The Moos Room™

[music] [cow mooing]
Joe Armstrong: Hey, everyone. You're listening to The Moos Room hosted by the University of Minnesota Extension. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Joe Armstrong. Normally I'd be joined by my co-host, Emily and Brad, but can't get together today. It's just not working out for this episode, but we got to keep it moving, keep things rolling out. You're stuck with just me today.
All right. I won't lie to you at all. I'll be very upfront. I tried to do this yesterday, tried to record an episode of myself. It was supposed to be about beef grazing, and all I did was get on my soapbox and stay off-topic for about 30 minutes.
Today, we're going to try again, especially because I listened to yesterday's recording, and it was not good. Not good at all. Hopefully, this is a little better. We're going to try to focus down a little bit and choose a little bit different topic because it was what we ended up talking about yesterday when I was trying to record anyway. The topic today is something a little different. I know we said we're on our three-part grazing series, but we're going to take a quick break because I want to talk about greenhouse gases, the beef industry, some land use things, some things that have come up and that the general public has a lot of questions about.
Most of this episode is going to be trying to give you some talking points, give you some data, and we're going to keep it pretty short because I know you're going to get bored listening to just me because we don't have Emily and Brad here to keep it entertaining. The other thing is that I think this episode will tie in really nice to next week when we talk about beef grazing because that's the industry that gets blamed the most. We can't eat beef anymore because there's some environmental issues. I think that's really misleading and not quite the whole story. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2: Dr. Joe will take some questions now.
Joe: Go ahead in the back.
Speaker 3: Where did you get your information?
Joe: First thing we need to do is give a big shout-out to Sara Place. Sara Place is the Chief Sustainability Officer at Elanco and she is the one who is willing to give me a lot of the information we're going to talk about today. It's her slide deck that I watched present at the annual meeting for Minnesota Cattleman's Association. I'm really excited that she's got the role she has at Elanco because I think it's very important for the beef industry, the dairy industry, ag in general, that she's in that position. I'm excited to see what else she does.
Yes, the person who looks extremely like my wife who's sitting on the couch.
Speaker 4: What's the coolest thing about cows?
Joe: Let's start talking about why cattle are so cool, and right, I'm a little biased. Veterinarian. I work with cattle, dairy, and beef in practice. I work with cattle all the time now in my current job. I'm a little biased, but they're pretty cool.
First thing, the biggest reason that they're so cool, they taste amazing. No way around that. The end product that comes out of this is steak, is ground beef, is all these different things, and it tastes amazing. That's the thing that really it all boils down to.
Why are they cool on the sustainability side? They're doing something that not a whole lot of other species do for us. When we're talking about food, they're taking something that's completely inedible for us, completely inedible, and they're turning it into something that we can eat. They're not only turning into something that we can eat, but they're turning it into something that's high quality. High-quality protein that is nutrient dense.
The grass is harnessing the sun's energy and it's trapping it in that grass. The cow is taking that grass, which we can't eat, and they're using that for energy and turning it into something that we can eat. Now, 90% of what cattle eat in the normal grain finished, steer or heifer, 90% of what they eat in their lifetime is not in competition with the human food supply. That's a big number.
What it comes down to is those animals, even in a grain-finished system, those animals are eating a ton of grass and a ton of forage early in their life and for most of their life. They're really only eating a little bit of grain at the end.
Blue shirt, middle of the crowd.
Speaker 5: I thought grain-fed cattle ate only grain.
Joe: In the normal grain-finished steer heifer, for most of their life, they're eating forage. 82% of their lifetime diet is forage, grass or hay, some other forage, not grain. I think that's really key when you're talking to somebody and they get that uneasy feeling when you talk about feeding grain to cattle. You can let them know that almost all cattle are eating, almost all forage, not grain for their entire life. It's just a little bit at the end that we use to get that intramuscular marbling, get that fat in the muscle, and get them to grade well.
Gentleman jumping up and down in the front.
Speaker 6: Thank you for finally calling on me. I thought this meeting was about greenhouse gases.
