Life as a Microbe (The End of the Food-Chain)

It is a maxim of ecology that "wherever there is something to eat, there will be something to eat it." At least I think it is: I may be remembering this line from the excellent novel Dune, uttered by the Imperial Planetologist Dr. Kynes as he lays dying in the deep desert, eyeing the hawks circling above him.  In either case, the principle is sound. Anywhere on Earth, when anything dies and falls to the ground, it will get eaten, if only by microbes.

Just as there a chain of organisms on the production side of the food pyramid, beginning with clorophyll containing plants that convert sunlight into sugar and ending with peak predators like lions and humans, so there is a chain of scavengers that reduces the remains of all that dies back into its constituent molecules. Descending from the apex on what we might call the downslope of the food chain, we have large animals like hyenas and vultures, followed by smaller creatures that live on decaying flesh like crabs and ants, and ultimately the myriad microbes that slowly transform the less digestible bits such as bones and hair back into soil. The chemistry of systemic catabolism is just as fascinating as that of the more highly visible and valued systemic metabolism.

surplus bread soaking in whey leftover from cheesemaking

I feel that I have firmly joined Team Scavenger. I devote a great deal of time to seeking out resources unnoticed or undervalued by others. In fact, my family largely subsides on my local waste stream. That we live so well and so fatly is a measure of just how rich and bountiful that waste stream is.

In this past week alone I have made 5 gallons of apple cider entirely from apples that other people were throwing away. About half the apples came from a neighbor who didn't want them and the other half from the Gleaner's Pantry. If you've ever pressed cider you know how many apples go into 5 gallons of cider and it's a buttload (not really - a buttload is 126 gallons). The apples that I collected from Gleaner's - in one day!- represented a very small percentage of the apples discarded on a daily basis in my small town. 

That same day, I also collected 6 or 7 boxes of surplus bread. Most of it was quite fresh and I saved a little for us to eat ourselves - the rest of it went out to the mama barn and fed my pig, turkeys and chickens for a solid week. Again, this represented only a tiny fraction of what was there for the taking. I would have taken more but I literally didn't have any more room in my car. 

In addition, I also gleaned enough fresh fruits and vegetables - tomatoes, chiles, onions, a couple of pumpkins, cucumbers, oranges and grapes - to feed my family for a week. I canned 8 pints of salsa, and if I weren't so lazy I could easily can 8 more right now, simply from that one glean. 

Today, my good neighbors N. and R. from church called me and asked if I wanted corn stalks. They were cleaning up the garden for the year and thought I might be able to use them for my animals. I said "sure!" and went over to help them collect and stack the stalks in their trailer. I also brought over a loaf of pumpkin bread (made from the pumpkin I got from Gleaners) and some cheese and a quart of apple cider (also a product of Gleaner's). 

Homero with corn stalks

The corn stalks had many cobs still on them, those that had been damaged by crows and weren't fit for human consumption. They sure were fit for pig and goat consumption! My critters went crazy for the corn.

Everybody loves corn

Haboob the Buck eating corn

In the chain of scavengers, I imagine myself and my family as first-level scavengers. We are the hyenas and the ravens. We take the whole, recently discarded (read: recently deceased) product of society and make what use of it we can. This includes not only the food I get from Gleaner's, but also the clothing and furniture that I buy secondhand from Goodwill or the Salvation Army thrift store. We are warm and well-dressed in the castoffs of others.

Any food that we can't use - peels, skins, bones, and the like - or that we end up not eating because there is just too much of it - the lettuce that wilts in the back of my fridge before I can eat it; limp carrots and cucumbers; bread that has gone a little green - we give to our pig and our chickens. They are the second level scavengers, akin to lobsters or beetles.

And when all that refuse has been processed by my animal's digestive systems, we collect it once again and compost it. Enter the microbes. Our compost pile is rich, black, velvety and fragrant. Once a year, in springtime, our next door neighbor comes over in his tractor and collects some of it for his garden beds. Come next summer, some of it will make its way back to us in the form of sweet cilantro, ruby beets, plump squashes.

