As a new semester at Tufts begins, food is everywhere — at dining halls, social bonding events, late-night study sessions and parties. It is ubiquitous, a triviality many of us neglect to consider, yet essential for survival — and for most Americans, food is also synonymous with meat. Eighty-nine percent of Americans include meat as part of their regular diet, while only 4% of Americans identify as vegetarian and a minuscule 1% as vegans. However, as we enter the fall, I would like to respectfully urge those who enjoy meat to consider eating just a little less of it this semester, or at least consider the notion before rejecting it immediately.
One reason to do so is to help mitigate the environmental impacts of meat consumption, which are significant and well documented. Agriculture is the largest source of human produced emissions of methane — a major driver of climate change and 32% of which comes from livestock alone. A 2022 study found that a rapid phaseout of animal agriculture has the potential to offset the impact of 68% of all carbon dioxide emissions this century and stabilize greenhouse gas emissions for the next three decades. The authors argue that reducing animal agriculture should be at “the forefront of strategies for averting disastrous climate change.” The water consumption costs of meat production are also staggering: Producing 1 kilogram of beef requires 15,400 liters of water. More so than turning off the light, cutting back on AI usage or not leaving the sink running, cutting back on meat is likely the most effective way for us to conserve water and reduce greenhouse gases on an individual level. In fact, Oxford scientist Joseph Poore notes, “A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth … bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car.”
Beyond the massive environmental impacts, it would be impossible to avoid mentioning the morality of eating meat in an article about going meatless. This is tricky because morality is not uniform — everyone has different values and morals and, in a pluralistic society, it is important to avoid forcing individual morals onto others. However, the facts of how our meat gets made are often artfully hidden, and it is important to enumerate exactly how meat production occurs.
Tucked away from our eyes, on sprawling fields labeled with pretty phrases such as “homegrown” and “open air,” animals like chickens and pigs are often crammed into incredibly confined spaces, mutilated, subjected to painful physical alterations and cruelly killed in slaughterhouses with methods such as electrocution. Pigs are more intelligent than dogs or cats, yet face the impartial brutality of industrialized production line torture and death. One doesn’t need to agree that animal life is equal to human life to feel the cognitive dissonance of torturing hundreds of millions of sentient animals while decrying pet cruelty.
Given this grim reality, it is understandable that many who care about animal rights urge omnivores to simply give up meat. However, it is also easy to see why many meat lovers find this unreasonable. For one thing, many requests to just ‘stop eating meat’ fail to reckon with or understand that this request represents a significant imposition and challenge that is not always feasible. From a cost perspective, being vegetarian tends to be cheaper than eating meat, but it can still seem harder or more logistically difficult to find food, and time costs are as real as monetary ones. There are also documented vitamin deficiencies, such as B12 and iron, that are more likely to arise with a vegetarian diet. Finally, it would be hard for anyone to give up a type of food they love and is a part of their lifestyle. It is unfair and impractical to ask people to stop eating meat all together all at once.
Luckily, one does not need to do this to make an impact. If you resonate at all with the environmental and moral arguments against meat consumption, I would urge you to cut back on meat just a little. For example, practice Meatless Mondays or make a conscious decision to eat plant-based meat or vegetarian just one dinner a week. Consider doing this with a friend who is vegetarian or is also interested in cutting back a bit to make it easier. Eating meat is presented as a binary, but consumption is a gradient scale, and the laws of supply and demand mean even a 10% reduction in meat demand will make a meaningful impact on animal agriculture.
Making these dietary changes may not feel very impactful — after all, what does one person trying to eat less meat or go vegetarian matter? However, just like voting, this is a paradox: Your vote likely won’t make a difference, but that isn’t a reason to not vote; if everyone thought this way, no votes would be cast. Similarly, if everyone waits for another to eat less meat, animal agriculture will persist; every person choosing to eat less meat dents demand for animal agriculture. Therefore, I encourage everyone to move the needle and at least try to eat a little less meat this fall.
