My life as a meat eater and as a green

In 2008 Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the supposedly secular Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told us to "'give up meat for one day (a week) initially" because "meat farming produces enormous amounts of greenhouse gases."

I, co-chair of the World-Wide lnterethnic Platform on Food Security and Ecosystem Cultural Services, followed suit by pledging to increase my consumption of meat, with a preference for spaghetti with ground beef on Fridays. I dutifully kept my pledge, but only for a while.

Then I developed my current obsession with tennis. As a result I increased my consumption of everything, but by early 2011 my blood iron levels had fallen way too low. Since then I dutifully treat myself (and the other co-chair of the World-Wide lnterethnic Platform on Food Security and Ecosystem Cultural Services) with thick, half-raw pieces of meat, usually on Fridays. My iron levels have gone through the roof. My tennis proficiency has remained depressingly stable.

Now, a study published in Ecological Economics has found that:

[W]hen fruit and vegetables were iso-calorically substituted for meat, either null or even positive diet-associated GHGE [greenhouse gas emissions] variations were observed because the needed amounts of fruit and vegetables to maintain the caloric content of the diet were high. Therefore, substituting fruit and vegetables for meat (especially deli meat) may be desirable for health but is not necessarily the best approach to decreasing diet-associated GHGE.

I am sustainable.