This time of year, as the world turns towards darkness and winter, I am especially conscious of and especially grateful for the quiet science of recycling that takes place in the sleeping earth. The dark side of the year is the time to contemplate the renewal that happens as we rest, as the dirt rests. So much grace happens in repose, so many vital processes are accomplished only in stillness. We are all of us, at least in this culture, so biased towards the light - toward action, towards growth and vigor, toward Yang, that we are blind to the necessity of decay. The alchemy of decay; of rot, of mold, of the mushroom and the slug. By such humble beings are we sustained, generation after generation.

Hail Yin, hail Kali and Hecate, hail Persephone, Isis, Osiris, Jesus, and all those good Gods and Goddesses who descend into the earth to rise again after three days, or seven, or nine. Hail the seed that goeth into the ground and dies, that it may live.

Throwback Thursday - Post from the Past

Lately I've been pretty lazy about writing. I'm not entirely sure why, but ever since we got back from our year in Oaxaca (www.newtomexicanlife.blogspot.com), it's been more and more difficult for me to keep up the pace on blogging. When I look back to the first few years of this blog, I see that I was writing three or four times a week. Now, it's more like once every ten or twelve days. There are plenty of reasons for that - my duties as a mom have become more demanding as the girls grow up and start doing things like gymnastics and developing their own social lives. I have an actual job now - albeit one that only provides me with a few hours of work a week. And the Gleaner's Pantry eats about six hours a week as well. 

It might also be the case that in the past six years I've simply said just about all I have to say about life on the homestead. The seasons repeat themselves endlessly, but I have no wish to do the same. There are always new things to learn, and indeed I am always learning them, but topics like trimming goat hooves and fixing fences no longer hold the fascination for me that they did when I was doing them for the first time, instead of the five hundredth. I'm not sure what will become of the blog - it might morph into a kind of farm journal, documenting breedings, births, test results, and planting times (which was one of its original functions) or it might just dwindle away.

According to my counter, it appears that there are still a lot of you out there reading - unless my counter counts visits by spam-bots - and I'd be very interested to know if you are still enjoying this blog. Also - what's going on in your lives and on your farms? It seems that a few years ago I had a more lively conversation going on between several regular readers who had blogs of their own and were interested in the topics of sustainability and self-reliance. If you are still out there, please make yourselves known! I would love to visit your sites and get the conversation going again. 

In the meantime, I am going to borrow a meme from Facebook: Throwback Thursday. While I hope to get my butt in gear and write new posts a bit more often, I can at least post one column a week from the past of this blog. Here is one from 2009, about low-carbon eating. Enjoy. 

Today's Ethical Conundrum: Low Carbon Food Choices

I feel like I already do a pretty good job of minimizing my family's environmental impact when it comes to our food choices. Of the food we eat at home, 80-90% of the meat is home-grown and very very local. Milk, eggs and cheese are produced on the farm for well over half the year, and for the rest of the year we just don't eat a whole lot of those things. This year to date I have bought two dozen eggs from the supermarket, and perhaps five or six gallons of milk. Maybe five pounds of cheese. From May to October, a high percentage (70%?) of our vegetable and fruit consumption is also from producers local to within a few miles, due to the success of the trade network.

However, I have by no means banished high-impact foods from our lives. Most significantly, we go out to eat at least once a week. When I eat out, I pretty much throw away the rule book. Sure, I wouldn't knowingly eat a critically endangered species ("I'd like the pan-broiled panda, please - NO, the bluefin tuna sushi."), but I know that my meat is most likely conventionally raised in a CAFO, that my chicken was battery-farmed in cages too small to spread their wings, and that my milk products are chock-full of antibiotics and artificial hormones. I can't see myself as one of those people who spends fifteen minutes grilling the waiter about the liberal-progressive credentials of the food ("Is this tofu organic? Was it grown in Brazil? Were any indigenous people displaced as their rainforest homes were clear-cut for a giant international conglomerate to grow GMO soybeans?"), so that means we just need to eat out less often. Good for the pocketbook, too. We spend far too much on restaurants.

