Germany's environment czar says: Eat less meat

July 25, 2009

[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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