1oz beef = 1 day’s food ration. | No Beef

1oz beef = 1 day’s food ration.

6th September, 2009 - Posted by admin - Comments Off

The Red Meat Industry Forum describes processing beef carcasses in a doument (BeefCarcassRMIF.pdf) found here.

This says:

The parts of cattle, pigs and sheep not required for  human consumption are collected by licenced  renderers, usually on the same day.

Renders process most animal by-products  from the meat production chain that do not end up on the consumer’s plate. In the western word, this represents about a third of the weight of animals slaughtered.

It is a complex issue to allocate carbon footprints to items that are the co-products of  a beef carcass – dividing the overall footprint into the separate footprints of sirloin, rump, brisket or bone. But if the waste from a carcass is discounted, the remaining beef has a carbon footprint 37  times its own weight, under the assumptions of the previous post.

The Green Ration Book says

The average UK citizen creates 11 tonnes of Carbon Dioxide ( CO2e) a year. New UK targets aim to cut this by 80%. Dividing the ration equally between categories “consumables”, “building”, “transport” and “government”, allows 1.5kg per day. -  The Green Ration Book

Food will be probably be a large proportion of a consumables ration,  say 1kg CO2e, or 2.2 pounds. If beef steak has a carbon footprint 37 times its own weight, a whole days food-carbon ration would be less than 28gm of beef steak.

That’s a whole day’s food-carbon ration spent on an ounce of beef.