Even when it comes to regular old grocery store shopping, I could certainly do a better job. Today, for example, I went to Costco with my sister. You could argue that Costco is already a good choice, as buying in bulk cuts down on packaging. Well, only if you buy the twenty-pound sack full of plain rolled oats and not the giant carton of individually wrapped, highly processed, forty ingredient oat n' honey granola snacks. On this trip, the only processed "convenience" foods I bought were a big ol bag of fishsticks and a three pound package of chicken-apple sausage. Everything else was staples: rice, butter, oil, flour, fresh fruit. In between items include mega-jar of olives and full-case of canned diced tomatoes.

But let's examine that fresh fruit, shall we? I bought a flat of pomegranates from California. Pomegranates are in season. Also, California is not Mars. It's two states away from me; same coast. Could be worse. But could be better. Of course, if I'm ever going to eat pomegranates as long as I live, they will never be local. Until we retire to Mexico, that is. Pomegranates are my absolutely favorite fruit. One box of poms once or twice a year is not something to beat myself up over. However, there are other items which are not once-or-twice a year, but once or twice a month.

Coffee.

Bananas.

Chocolate.

Oranges, lemons, and limes.

Avocados.

Today I bought a pineapple flown in from Costa Rica. I read that pineapples are the single highest- carbon item of produce on the shelves. I only buy pineapples once or twice a year, but still - how much guilt do I want to ingest with my plate of fruit?

How good is good enough? How low is low enough? What level of virtue should I strive for? What level of personal responsibility for planetary destruction am I comfortable with? When does sane, sober responsibility morph into crazy, obsessive behavior? Is there even any such thing as too much virtue? Is there any acceptable level of harm? These are questions that apply much more widely than food choices, of course.

I've actually recently been having a discussion with my brother - a thoughtful, intellectually rigorous, highly educated man with loads of integrity who nonetheless disagrees with me most of the time (how is that possible?) about the limits of personal responsibility for communal suffering. He's a political conservative and seems to be comfortable with limits that leave me feeling desperately, squishily, quaveringly, liberally guilty. I guess each of us can only consult our own consciences with searching, fearless honesty and try as hard as we can to live by it's dictates.

For those of us who need a little guidance in this endeavor (me! me!) below is a wonderful, easy to follow guide published by Gourmet magazine on it's fabulous and highly recommended "food politics" page. Gourmet recently ceased publication after some sixty years and I feel it is a great loss. Not only was it a terrific resource for everyone interested in cooking, but under it's most recent editor Ruth Reichl it was a strong voice for justice and fairness in our agricultural system, and a voice that got results! The web site is still alive, though probably not for much longer. Please visit the food politics page Food Politics : gourmet.comwhile it is still around. Meanwhile, enjoy this easy to follow guide for making low-carbon food choices:

Ever since a 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization found that the world’s livestock industry sends more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than transportation, pressure has been building on food manufacturers to measure, and ultimately to reduce, their carbon footprints. In March of this year, the British government’s Environmental Audit Committee called for the establishment of a standardized system of labeling to show the impact of consumer goods and services on the earth’s atmosphere.

In general, consumers in England are more familiar with carbon issues than we are. The government-backed Carbon Trust has been pilot-testing a Carbon Reduction Label for a few years now. But American companies are now getting into the act: In January, PepsiCo certified the footprint of its half-gallon carton of Tropicana Premium orange juice with the help of the Carbon Trust, and it plans to release the footprints of Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Gatorade, and Quaker Chewy Granola Bars in the future. (Tropicana has also partnered with Cool Earth in a “Rescue the Rainforest” campaign.)

Opinion varies as to what extent the footprint numbers will affect consumer behavior. Without a meaningful point of reference, the numbers are all but meaningless: The carbon footprint of that half-gallon of Tropicana orange juice, in case you’re wondering, is 3.75 pounds of carbon dioxide. Some have suggested that rather than listing the total pounds of carbon dioxide emitted, the labels should indicate how much carbon is embodied in every dollar spent, a system that would enable consumers to compare the impact of anything from a candy bar to an mp3 player.

