One way the COVID-19 pandemic has affected our lives is through the closing of slaughterhouses and meat processing plants. These places are essential to the food supply chain, but have become hotspots for COVID-19 outbreaks. This has caused big meat processing plants to close, which caused a shortage and an increase of prices of some meats. Meat might also be more readily available through restaurants, local ranchers, or smaller grocery stores, helping local businesses. Another solution is buying products such as the Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat. These companies produce plant-based meat that taste, look, and sound like regular meat. Mark Rober was a former NASA engineer who now has a Youtube channel made a video exploring Meatless burgers and met with Bill Gates to talk about the environmental impacts of meat. Check it out here: Mark Rober, a former NASA engineer learns how plant-based burgers are made and their benefit on humans and for the environment. Gates and Rober explain that agriculture takes up about 18% of all emission, and beef makes up about half of that percentage. While about 9% of greenhouse gases may not seem like a lot, beef produces more greenhouse gasses than all cars, trucks, ships, trains, and planes combined. Not only is meat very harmful to the environment, it is an inefficient source of energy for humans. Every day, we get about 10% of our energy from meat, which means 90% of our energy is from other sources. In addition, for every 1 calorie humans get from beef, it takes about 8 calories to feed that cow. The meat industry takes up a lot of resources and is very harmful to the environment, just to produce an inefficient source of energy for humans. For the environment's benefit, the world--and especially the US--needs to consume less meat. Due to our current pandemic, there is less meat available, so a solution would be buying plant-based meat from companies such as Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat. However, these meats are slightly less wallet-friendly, so another solution would be to eat more meatless meals. Here are some easy, delicious vegetarian meals that are high in protein: Tasty shows how to make 6 different high-protein vegetarian mealsTasty shows how to make easy vegan mealsTasty shows how to make 5 different meatless tacos.Lastly, everyone can work to waste less food. Last year in the US, 80 billion pounds of food was thrown away. In addition, 31%, (or 133 billion pounds of food), available in retail went uneaten. Ironically, this is happening while 41 million Americans still face hunger. While this pandemic has impacted the meat industry, this is intertwined in social inequality, the environment, and many other relevant issues that need to be addressed. References:
Conner, Katie. "Is There Really a Meat Shortage? Why You're Seeing Less Beef, Pork and Chicken in Stores." CNET, 3 June 2020, www.cnet.com/health/is-there-really-a-meat- shortage-why-youre-seeing-less-beef-pork-and-chicken-in-stores/. Accessed 3 June 2020. "Food Waste in America in 2020." RTS, www.rts.com/resources/guides/food-waste- america/. Accessed 2 June 2020. "41 Million People in the United States Face Hunger." Feeding America, 6 Sept. 2017, www.feedingamerica.org/about-us/press-room/new-data. Accessed 3 June 2020. Jiang, Irene. "The US May Be Facing a Meat Shortage in Grocery Stores, but You Can Still Buy Meat Directly from Small Farmers and Restaurant Suppliers." Business Insider, www.businessinsider.com/meat-shortage-where-to-buy-meat-online-during- coronavirus-pandemic-2020-4. Accessed 2 June 2020. Radke, Amanda. "Food Waste Is an Issue We Must Solve." Beef Magazine, 27 Feb. 2018, www.beefmagazine.com/management/food-waste-issue-we-must-solve. Accessed 2 June 2020.
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Jacqueline Lee Ashlyn FinkClass of 2023 |