What We Eat Is NOT a Personal Choice: Climate Crisis and Pandemic Potential
This is probably the number one phrase people say when confronted about a diet including animal products.
“Diet is a personal choice.”
That statement is absolutely, 100% false.
Our diet is one of the most significant ways we impact other people.
Our dietary choices profoundly impact the climate crisis, pandemic potential, antibiotic resistance, world hunger, and the lives of innocent animals.
Our diet is one of the most IMpersonal choices we make everyday.
In this blog, we’ll explore the consequences of dietary choices on the climate crisis and pandemic potential. Stay tuned for parts II and III, which will explore the consequences associated with antibiotic resistance, world hunger, and sentient life.
The Climate Crisis
Animal agriculture is the leading cause of the climate crisis. Full stop.
Animal agriculture emits more greenhouse gasses than all transportation sectors combined.
Animal agriculture is responsible for 55% of water consumption in the US.
Animal agriculture is the leading cause of species extinction, ocean dead zones, water pollution, and habitat destruction.
Livestock or livestock feed occupies 1/3 of the earth’s ice-free land.
In the U.S. alone, livestock produces 116,000 lbs of waste per second.
Commercial fishing is responsible for 70% of plastic in the oceans.
Due to overfishing, we could see fishless oceans by 2048.
Animal agriculture is responsible for up to 91% of the destruction of the Amazon Rainforest.
It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef, 900 gallons of water to produce one pound of cheese, 477 gallons of water to produce one pound of eggs, and 1,000 gallons of water to produce one pound of milk.
A person who follows a vegan diet produces the equivalent of 50% less carbon dioxide, uses 1/11th oil, 1/13th water, and 1/18th land compared to an omnivore for their food.
Our diet is the most significant way to impact our contribution to the climate crisis. For better, or for worse.
Clearing the Amazon Rainforest for cattle grazing. Source: BBC
Pandemic Potential
The crowded, concentrated, filthy way we raise animals for food is the perfect breeding ground for deadly pandemics.
The life of 98% of egg-laying hens - battery cages. Chickens are crammed into cages where it’s so crowded they can’t turn around or stretch their wings. Source: NFACCI
Almost all known communicable diseases originated in animals and jumped to humans - a phenomenon known as zoonosis (except herpes, which has been with humans since our common ancestors with apes, and evolved with us into the modern day).
There is much debate about whether or not to classify viruses as “alive.” But they undoubtedly evolve and mutate over time.
The most deadly pandemic in human history was the outbreak of Spanish Flu in 1918. It killed over 50 million people worldwide, with a mortality rate of just under 4%.
Now, “Spanish Flu” is a bit of a misnomer. The virus didn’t originate in Spain, but the Spanish media was one of the only countries to actually report on the pandemic, as many other countries censored reporting during wartime.
The outbreak has actually been traced back to a Kansas chicken farm.
In wild birds, avian flu is very common, and never deadly. The virus prefers to hang out in still bodies of water. So it hitches a ride in the intestinal tracts of water fowl, who carry it to other bodies of water. Then it can infect more hosts, and spread further.
In the wild, the virus isn’t deadly because it needs its host to survive the journey from one body of water to another. It’s not evolutionarily advantageous for the virus to kill the bird.
The evolutionary goal of the virus is not to kill, but to spread far and wide.
But when avian flu infiltrates a concentrated animal feeding operation, or CAFO, its next host isn’t miles away like in the wild, it’s inches away. In CAFOs, the evolutionary advantage to keep the host alive doesn’t exist anymore.
The virus can become more virulent. And it does.
Furthermore, chicken farms can house 30,000+ chickens under one roof. With multiple sheds in the farm itself.
That’s 30,000+ hosts for the virus, more than it could ever have access to in the wild. With every host, the virus evolves faster and faster, becoming more easily transmissible and more virulent.