Even if carbon labels don’t immediately change consumer behavior, they can help pinpoint the origins of our energy use and emissions and could likely spur reductions. In the meantime, here are some fast facts about the food system’s impact on climate change, as well as some tips on how to reduce your own footprint. The information is courtesy of the Cool Foods Campaign, a project for the Center for Food Safety and the CornerStone Campaign. To learn more, visit coolfoodscampaign.org.

RELATED LINKS

• Read more of our coverage ofsustainability
• Catch up on the latest in food politics
• See our guide to buying sustainable seafood before your next trip to the fish counter

THE FOOD SYSTEM

Agriculture emits greenhouse gases through the production, packaging, and transport of pesticides and fertilizers. These chemicals cause erosion and pollute water, two processes that also emit greenhouse gases. The machinery used on industrial farms—from tractors to irrigation systems—creates further greenhouse gases, as do livestock: Their waste is often stored in “manure lagoons” that emit methane. (Cattle, of course, also emit considerable amounts of methane in the digestive process). Finally, the grains that comprise the livestock diet have been refined by methods that are energy-intensive as well as polluting.

Once harvested, food is packaged and then transported an average of 1,500 miles, steps that further contribute to climate change.

PLAYING YOUR PART

The Cool Foods campaign’s “FoodPrint” reflects the total amount of greenhouse gases that have been created as a result of the growth, processing, packaging, and transportation of any given food. By making better choices, consumers can have significant impact. When seeking out the “coolest” foods, just ask yourself a few simple questions:

1. Is it organic?

Organic foods have been produced without synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, growth hormones, and antibiotics. In addition to the emissions from fertilizer mentioned above, nitrous oxide, another potent greenhouse gas, is emitted when these chemicals are applied to farmland. Conventional fertilizers also pollute water sources, kill sea life, emit still more methane, and contribute to erosion, a process that creates carbon dioxide.

What you can do:
Buy “certified organic” by looking for the USDA organic label at your local market.

2. Does this product come from an animal?

Conventional meat is the No. 1 cause of global warming in our food system. Animals in industrial systems are sprayed with over two million pounds—and their cages are treated with another 360,000 pounds—of pesticide every year. They also ingest a whopping 84 percent of all antimicrobials (including antibiotics) used in the United States and half of all the grains grown in the country.

What you can do:
Limit your consumption of meat, dairy, and farmed seafood. Buy organic, local, and grass-fed meat and dairy, as they are produced without synthetic pesticides and herbicides and may use less fossil fuel. Look for seafood that is wild and local and whose stocks are not endangered.

3. Has it been processed?

Unlike fruits and vegetables, processed foods require the use of energy-intensive canning, freezing, drying, and packaging. Processed foods are usually sold in packages and containers listing their ingredients and tend to be found in the center aisles of grocery stores.

What you can do:
Try to do most of your shopping in the outside aisles of the supermarket, where produce and other whole foods are displayed. If you must by processed products, opt for “certified organic” whenever possible.

4. How far has it traveled to get here?

The transportation of food accounts for over 30,000 tons of greenhouse gas per year.

What you can do:
Buy local (or relatively local) if you can. Look for country-of-origin labels on whole foods and try to avoid products that come from the other side of the globe.

5. What sort of package does it come in?

Plastic packages are manufactured using oil and, as such, are responsible for creating over 24,000 tons of greenhouse gas every year.

What can you do?
Avoid excessive packaging by choosing whole foods: loose fruits and vegetables, as well as bulk cereals, pastas, grains, seeds, and nuts. And remember to bring along a reusable grocery bag.

Appliance Recycling

We have terrible luck with appliances. Really just very very bad.

