What's an Eco-Carnivore to Do?

Just another day of bovine bliss at the Bowen family farm in Kentucky.

The other day I found an article on Yahoo titled, "How to Fight Global Warming at Dinner." It described a new study conducted by Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews at Carnegie Mellon University, which concluded that substituting chicken, fish or vegetables for red meat can help combat climate change.

The study stated that eating these foods does more to reduce carbon emissions than eating locally grown foods. The production phase is responsible for 83% of the average U.S. household's greenhouse-gas burden for food, while transportation accounts for only 11%, the study found. In addition, the production of red meat emits almost 150% more greenhouse gases than chicken or fish.

I told my husband Terry about the study, and he snorted. "Who was it written by, a bunch of PETA freaks?" he asked. "I'm so tired of these fanatics trying to get the whole world to go vegetarian when people have been raising animals to eat for thousands of years."

Actually, the study wasn't written by PETA freaks. It suggests only giving up one red meat meal a week, not going vegan. But Terry has a right to be testy. He grew up on 60-acre farm in Kentucky where his father raises a small herd of beef cattle. In fact, after growing all kinds of vegetables and raising chicken and hogs over the years, now his father only raises beef cattle because it takes the least amount of resources. The cows wander around the farm, munching grass and drinking water from the pond. When the steers get to be a certain size, he auctions them off to, unfortunately, a feed lot where they get fattened up for the slaughter house.

Sending the steers to the auction house is where the system breaks down, in my opionion. Industrialized farming may be the way to keep fast food chains and grocery stores awash in cheap beef, but it is ruining our environment. I logged onto Green Your's web site to look for ways to satisfy my carnivorous self, as well as be environmentally responsible. It said to buy local, organic, grass-fed meat.

Okay, maybe there's some farmer like Terry's dad whom I can buy meat from. I went on a web site called Local Harvest, which lists organic farms throughout the country. I typed in my zip code, and browsed through the listing of farms in my area--there were plenty of vegetable and fruit farms with chickens, but where was the beef? The only farm I could find raised bison, which makes sense since bison could survive Colorado's dry prairieland better than cows could. My other option was to order grass-fed beef online from a farm in Missouri called American Grass Fed Beef. I clicked on the photo of ground beef to see the price: 10 pounds for $86!!

Why does being environmentally responsible have to be so expensive? I guess the cheapest alternative for my family really is to eat more meat-free meals, which is a big adjustment to my "meat-every-night" lifestyle. But when you think about it, our ancestors probably didn't eat meat every night, either. They saved the "fatted calf" for special occasions, like appeasing the gods.