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Ecology of Meat Diet vs. Vegetarian Diet
• What do ecological principles tell us about availability of energy to humans?– Pyramids Summarize food chains & Trophic
levels• Numbers
• Biomass
• Energy
• Energy loss in food chains
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Short Food Chain(Three Trophic Levels)
Grass(Autotroph)
Deer(Herbivore)
Wolf(Carnivore)
Third Trophic Level
Second Trophic Level
First Trophic Level
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PYRAMID OF NUMBERSBLUEGRASS PASTURE
AUTOTROPH 5,542,424
708,624
3
HERBIVORE
CARNIVORE
GRASS
GRASSHOPPER
BIRD
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PYRAMID OF BIOMASSBLUEGRASS PASTURE (LB/ACRE)
AUTOTROPH 4,190
54
1
HERBIVORE
CARNIVORE
GRASS
GRASSHOPPER
BIRD
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PYRAMID OF ENERGY
SOLARENERGY
PLANT AUTOTROPH
DEERHERBIVORE
LIONCARNIVORE 1
10
100
10,000 CALORIES
9,900CALORIES
90
9
Energy Lost
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Human Food Chains
• What do human do to increase available energy?– Humans generally shorten food chains and
make them simpler• Shorter food chains -
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Affect of Feeding at Lower Trophic Levels
2000 tons of Grass
54 million Grasshoppers
180,000 Frogs
600 Trout
Human
Adult One
Number of Adult Humans Supported for a year
Thirty
Nine Hundred
Two Thousand
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Could we support more humans if we fed at lower trophic levels (ate more plants and less animals)?
• How many vegetarians can be fed on land needed to support 1 person eating a meat base diet?– Vegetarians (10-20)
• Acres needed to feed – non-vegetarian (4 acres)– vegetarian ( ½ acre or less)
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Caveats with Plant Based Diets
• Let’s eat grass!
• What kind of plants can we eat?
– High in digestible carbohydrates (sugars and starches)
– Corn, wheat, rice , potato, sugarcane, cassava (manioc)
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What concerns are there with plant based diets?
• Plants provide calories• May lack essential amino acids
– Essential Amino acids 20-21• (9 or 10 we cannot synthesize)
• Plant protein– Typically lack 1 or 2 essential AA’s
– Grains low in lysine– Soybeans
• high lysine • low in methionine
• Animal protein contains the essential AA’s
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Comparison plant and animal proteins • Food Ranking• Eggs 100• Fish 75
• Chicken 72• Beef 70• Cow’s Milk 60• Brown Rice 55• Soybean 45• Wheat 40• Corn 35• Polished Rice 38• Manioc 35• Broccoli 30• Potato 30
Complete Proteins
Incomplete Proteins
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Protein Consumption in Different Parts of the World
• How much protein does a person require?– Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA)
– RDA per adult mixed diet = 56 grams– (RDA) is dependent upon body weight:– 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram (2.2 lbs) of body
weight for adults • 174 lb adult 63 grams of protein daily• 138 lb adult 50 grams daily.
– Protein consumption in different parts of the world
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Livestock Production World-wide
• Enough grain produced to feed everyone - if distributed equally
• World-wide - major effort to increase livestock production 1950-1990– Number of livestock tripled 5.3 to 15 billion– Chickens increased the most (3 to 11 billion) – Human population doubled
• How did the increase in livestock production occur? – Increase in grain and Agriculture energy allocated to
livestock production
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Grain and Energy Costs to Produce Meat
• Traditional livestock production– Animals turned things people could not eat
into things they could eat• Ruminants: cattle, sheep, goats
– Grass, crop wastes• Pigs and fowl
– Cannot use grass– Use crop waste, kitchen scraps
• United States Meat Production– Grain is converted to livestock– Inputs used to produce one kg of meat,
eggs, or cheese
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Energy Cost for Meat production
– Ratio: kcal of energy to produce a kcal of protein • (kcal of fossil fuel: kcal protein)• Beef 54:1• Lamb 50:1• Pork 17:1• Turkey 13:1• Chicken 4:1• Grain 3.3:1
• One half of USA agriculture energy goes into livestock• What percent of our fossil fuel do we import? 65%
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Conversion of plant to Animal Protein (USA)
• 41 million tons of plant protein to produce 7 million tons of animal protein– 26 million tons grain– 15 million tons grass
• Many people in the poor portions of the world cannot afford the “luxury” of converting grain to meat
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Percent of Calories From Starch
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Antibiotics• Why add antibiotics to livestock feed?
– 4% increase in growth• Annual Use of antibiotics:
– Livestock 11-17 million pounds per year– Human 3 million pounds per year
• Why Worry About Livestock Use of Antibiotics?• The Union of Concerned Scientists –” overuse of
antibiotics in intensive animal agriculture is a main contributor to the development of a myriad of new treatment-resistant pathogens afflicting both animals and humans.”