Joe: Let's move on to greenhouse gases. I think there's so much to talk about. Cattle get a really bad rap for this. I think the first thing you need to know is how to choose a credible source when you're talking about this. For me, there's one really distinct way you can tell if a source has their stuff together and they know what they're talking about. Really it's all about where do they say the methane comes from.
If you hear anything about cow farts, the source is not credible. When we're talking about where the methane comes from in a ruminant, in a cow, it doesn't come out the back end.
The vast majority of that methane comes out the front end. It is from eructation or burping. If you hear anything about cow farts, just go ahead, listen, be polite, continue to be respectful, but know that source is probably not credible. It comes out the front, it's burping. That's where the methane comes from. It has nothing to do with cow farts for the most part.
Go to the frustrated person on the left. Nope, not you. You.
Speaker 7: You said the methane comes out the front, but why does that matter? They're still producing tons of methane.
Joe: I always like to go with the numbers because to me numbers are concrete and they give you something to look at. When we're talking about numbers and beef production in the US, life cycle assessments are telling us and the EPA greenhouse gas inventory is telling us that US beef production accounts for 2% of the total US greenhouse gas emissions. Only 2%. We hear a lot about it being such a dire situation and it's not sustainable and there's no way that we can continue having cows, but 2% is not much.
It seems even less when we talk about a global scale. US beef production accounts for less than half a percent of the global greenhouse gas emissions. I think it seems like even less of a big deal when we look at where do the other emissions come from. In the US beef production, including all the fossil fuel used, everything accounts for 2% of total US greenhouse gas emissions. 6.3% of that total is from all other agricultural greenhouse gases. 1.7% is from landfills. 27% of that total US greenhouse gas emissions comes from electricity production, and 28% comes from transportation.
All of US beef production accounts for 2%. Electricity and production and transportation account for more than half of what's going on. In addition to that, there's still some percentage points left. 35% of the total comes from all other human cause greenhouse gas emissions.
Go ahead, Frederick.
Frederick: What about all these movements when it comes to vegans and eating less meat? Is that going to make a difference or not?
Joe: Let's get to my favorite study. I got a favorite study right now. I really, really love this study. It's a collaboration between Virginia Tech and the USDA. It's done by White and Hall in 2017. The premise is really basic. I really like it because it's very simple, very easy to follow.
The premise is, what if everyone in the US became a vegan overnight and, and this is key, all the cows magically disappeared? They're just gone. Didn't have to figure out what to do with them, didn't have to figure out where to put them. They just magically disappeared. We're all eating a plant-based diet now. Overnight, snapped our fingers. That's how it happened.
The question from that is, how would that affect US nutrition first, and then what would it do to greenhouse gas emissions? They modeled this, tried to figure out how this was all going to work. All built on the premise that cows has magically disappeared and every single person in the US was vegan.
Hold questions for now, I think I know what your question is. What do animal-derived foods do for us in the US? That's what we're going to talk about real quick. The big thing is that animal-derived foods account for 24% of the total energy and 48% of the total protein available for human consumption in the US. Those are big numbers. We know that animal-derived foods are very-- important.
Then it'll become even more important when we look at essential fatty acids and essential amino acids. Essential fatty acids from animal dry foods account for 23%, depending on the diet, and where you are, 23% all the way up to 100% of the available consumption in the US. On the amino acid side, is 34% to 67% of the essential amino acids. That's just to get us set up to talk about what they found with nutrition when we move to 100% plant-based diet in the US, and all the cows magically disappeared.
Speaker 9: What did the paper find?
Speaker 10: Yes, what did the paper find?
Joe: Here's what the paper found, big takeaway here. "Although modeled plants in agriculture produce 23% more food, it meant fewer of the US population's requirements for essential nutrients. When nutritional adequacy was evaluated by using least-cost diets produced from foods available, more nutrient deficiencies, greater excess of energy, and a need to consume a greater amount of food solids were encountered in the plants-only diet."
If we went to plants-only, and all the cattle just disappeared overnight, we would produce more food, mostly because we would have to. We have to produce more because we have to eat more, because we have less energy-dense, less nutrient-dense food, and we would have more nutrient deficiencies. I told you already when we're looking at animal-derived foods, they account for a big, big portion of our energy, protein, essential fatty acids, and essential amino acids in our diet.
