Eat Meat FOR the Environment?

I thought I thoroughly understood and accepted the fact that a vegetarian diet is the "greenest" way to go, at least as far as the environment is concerned. It seems to make perfect sense - plants are easier to grow than animals - so I never gave the idea much more thought. Also, I never gave it much thought because I have little desire to go vegetarian. Ahem, again. Here's a hint for the Heloise crowd: carrot sticks and a handful of gummi bears does not constitute a meal under ANY diet.

But now, that "greenest of green" diets has been challenged. According to this post in New Scientist's blog, adding a little meat to your diet may actually be greener than greens alone. Citing a new study out of Cornell, NS suggests that if everyone ate around 63 grams of meat protein (including eggs) in addition to their veggies, the ecological footprint to produce that diet would be LESS than that of a strict vegetarian diet. How so you ask? Livestock can be raised on land that is unsuitable for farming. Livestock can also be raised on farm land that is resting.

I think this is how farming was accomplished in the old days, right. Crops were rotated on plots of arable land and livestock would move from plot to plot and "fertilize" the resting plots. You know, with rakes and plows and Scotts Lawn products from Home Depot.

However, the Cornell study doesn't give us license to go forth and be unflinchingly carnivorous. The study makes it a point to say that their model assumes that all the food, meat and plant, comes from local sources. Once you start calculating the costs of importing meat overseas, the environmental footprint is considerably higher.

Under no circumstances should one eat green meat.