Last December, the furnace died in the middle of the one and only cold snap of the year (Freezing My Tuchus Off). The toilet in the second bathroom (a toilet counts as an appliance, right?) is apparently possessed by evil demons and finds it amusing to erupt for no particular reason two or three times a month. Two different plumbers - plus my husband - have failed to fix the toilet. My refrigerator died for the third and final time on Thanksgiving Day last year ( A Fine Day).

And then there's the washing machine. When I moved here, I was all exited about the chance to buy a fancy-schmancy new energy and water efficient machine. I spent a ridiculous sum on a brand new washer/dryer set - the first time in my life I had ever bought brand new appliances. Turns out, that might not be such a great idea.

I am thirty-eight years old. I moved here three years ago, when I was thirty-five. Thanks to a generous Grandfather, I bought my first house when I was twenty-one. Twenty-one to thirty-five is fourteen years. For every last one of those years I enjoyed the services of a single washing machine, a single dryer, a single stove/oven, and a single fridge. The washer and dryer were in fact inherited with the house and I don't even know how old they were. They were avocado green, so that says pretty old to me.

Back when appliances were built to last in other words. My new washing machine - a front loading, energy star rated Kenmore - lasted all of a year and a half before it began to break down. Homero fixed it three separate times, each time (so he claims) for a different problem. Finally we became to frustrated with the evil machine that we beat the hell out of it and threw it off the front porch.

Then I went to the used appliance store and bought the very same model that had served me so well for so long back in my old house. For one sixth the price of the new one.

Homero is using the old one to make a centrifuge to clean waste veggie oil for biodiesel processing. His biodiesel processor consists of an old recycled water heater and now an old recycled washing machine. Plus the old dead furnace is in his shop waiting to be converted into something that can run on biodiesel.

Here's hoping that the embedded energy in the broken appliances can be reaped in one way or another into the future.

Things I Saw Today, and Stuff I Thought About Those Things.

1) A bunch of goats in the house. I let the goats out to browse, and contrary to all my previous experience, I tried to do something else while they were out. You'd think that it would be possible to plant a few beans while simultaneously supervising a small herd of goats, but you would be wrong. It is impossible to watch goats and do anything else at the same time (except drink a glass of wine. You can do that, as long as you can hold a glass of wine and a long stick at the same time. And run, while holding both of those things. Plus maybe a book tucked under the arm. Not quite as easy as walking and chewing gum, but possible. If you don't mind the occasional twisted ankle or skinned knee.) So I planted three boxes (The Tippler's Garden) of scarlet runner beans, and meanwhile, Iris and four baby goats made it into the house.

They did not want to leave the house. It took me about fifteen minutes to get them all out. First I had to straddle Iris, clamp her neck between my knees, grab both of her ears, and frog-march her out. Iris weighs about 150 pounds and is quite strong, for such a skinny goat. Then I had to chase four fully panicking baby goats up and down the hall, vainly attempting to snag one of them by the leg as it hurtled past me at a speed approaching that of sound. I think I heard a tiny sonic boom, in fact, although it may just have been my aging, flabby heart bursting in my chest. It was a very warm and muggy day, which is why the doors were open in the first place. Not the kind of day that makes you think "I think I'll wrestle a few goats today, just for fun."

2) My family using less energy. On the left you see my new clothes-tree, with a bunch of clean clothes on it, for the first time. Yay, air-drying! On the right, Rosie pony, acting as the lawnmower. Actually, we have no way of power-mowing the back yard, since it is fully fenced in for the dogs and we can't drive the riding lawnmower through the playroom. The pony, however, can be coaxed through the playroom and out into the back yard. So I have to shovel a few piles of pony-poop over the fence. BFD.

Oh - and in the background at the far right, you can see the neighbor's new mega-house going up. The farrier came last week, and he asked me, "what are they building over there, a Holiday Inn?" No, no.... just a 7,000 square foot private house. For two retired people whose children are all grown and gone. People who are apparently determined not to leave a red cent to their children if they can instead spend it on propane and landscaping.

