I think by now we understand why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., distanced herself from the “Green New Deal.” So many Democratic candidates for president endorsed it, sight unseen, only to discover afterward that it was being drafted by half-wits.
Before Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and her staff altered their outline for this policy proposal, then lied about the alterations, the document contained several passages that invited public mockery. One of the best was the acknowledgment that even the authors’ best efforts would not be enough to get rid of “farting cows” and air travel within 10 years. The obvious implication was that we would indeed be getting rid of both “farting cows” and air travel eventually.
[Read more: The mysterious case of AOC’s scrubbed ‘Green New Deal’ details]
Leaving air travel for another day, the fatwa against “farting cows” is an even bigger problem in my mind. The inconvenient fact is that meat, even the processed kind that isn’t especially good for you, is probably the most nutritious thing in most Americans’ daily diets.
Remember: When you eat, you are not just filling up your stomach. You are putting nutrients into your body, without which you would eventually die. And meat is much more nutrient-dense than plant foods, both the bad and the good plant foods. Meat has the proteins and healthy fats (your brain is composed mostly of fat, by the way) that the human body needs. This is why the “Green New Deal’s” promise of the eventual elimination of “farting cows” is irreconcilable with its less-noticed promise to provide everyone with access to healthy food.
It would be a huge mistake to assume that if you took away meat, Americans would just eat vegetables instead. Most people will instead replace the meat in their diet with less nutritious processed foods.
The average American consumes 17 teaspoons of sugar per day. People get all that sugar, and eventually all the health problems it brings with it, not just from candies and sodas but also from the truly mind-blowing amounts of it that are added to supposedly healthy foods: fruit juices, energy drinks, breads (as a preservative), salad dressings, processed sauces, yogurts, granola bars, condiments, and various boxed instant food items, to name a few. In addition to sugar, Americans are eating foods — chips, crackers, and fries, among others — laden with vegetable oils that are full of trans fats.
If you remove those “farting cows,” you are basically condemning most people, especially the poor, to eat even more of the really unhealthy nonmeat things they currently eat, causing even more of the health problems that go with them.
But, even if we make the most generous assumptions about what people will choose to eat once the “farting cows” are gone, we still encounter health problems. There is a reason vegans have to take supplements: Meat contains some nutrients that plants lack, such as vitamin B12, and other nutrients that do appear in plants but in less bioavailable forms, such as iron.
None of this is to disparage plant foods, which are great, or vegans, who have the right to choose their diet.
But humans are not herbivores. They thrive on meat. That’s why “farting cows” are here to stay, and that’s as it should be.
