poli\

tik/0053/

http://www.neue-oz.de/_archiv/noz_print/interviews/2008/01/18601756.html

http://archiv.mopo.de/archiv/2009/20090123/hamburg/politik/praesident_des_umwelt\

amtes_will_uns_das_fleisch_vermiesen.html

 

You can use Google's translation utility to get a rough translation to English:

http://translate.google.com/

 

See also (in German):

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Troge

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarierbund_Deutschland