3) Baby spiders. I know this picture is a bit hard to interpret: let me guide you through it. The wood is one of the posts on our front porch. The grayish-blue part surrounding the post is an area rug that I threw over the front porch railing sometime last summer. I thought I would clean the rug with the hose and some dishsoap, let it dry, and put it back on the floor. Now, nine months later, I think I may still be able to use the rug. To keep weeds down in the garden. The tiny golden specks in the middle are dozens of baby wolf spiders. Hooray! I love wolf spiders. (No Arachnaphobes....) They keep the local noxious bug population down a little bit, and they are also very handsome and fun to watch. Paloma in particular adores spiders and will watch them for hours.

4) A zombie rooster. Not sure if the picture shows it very well, but this rooster looks like hell. He looks like he rose from the grave, at least a week ago. He looks like he went sixteen rounds with Oscar De La Hoya. In actual fact, he probably went sixteen rounds with the other rooster. One of his eyes is nearly sealed shut with scar tissue; his comb is covered in scabs; and he limps.

What should I do with this rooster? He is still relatively young - about three. He has a small harem of hens who follow him everywhere. He is doing his roosterly duty - inseminating hens and protecting them from predators, and marshalling them around the yard. I sure as heck don't want to eat him. I don't doubt he tastes like an old shoe.

I'm sure this rooster could benefit - theoretically - from a visit to a vet. He looks like a course of antibiotics would do him good. Will I take him to the vet? Hell no! Should I? Maybe, I don't know. I am enough of a city girl still that it bothers my conscious to own animals that I deem unworthy of veterinary care. Good people take financial responsibility for the well being of their animals, right? No matter how lowly? Lots of folks have rats as pets, right? Or even things like stick-bugs and tarantulas. Is there such a thing as a spider-vet? Most likely there is - because good people take their animals to the vet.

I guess that means I am not a good person, because I am not taking a rooster - that I got for free in the first case - to the vet. If it appears to be suffering, I'll put it out of it's misery.

And feed it to my dogs.

Ethical Eating and "Carbon-Costly" Meat

I came across this article today (below, edited), which covers a report given on the carbon footprint of producing various types of meat. No surprise that beef is the big bad guy, but there is a huge surprise here: the lead researcher says that grass raised beef has a higher carbon footprint than grain finished meat. Apparently, that's because the animals take longer to get to market weight and fart more methane while doing so. I'm not fully convinced, as there are many unanswered questions in the article: does the calculation take into account the carbon cost of growing, fertilizing, and shipping the grain? Does it include the cost of shipping hundreds of thousands of cattle to the feedlot? 

And of course carbon isn't the only consideration in the world here; there's the enormous destruction wreaked on water resources by CAFO's (feedlots). There's the millions of tons of concentrated excrement from a CAFO to be disposed of. There's the question of antibiotic resistance caused by the massive dosing of feedlot cattle with antibiotics to keep them alive long enough to kill. There's the issue of animal suffering, which they most surely do spending their last weeks in filthy, extremely crowded conditions. 

The report eventually comes to the conclusion that people who truly want to reduce the carbon cost of their food should switch some of their meat consumption to other, less costly meats. Pork is only about one fourth as carbon-costly (like my new term?) as beef, and chicken one tenth. Then of course there's the logical solution: simply eat less meat altogether. 

In this report, near the end, there's a figure that states a grown human needs no more than 53 kilos of meat/year to maintain optimum health. That'll be news to all the optimally healthy vegetarians out there, but let's let it alone for the moment. Our quarter steer weighed about 200 pounds. That's 91 kilos. Divide by three adults in the family and we get 30 kilos per person per year. Then there's the 50 kilo pig we eat each year, that adds 15 kilos/person. And an unknown number of chickens, and assorted fish. Hmm, I'm going to guesstimate that each adult in our family eats between 65 and 75 kilos of meat per year.  That's a lot of meat, but not really for an American. 

And no, folks, no way am I giving up my pasture raised beef from across the street. Even if these guys are right, I'm not participating in the CAFO system, I'm not eating an inferior, hormone and drug laced product, I'm supporting my neighbor's farm, and I'm going to darn well enjoy my beef with it's zero food miles. 

