Source: Lisa M. Keefe, MEATINGPLACE, 4/21/16


A new World Resources Institute (WRI) report recommending a reduction in red meat consumption as a means of mitigating environmental impacts is based on flawed calculations of individuals’ meat consumption, says the North American Meat Institute (NAMI).

The WRI report is the most recent to posit that animal agriculture, especially cattle, and its greenhouse gas emissions are destructive to the environment and that eating less meat, particularly in developed countries, is a means of environmental protection. The WRI reports says that “the average American could cut their diet-related environmental impacts nearly in half just by eating less meat and dairy.”

WRI said in a release that its goal is to shift Americans’ diets more toward a plant-based direction, not to see meat cut out of diets altogether.

“Many people — especially in rich countries — eat much more protein than they need, so WRI shows that they could cut back on meat and dairy while easily meeting their protein needs,” the organization said in the release.

But WRI’s premise is based on inaccurate calculations, NAMI said in a release.

“A new report … is riddled with factual flaws about protein consumption and, in turn, the environmental impact of balanced diets that include meat,” NAMI said.

The report relies on the wrong data — utilization data — in determining how much protein people consume globally rather than data that examine what people actually eat. [U]tilization data tends to overestimate per capita consumption because the analysis fails to consider losses due to waste, which are significant, as well as non-human uses, such as pet food.

For example, while the WRI report said that U.S. protein intake far outstrips nutritional need, NAMI pointed out that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and data considered by the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee indicate that “some men and some women both under-consume and over-consume protein, but on average, Americans are hitting the target.”

Furthermore, the WRI report doesn’t take in account meat’s nutrition density, and the impact on health when “protein is reduced and substituted with a less-nourishing food.” It also overlooks the fact that the U.S.’s highly efficient production system has a far smaller impact on the global environment than meat production in most other countries.

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