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Human Diseases, Antibiotics And Beef
Range Fed Beef (3/4)
1. Grass and other forage crops
2. Microbes (bacteria adapted to forage)
Feed lot (grain) 100 days (1/4)1. Starch Digests More
Quickly than Forage2. Less “cud chewing” less saliva (one-half)
Increased Rumen Acidity
Bacteria(Fusobacterium necrophorum)
Enters the bloodstream
“stomach ulcers”
Liver Abscesses
E. coli0157:H7In cattleContaminated
Beef
Annually
73,000 illnesses
63 death
Antibiotics(subtherapeutic) 12-37%
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Meat Diet (Summary of Concerns)
• Large amount of energy is need to produce meat
• Grain is converted to animal products so less grain is available for human consumption– Grain and soybeans fed to livestock in the USA:
would feed 800,000,000 – 1,400,000,000 people– USA more than 50% of grain is fed to livestock– World wide 38-40% of grain is fed to livestock
• As world consumption of meat increases grain available to feed poorer nations declines
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Animal Wastes
• Animal wastes generated are not treated – 7 billion livestock in USA (livestock produced
20x’s as much waste as humans in the United States)
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Energy Cost for Meat production
– Ratio: kcal of energy to produce a kcal of protein • (kcal of fossil fuel: kcal protein)• Beef 54:1• Lamb 50:1• Pork 17:1• Turkey 13:1• Chicken 4:1• Grain 3.3:1
• One half of USA agriculture energy goes into livestock• What percent of our fossil fuel do we import? 65%
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Fat in Our Diets
• Supplement to Vegetarian vs. Meat Diet
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Kinds of Fats• Saturated
– Acid –C-C-C-C- C-C-C-Methyl Group
– No double bonds between carbons
• Monounsaturated
– Fatty acid with a single double bond
– Acid –C-C-C=C- C-C-Methyl Group
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Kind of Fats
• Polyunsaturated
– Fatty acid with more than one double bond
– Acid –C-C-C=C-C=C-C-Methyl Group
• Trans Fat - hydrogenated
– Hydrogen added to the double bond carbons
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What kind of fat should we consume?
• Small Amounts of Saturated fats (7%) of total fat intake
• Sources: whole-milk dairy products, fatty meats, tropical oils, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils and egg yolks
• Increase cancer and heart disease risk
• Unsaturated Fatty Acids– Essential Fatty Acids– Omega-3 and omega -6 Fatty Acids
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Acid Group
Methyl Group
Omega 3 fatty acid
Omega 6 fatty acid
Structure of Fatty Acids
Double Bond
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Omega-6 Fatty Acids
• Omega-6 fatty acids– Source: Corn, safflower, sunflower,
soybean, and cottonseed oil (cooking and baking oils)
– Functions: Important for brain function, Stimulate bone and hair growth, necessary to maintain reproductive function
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Omega 3 fatty acids• Omega-3 fatty acids
– grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, fish, olive oil, garlic
– Functions:• Cognitive and behavioral function• Inflammatory diseases (osteo-arthritis)• Reduce heart diseases• Reduce LDL’s’ (Bad cholesterol) increase HDL’s
(Good Cholesterols)– Ratio: Total/HDL –average 4.5 – Good ratio 2 to 3
• Slower cancer cell growth
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Ratio of omega-6 to Omega-3
• Ratio of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids– Good: one to four times more omega-6 fatty
acids than omega-3 fatty acids – USA Diet: 11 to 30 times more omega-6 fatty
acids than omega-3 fatty acids
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Fat In Our Diets• How much fat should we consume
– 30% of calories from fat – 7% saturated
– 2,000 calorie diet (600 calories)– 12 calories/g of fat = 50 g (3.5
saturated)• McDonald's Double Quarter lb with
Cheese– Calories 770– Fat 47 g – Calories from fat 430 (56%)– Saturated Fat 39 g
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Vegetarianism and Health• Vegetarians have blood cholesterol levels:
– 14% less than non-vegetarians– vegans are 35% lower
• Vegetarian’s risk of dying from heart disease is less than half that of a non-vegetarian
• Medical costs in USA directly attributable to meat consumption - $60-120 billion
• Meat eaters have triple the rate of high blood pressure as compared to vegetarians
• The obesity rate:– General population 18%, – Vegans is 2% .
• Men who consume large amounts of dairy products have a 70% increased risk for prostate cancer
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Things to think about
• 1.1 billion people world wide are over weight
• 1 billion people world wide have an inadequate diet
• 60 million people starve to death each year
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References:http://www.animalplace.org/why.html
• 2. Resnicow, K., Barone, J., Engle, A., et all, "Diet and Serum Lipids in Vegan Vegetarians: A model for Risk Reduction," Journal of the American Dietetic Association 91 (1991): 447-453. See also Sacks, F.M., Ornish, D., et al., "Plasma Lipoprotein Levels in Vegetarians: "The Effect of Ingestion of Fats from Dairy Products," Journal of the American Medical Association 254 (1985): 1227-41
• 3.Resnicow, et al., "Diet and Serum Lipids in Vegan Vegetarians." See also Messina and Messina, The Dietitian’s Guide to Vegetarian Diets
• 4. Phillips, R., et al., "Coronary Heart Disease Mortality among Seventh-Day Adventists with Differing Dietary Habits," American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 31 (1978):S191-8; Burr, M., et al., "Vegetarianism, Dietary Fiber, and Mortality," American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 36 (1982):873-7
• 5. Halweil, Brian, "United States Leads World Meat Stampede," Worldwatch Issues Paper, July 2, 1998
• 6. Ophir o., et al., "Low Blood Pressure in Vegetarians...," American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 37 (1983):755-62; see also Melby, C.L., et al., "Blood Pressure in Vegetarians and Non-Vegetarians: A Cross-Sectional Analysis," Nutrition Research 5 (1985):1077-82
• 7. Mokdad, A., et al., "the Spread of the Obesity Epidemic in the United States," Journal of the American Medical Association 282 (1999): 1519-22
• 8.Health Professionals Follow-up Study, reported in "Dairy Products Linked to Prostate Cancer," Associated Press, April 5, 2000.
• 9. Washington Post: Gains From Antibiotic Ban Noted; Benefits to Danish Farm Animals Come at 'Marginal' Cost, March 27, 2002, David Brown