The carbon footprints of raising livestock for food

By Janet Raloff

Web edition : Sunday, February 15th, 2009

  Text Size

THE FIRST OF TWO PARTS. Followup story is at:http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/40943/title/AAAS_Climate-Friendly_Fish

For the good of the planet, we’re all being asked to reduce our carbon footprints — the quantities of greenhouse gases, aka GHGs, associated with our actions. Since some 30 percent of the global warming potential attributable to society’s GHG emissions stems from the production of foods and beverages, menu choices are critical, noted Ulf Sonesson of the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology in Goteborg, today. From this climate perspective, meat eaters are the big hogs.

Sonesson was one of the speakers on a panel titled “Food for Thought” at theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting. This morning’s speakers shared data from largely new analyses on how foods, production techniques, and transportation affect the climate costs associated with our dining choices. And there were some big surprises.

No longer a surprise is the relative energy intensity associated with meat, especially beef. For instance, roughly half of the GHG emissions due to human diets come from meat even though beef, pork and chicken together account for only about 14 percent of what people eat.

From a climate perspective, beef is in a class by itself. It takes a lot of energy and other natural resources to produce cattle feed, manage the animals’ manure (a major emitter of methane, a potent GHG), get the livestock to market, slaughter the animals, process and package the meat, dispose of the greater part of the carcass that won’t be human food, market the retail cuts, transport them home from the store, refrigerate them until dinner time, and then cook the beef.

Tally the GHG emissions associated with all of those activities, Sonesson says, and you’ll find it’s the global-warming equivalent to spewing 19 kilograms ofcarbon dioxide for every kg of beef served. Swine are more environmentally friendly. It only takes about 4.25 kg of CO₂ to produce and fry each kg of pork. At the other end of the spectrum are veggies. The climate costs associated with growing, marketing, peeling and boiling up a kg of potatoes, by contrast, is just 280 grams, Sonesson reported.

Another factor contributing to cattle’s particularly egregious carbon footprint is their relative fecundity, if you will, says Nathan Pelletier of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In her lifetime, a mother fish, particularly in protected aquaculture settings, may give birth to hundreds — if not thousands — of surviving offspring. A hen could certainly produce hundreds of chicks. Even a sow can give birth to eight piggies per litter. But a cow: She tends to issue a single calf every year for maybe 10. And while she’s in gestation and then waiting to become pregnant again, farmers have to care for her and perhaps a bull — which are both big, hungry manure factories.

Many environmentalists have argued that finishing up the fattening of beef cattle on corn is worse for the environment than cattle that are raised solely on pasture grass. Pelletier says his team’s analysis finds that at least from a climate perspective, the opposite is true. “We do see significant differences in the GHG intensities [of grass vs grain finishing]. It’s roughly on the order of 50 percent higher in grass-finished systems.”

When an audience member questioned whether he had heard that right, that grass-fed cattle have a higher carbon footprint, Pelletier reiterated, “higher. Yes.” The reason: “It’s related to the much higher volumes of feed throughput and associated methane and nitrous-oxide [GHG] emissions.” He added that most pastures were highly managed, and subject to “periodic renovations and also fertilization.” Finally, with grass-fed cattle “there is also a high [grass] trampling rate. So the actual land area that you need to maintain magnifies that [GHG] difference,” Pelletier said.

But what really concerns his team about the bonus GHG emissions linked to beef is the planet’s growing numbers — and appetite for meat.

Currently, although beef accounts for only about 30 percent of the world’s meat consumption, it contributes 78 percent of meat’s GHG emissions. Pork, at 38 percent of consumption, contributes only 14 percent of meat's GHGs. Another 32 percent of the meat consumed worldwide comes from chicken, but getting these birds from farm to fork contributes only 8 percent of meat’s global carbon footprint. By shifting some share of beef and pork production to chicken over the next four decades, the increase in meat’s GHG emissions by 2050 might be held to just 6 percent higher than today, Pelletier said, even as the human population grows by another quarter-million each day.