We're producing more food, yes, but we have to eat more because it's less energy-dense, and we're going to have more nutrient deficiencies across the country based on our dietary restrictions of a plant-only based diet.
Here's another quote to just wrap up the nutrition section. "This assessment suggests that removing animals from the US agricultural would reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, but would also create a food supply incapable of supporting the US population's nutritional requirements." There's a big problem there. We are decreasing greenhouse gas emissions if we magically make all the cattle disappear, and we eat a plant-only based diet, but we have big, big nutritional problems in the country because of it.
Yes, Murphy, you have a question.
Murphy: Getting rid of the cows must have changed the environment a lot, right? Lots less greenhouse gases.
Joe: I said we would reduce greenhouse gas emissions on the quote from that paper, so we got to talk about it. Remember, everyone's now vegan, cows magically disappeared, greenhouse gases would be reduced. Big takeaway from this paper, but by how much? That's the key.
Speaker 12: How much?
Joe: We would reduce US greenhouse gas emissions by having the cows magically disappear and eating only plant-based food by 2.6%. 2.6%, we would decrease US greenhouse gas emissions. On a global scale, that means we would reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 0.36%. That is an absolutely minuscule amount even in this absolutely extreme case of getting rid of all the cows and making everyone a vegan.
Speaker 13: Should I eat cows or not?
Joe: I think this paper is really, really clear. Eat cows, don't eat cows, it really doesn't matter all that much.
Speaker 14: What's your take on all this?
Joe: Here's where we get into my opinion, and I'd like to point out, I am going on just my opinion here. Everything up until this point, we've talked about data, research, numbers, this is my opinion. I'm not going to tell anyone what they should or shouldn't eat, mostly because I don't think it's my business. It's everyone's individual choice and we should respect that, and that's where I'm sitting on that front.
Also, when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, I think I presented enough data to say that food choice plays such a really small role in the total greenhouse gas emissions, that's really not worth fighting over, and it's not something I'm willing to focus a whole lot of time on in trying to convince people that they need to eat a certain way.
Speaker 15: Doctor, one more. Don't you ask people to eat beef?
Joe: Of course, I'm gladly going to welcome anyone who wants to eat beef. Definitely will welcome anyone who wants to join that club, but I'm not going to fight over what you should or shouldn't eat because I don't think it matters when it comes to greenhouse gases. We can rely on our product to defend itself. It tastes amazing. We produce it in a safe way. It's reliable, consistent, and efficient, and we're the best at it in the world. Let's just keep putting our product out there, keep putting that beef out there, keep getting our message across.
Hopefully today, I gave you some talking points to get through. Please keep in mind, keep it polite, keep it respectful. There's no reason to get dragged down in the mud, get down in the dirt. Keep it nice, keep it professional. Hopefully, these are some of the numbers you can use. With that, we got to wrap up. Brad and Emily aren't here to give us the true entertainment, and I am sorry for that, but that means we should wrap up so you can be done listening to me.
Catch the podcast next week, we have our final episode on grazing. We're talking about just beef grazing. If you haven't listened to Episodes 2 and 3, go back and listen to those if you can. They definitely set the base info and knowledge that you're going to add a lot more to your listening experience in Episode 5, and get a lot more out of that beef grazing episode if you've had the time to listen to the general grazing and the dairy grazing episode.
As always, if you'd like to learn more or you need something to reference, please visit our website extension.umn.edu. That's extension.umn.edu. If you have any questions for us, comments about the show, or any ideas about what you'd like to hear, send them to our email, themoosroom@umn.edu. That's T-H-E-M-O-O-S-R-O-O-M@umn.edu. Again, big shout out to Sara Place, really appreciate her being willing to send that slide deck over. Information she had in there was great. Thank you for listening. We'll catch you on the next episode.
[music]
Yes, Murphy, you have a question?
Murphy: [unintelligible 00:16:29]
[music] [cow mooing]
[00:16:35] [END OF AUDIO]
1