Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the holiday season, a respite from the mundaneness of the working world and a welcome of the approach of the winter season. Today, millions of families gather at the dinner table to give thanks, celebrate each other and stuff themselves with home-cooked meals. Above all others, one food reigns supreme this day of the year: turkey.
The turkey, though a staple of lunchtime subs, rarely reaches the dinner table or supermarket shelves outside of the holiday season. But why? Why have we chosen to relegate chicken’s cousin to special occasions, but let steak frequent our evening cuisine?
The answer probably lies in the nostalgia of tradition and our preferences for other meats. Our parents were raised around dinner tables touting large, oven-roasted turkeys whenever relatives were in town, and our parents raised us in the same manner. Turkey has become as much a part of the holiday season as hot dogs are a part of the Fourth of July, or champagne is a part of New Year’s. Americans also really enjoy our beef, and this year, we’re on track to consume 55.4 pounds of it of it per person. Hearing someone declare their desire for a filet mignon is nothing out of the ordinary, but doing the same for a slice of turkey might bring you a peculiar look.
These questions may seem trivial, but in fact, the type of meat we consume has real, lasting implications on climate change. Although you may not find the argument atop the list of a green organization’s priorities, trading in your beef patty for a turkey burger could drastically reduce the emissions that drive global warming.
Beef carries an implicit cost all too easy to ignore without addressing how it arrives on your dinner plate. As an energy source, beef is incredibly inefficient, requiring 40 calories of energy for every one calorie of steak we enjoy. And, 70 percent of all U.S. land used for food production goes to growing feed for cattle alone. Not only is beef inefficient, but it also comes from a species that collectively belches out — literally — more heat-trapping compounds than entire factories do. In eating, a digestive process within cows’ stomachs causes them to produce large quantities of methane. In conjunction with methane from manure, livestock accounts for nearly a third of all methane emissions, which has been proven to have an environmental impact over 25 times more harmful than carbon dioxide.
Turkey, on the other hand, only requires a quarter of the energy per calorie that cows do, and its contribution to methane is minuscule in comparison. Poultry’s impact on global warming, although greater than that of fruits and vegetables, is paltry compared to beef’s. By simply switching to other types of meat, we could greatly reduce the global impact of what we eat. Removing only one burger a week from our diet would be the equivalent of driving our cars for 350 fewer miles.
Like most people, I love beef, and would likely eat it every day if I could. I’m not calling for a ban on burgers or sanction on steaks, but I do believe that Americans should take a second to consider the environmental impact of their food choices.
So, this year, when great-aunt Margaret brings up her opinions of the 2016 election and the whole table erupts into uncomfortable political discourse, pry your way through the prattle and tell your family a little bit about they should replace next week’s steak with another plate of turkey.