What’s for dinner? It used to be a simple question. But with the industrialization of food production, the possibilities are endless. The popular Burger King slogan “Have it your way,” has become the American way because advances in food preservation, packaging and pest control make it possible for people living in the northeast to eat year-round fresh strawberries from sunny California and prime-cut beef raised in the heart of Texas.

Americans have more food choices than ever and are spending less of their income on food today than 50 years ago. But infinite possibilities and cheap food have a price. Industrialized food production — namely, increased meat production, use of agricultural chemicals and long-range food transportation — take their toll on the environment in the form of air and water pollution, natural resource depletion and land degradation.

Most people are at least vaguely aware that all food production has some impact on the earth’s ecosystems. Animals need food and water to grow; plants need sunlight and nutrients. Every single act in producing food leaves an ecological footprint. But what’s a person to do — stop eating?

Of course not. People can lessen their ecological footprint without drastically changing their lives by striving for something surprisingly simple: Balance. Balance between what people want to eat and what they should eat in order to keep the ecosystem healthy enough for the next generation.

Sustainable eating is a counterweight to the impact food productin has on the ecosystem’s balance. It’s not the latest diet, and it’s not vegetarianism. It’s about looking at food holistically and seeing all of the environmental effects of choosing one food item over another. It can be achieved in three simple steps.

Meat: It’s What’s for Dinner … and Breakfast and Lunch

Eating lower on the food chain is one way to balance the ecosystem scale. According to Peter Singer and Jim Mason in their book “The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter,” the average American eats more than 200 pounds of red meat, poultry and fish per year. That’s an increase of 23 pounds over 1970. Forty years might seem like a long time ago, but Americans were hardly any more malnourished in 1970 than they are today. And America’s love affair with beef, chicken and the other white meat has brought about the rise of factory-like farming, one of the biggest threats to the preservation of the ecosystem.

Gone are the days when cows graze in open pastures and pigs spend the day rolling in the mud. Eating meat three times a day in the form of breakfast burritos and chicken McNuggets means that things like “factory farm” operations, where animals often don’t have enough room to turn around, are necessary to keep up with America’s demand for meat.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), in 1999 the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that 2 percent of hog farms in the country produce more than 46 percent of the total number of hogs. The NRDC also reported that 10 large companies produce more than 90 percent of the nation’s poultry.

These large animal operations can wreak havoc on the environment. Livestock production “contributes to the world’s most pressing environmental problems, including global warming, land degradation, air and water quality pollution and loss of biodiversity,” according to a 2006 report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

One animal unit, which is equivalent to one head of beef cattle, produces the same amount of feces and urine as 16 adults, and animal manure tends to be anywhere from 25 to 100 times more concentrated than human waste. The amount of waste from one head of beef cattle may not seem like a lot, but when there are 1,000 or more cattle in a “factory farm,” the pile quickly gets much bigger.

The 1997 Census of Agriculture reported that the amount of animal waste produced by hogs, cattle, poultry and sheep comes to an astounding 220 billion gallons per year. That amount could fill more than 333,000 Olympic-sized pools. Suddenly the phrase “I’m in it up to my ears,” takes on a whole new meaning.

Though animal waste can be used as a natural fertilizer for crops, often the amount of waste created is more than the farmers can use on their fields without killing off their crops. Over-treating agricultural land with this natural fertilizer causes the waste, which is often untreated, to run off into nearby waterways. Confined Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs, are especially detrimental to the environment because the animals are confined in barns or feedlots where their waste cannot be spread naturally, thereby creating a massive concentration of untreated animal manure, becoming “a liquid toxic waste,” according to Anne Woiwode from the Michigan chapter of the Sierra Club.

In addition to runoff, waste from livestock production muddies the waters when huge open-air waste lagoons leak and spill, according to the National Resources Defense Council. In 1995, an eight-acre hog-waste lagoon in North Carolina burst, spilling 25 million gallons of manure into the New River. The spill killed about 10 million fish and closed more than 300,000 acres of coastal wetlands to shellfishing, according to the NRDC.

Animal waste is also responsible for air pollution. In 2002, Iowa State University and the University of Iowa found that very low levels of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, known to be emitted by CAFOs may harm human health. The researchers concluded that CAFO air emissions are a public health hazard.

No standards exist for air pollution from livestock farms, but the EPA is conducting studies about air quality on farms.

Hold the Chemicals

The industrialization of agriculture has led to food producers using more chemicals on crops and animals than ever. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimated that United States’ livestock and agriculture grown for animal feed are responsible for 37 percent of pesticide use, 50 percent of antibiotic use and a third of the nitrogen and phosphorus pollution of water. Though these chemicals have increased food production, the environmental impacts of declaring chemical warfare on animals and the environment has a steep price.

The EPA’s 2007 Report on the Environment shows that approximately 60 percent of groundwater wells in farmland areas had at least one pesticide at detectable levels. And, though less than 1 percent of the groundwater wells had any pesticides that exceeded human health standards or guidelines, the EPA says drinking water standards do not exist for almost half (33 of the 76) of the pesticides analyzed. The EPA also reports that human health and environmental impacts of pesticide contamination, particularly when the pesticides occur in mixtures, are not well understood.