Although meat's overall carbon footprint is projected to grow only a little over the next 40 years, the global goal is to cut emissions in every sector. Pelletier offered some suggestions on how to do that. Some were considerably more appetizing than others.

For instance, substituting all beef production for chicken would cut meat’s projected carbon footprint by 70 percent, he said. Or perhaps per capita intake of meat could drop from a current average of 90 kilograms per year in the developed world to the 53 kg per person per year that's been advocated as sufficient for human health by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Under this scenario, Pelletier said, “I estimate that . . . we could reduce associated [carbon] emissions by roughly 44 percent.”

Swap half of that protein now supplied by meat with soy by 2050, and “you could expect [projected] emissions to decrease on the order of 70 percent,” he said. Take the next big step — eliminating all meat in favor of soy — should drop the protein-associated carbon footprint of Western diets a whopping 96 percent.

Pelletier described that the last scenario as “utopian.” Hmmm. Not for this carnivore. I’m willing to eat chicken much of the time and reserve beef as a big treat — maybe even to be downed only in small portions. But go solely soy? That’s no utopia to me.

That said, would I consider such a sacrifice for survival of the planet? Of course — but I’m hoping someone can shoot me recipes that would made this legume taste like something other than soy. So far I only have one, but it's dynamite: forchocolate mousse pie.

Next up: What about fish?

Off-the-Grid Energy

I don't want to give the impression that I'm the only one playing the self-sufficency game around here: Homero has his own project that has nothing to do with farming but which will eventually contribute tremendously to our independence. It's biodiesel. So far, his project consists mostly of collecting vast amounts of waste vegetable oil from various mom-and-pop restaurants and storing them in my art studio. (See Leda behind the boxes? The swan has flown south and left her with a bunch of eggs.) Each of the boxes in the picture below holds 10 gallons, and I think there are eight boxes. 

Oh, and trips to Home Depot. Many many trips to Home Depot.  This get-up below is the actual biodiesel maker... it's an old water heater with a lot of tubes coming out, as you can see. The veggie oil needs to be heated to 130 degrees. Somewhere, there must be inputs for the chemical additives, which are methanol and potassium hydroxide. These inputs are the hold-up. Methanol can be bought in 55 gallon drums from a race car supply shop in Burlington (what do race car drivers use it for? I don't know. ), but it's very expensive. And potassium hydroxide is hard to find. Homero has been trying to find it locally for about a month, and can't. He could use sodium hydroxide (lye), but I guess it isn't quite as good. Nor is it easy to find, the days when drug stores sold Red Devil lye in the laundry section being long gone. I remember when I made soap from scratch years ago, I had to beg a little lye from my college chemistry teacher. Also, we've been told that buying potassium hydroxide in bulk puts you on a terrorist watch list; who knows if that's true?

There is a local farmer here who makes biodiesel in very large, 400 gallon batches, and we have been trying to get in touch with him to ask where he gets his inputs or if we maybe could buy from him since we only need small amounts. Homero's set up will supposedly make 40 gallon batches. There must be more to it than you can see in the picture, because there are also filters - several filters, ranging from 10 microns down to 2 microns, which is smaller than most people filter but Homero wants to be safe. Also, where does it come out? Pure glycerin is a by-product, and it has to precipitate out somewhere... well, as you can tell by now, I don't know squat about biodiesel, except that my car will run on it. Supposedly, if our waste oil is free, the biodiesel will cost about $1.50 a gallon to produce, not counting the start up costs. Homero tells me that he has spent only about $300 so far, but I have my doubts. I know how many trips to Home Depot he's made.

But there is one area that the biodiesel could pay for itself very quickly, and that's home heating. Currently we use propane, which is close to $3 a gallon today and which will certainly go up as winter approaches. Switching to biodiesel would necessitate buying a diesel furnace, but I've seen used ones on Craigslist pretty cheap. We'd really be taking a major step toward independence if we could supply our own heat. What would be left, really, except electricity?

We've got great wind here. New goal: windmill in three years!