“Cage Free” or “Free Range” aren’t much better than battery cages. Pictured is a certified “Free Range” meat farm. Source: Huffington Post
Chickens and humans have similar “linkages” that the virus attaches to in the lungs. So a virus that evolves in birds is capable of jumping to humans.
That’s how the most deadly pandemic in human history occurred. The virus jumped from chickens to humans at a Kansas chicken farm.
Next thing you know, 50 million people are dead.
Bird flu outbreaks at chicken farms have been occurring for decades all over the world. Each time an outbreak is identified, most countries have laws that mandate the entire chicken population be “culled” in order to prevent the virus from evolving and spreading further.
Because if some viruses make that jump from chickens to humans, we wouldn’t be dealing with 50 million deaths.
We’d be dealing with billions of deaths.
There’s one avian flu virus in particular, H5N1, that makes Spanish Flu seem like child’s play.
According to the CDC, H5N1 originated in China in 1996, and has jumped from chickens to humans in 19 countries since 2003.
The current avian flu scare that has caused egg prices to skyrocket up to 300%...is H5N1.
H5N1 is in circulation in chicken farms around the world right now. So far in the past year, 53 million chickens have been killed in order to stop the spread of H5N1.
Because…
In humans, H5N1 has a 50% - 60% mortality rate.
The deadliest pandemic in human history that killed 50 million people had a mortality rate of under 4%.
COVID-19, which brought the entire world to its knees, had a mortality rate of 0.4%.
H5N1 has a mortality rate of 50% - 60%.
That’s 4 billion people dead.
4 billion people dead…because we want to eat chicken and eggs.
What we eat is NOT a personal choice.
H5N1 hasn’t become a global pandemic yet because currently, it requires very close contact to spread between humans. And each time it’s jumped to humans, we’ve been able to contain it.
But that can change. The virus can evolve.
And through our farming practices of chickens, we are giving the virus every opportunity to evolve.
Every year, 75 billion chickens are raised and slaughtered globally for meat and eggs. That’s 75 billion opportunities for H5N1 to evolve to be more easily transmissible and jump from chickens to humans again.
And H5N1 is in circulation right now. In the last year alone, we’ve had to kill 10% of the US chicken population in order to contain H5N1, driving down supply while demand remains high. That’s why egg prices are so high.
And if H5N1 evolves to be highly transmissible, we’re done. 4 billion people dead. 50% of the world’s human population. That’s literally an apocalypse.
Animal agriculture, and chicken/egg farming in particular, is a breeding ground for disaster.
What we eat is not a personal choice. What we eat profoundly impacts every other person on this planet.
When we buy animal products, we are voting with our dollars. We are paying the industry to keep producing these products.
And they will keep farming chickens in this disastrous way as long as we keep buying it.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but we got lucky with COVID-19. It only had a 0.4% mortality rate. It was a warning, telling us to stop and think about what we’re doing.
Next time, we may not be so lucky. H5N1 is circulating in the chicken population right now, evolving and mutating with each passing day.
And it is over 100 times MORE deadly than COVID-19 in humans.
This goes without saying, but farming plants carries none of this risk. Any recalls for plant foods, such as the 2021 recall of spinach contaminated with E. Coli, is not because plant farming is inherently unsafe.
It’s because the plants become contaminated with animal waste. Plants don’t have a gastrointestinal tract. They don’t poop. Animal waste is the source of the pathogens.
In the US alone, animal agriculture produces over 116,000 pounds of excrement every second. That waste has to go somewhere, and a lot of it ends up in agricultural irrigation. Animal-derived fertilizers are also a significant source of contamination.
Plants aren’t the issue, animal agriculture is.
In order to prevent the next pandemic, we have to stop buying animal products. That’s just a fact.
A diet that includes animal products is the leading cause of the climate crisis. A diet that includes animal products is a vote for the system that could lead to the demise of humanity itself.
Our “personal” diet is literally a matter of life or death for everyone else on this planet.
What we eat is NOT a personal choice.
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