Antibiotic use is also rampant in livestock production. According to the Sierra Club’s Woiwode, 70 percent of antibiotics produced in the nation are used on livestock. That comes to about 25 million pounds of antibiotics that are added to animal feed every year to speed livestock growth. Though antibiotics are necessary to maintain animal health, especially in confined areas like CAFOs, the overuse of antibiotics for non-therapeutic purposes on animals contributes to the rise of resistant bacteria. “Antibiotic resistance is on the rise” due to overuse of antibiotics in both humans and livestock, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

There is an alternative to chemical-laden food, and it represents step two in a quest to eat sustainably. In October 2002, organic food became regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Program, but organic food is not a new phenomenon. In fact, it wasn’t until World War II that anything other than organic practices were used to grow crops.

Organically grown food takes into account the impact that food production can have on the environment. According to the Organic Consumers Association, all farms and products claiming to be organic must be guaranteed by a USDA-approved independent agency. Some of the guidelines include abstaining from the application of prohibited materials (including synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and sewage sludge) for three years prior to certification and then continually throughout their organic license; prohibiting the use of genetically modified organisms and irradiation; and refraining from antibiotic and hormone use in animals.

Going organic certainly seems to be the new trend in the food industry. According to the Organic Trade Association, U.S. organic food sales have grown between 17 and 21 percent since 1997. And organic foods represent the fastest growing sector of the food market.

The boost in interest over organic food has made it easier to find it in grocery stores and farmers’ markets across the country. Meijer and Wal-Mart, two of the biggest grocery retailers in the U.S., now sell organic food. Though it’s promising that
big-box retailers are jumping on the organic bandwagon, consumers should be aware of the loopholes some companies use to label their products “organic.”

Sustainable Table (www.sustainabletable.org), a Web site created to help consumers understand the problems with the food supply and offer viable solutions and alternatives, warns that some food items have the organic label even if some of the ingredients are not organic. A breakfast cereal made with organic sugar can have the organic label even if no other ingredients in the product are organic. Also, if a company is certified as an organic producer, it can use the word organic in its company name, even on products that are not organic. Consumers can avoid buying products that are not truly organic by looking for the USDA “Certified Organic” seal on the outside of the container.

There are also several online resources available to consumers who are wary of buying from big-box retailers. The Organic Consumers Association’s “Breaking the Chains Buying Guide” (www.organicconsumers.org) offers Web sites that list both local and worldwide retailers that sell organic products.

Energy Hogs

The transportation necessary for the globalization of food consumes energy by the mouthful. Whether it’s a bagel or a slice of pastrami, chances are that it’s been processed and packaged so that it can arrive fresh after being hauled thousands of miles by ship, train, truck or plane. As a result, people can eat any kind of food, anytime they want. But this all-you-can-eat buffet comes at a price.

The average food item travels approximately 1,500 miles before ending up on the dinner table, according to David Pimentel, a professor of ecology and agricultural science at Cornell University. That uses a tremendous amount of energy. Most people focus on things such buying a fuel-efficient car when thinking about cutting back on fuel consumption, but Americans are blind to an entirely different sector that is gulping down oil by the gallons. The food industry burns nearly a fifth of all petroleum consumed in the United States — about as much as automobiles do — according to Michael Pollan’s book, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.”

Long distance food transportation also requires a tremendous amount of energy to keep food from spoiling. According to the Sustainable Table Web site, approximately 23 percent of the energy used in food production system is allocated to processing and packaging. That’s more than a fifth of the total amount of energy put into food. Pimentel estimates 80 percent of food is processed in some way. And after food is consumed, the packaging often becomes waste because it’s difficult to reuse or recycle something used to store food. Once the tomato sauce is gone, the metal container that held it usually ends up in the landfill, Pimentel says.

The amount of fuel it takes to carry a pound of pre-packaged grapes from California to Michigan may seem like a drop in the bucket, but inefficient practices such as intense processing are damaging to the environment. Pollan writes that it takes between seven and ten calories of fossil fuel energy to deliver one calorie of food energy to an American plate. That’s a lot of wasted energy for something that to most people is merely a matter of preference. And since the combustion of fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global climate change, the foods people choose to eat directly affect their impact on the ecosystem.

Part of eating sustainably involves a commitment to allieviating this trend. Buying locally grown food can help balance the calories used in production with the calories used by the consumer. On average, the food miles for items bought in the grocery store tend to be 27 times higher than the food miles for goods bought from local sources, according to the Sustainable Table’s Web site. Though some food may not be available during certain seasons, local farms often have a wide assortment of in-season food. And since the popularity of eating locally has been steadily increasing over the past few years, farmers’ markets are easier to find than ever. See USDA’s National Directory of Farmers’ Markets (www.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets/lists) for their locations.

The Choices We Make

Advocates of food industrialization promised that world hunger would be wiped out as a result of using practices like factory farming to produce more meat, increased chemical use to produce more crops, and better food preservation to make more types of food available to more people. But an estimated one billion people in the world still suffer from hunger and malnutrition. And the food industry didn’t just break its promise; it also wreaked havoc on the environment. It’s time for a new solution.

Sustainable eating helps to lessen resource consumption by choosing to eat lower on the food chain more often, buying more organic foods, and patronizing the local farmer’s market whenever possible. Change comes easiest in little steps. Realizing that food choices greatly impact the ecosystem is a good first foot forward.

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Jessica A. Knoblauch is a first-year master’s student in the environmental journalism program at MSU. This is her third appearance in EJ. Contact her at knoblau7@msu.edu.