Bald-faced lies

Lately a song from the 1975 Broadway musical “The Wiz” keeps running through my head: “Don’t nobody bring me no bad news/If you’re gonna bring me something/Bring me something I can use/But don’t you bring me no bad news.” I need to add the word “more,” as in “Don’t bring me more bad news.”

In February a friend sent me an article from The Times of London. I avoided reading it because I was inundated with bad news about fracking, but the headline kept coming back to me, like the lyrics of the song: “Tofu can harm environment more than meat, finds WWF [World Wildlife Federation] study.”

Tofu is a staple in my diet, so I was about to throw my hands up in despair. I refuse to eat CAFO-raised beef (actually no beef at all, no lamb, and no pork either), hormone-laden chicken (I try to eat only chicken raised locally by people I know or know of), seafood from the Gulf, and now—no tofu?

It turns out that the news wasn’t bad—it was a bald-faced lie. The WWF study, “Oil Palm, Soybeans & Critical Habitat Loss,” does not conclude that tofu or the soybeans it comes from has an overarching negative impact on the environment, and nowhere does it compare the global environmental effects of farming soybeans with the effects of raising cattle for meat.

What the report did state was that expanded farming of oil palm and soybean in what it called “critical habitats” resulted in tropical forest loss in Indonesia and Brazil.

The report concluded that “soybean plantations constitute a threat to critical habitats” because “global demand prospects” for both soybeans and oil palm are high and “future expansion is expected to be concentrated in areas known to have high conservation values.” (Emphasis mine.) It also noted that “government policies tend to support expansion in areas considered to have high conservation value,” and that both crops reduce biodiversity in these critical habitats, because they are grown as monocultures. By definition, monoculture means growing only one type of plant. It is the opposite of biodiversity, and can be responsible for the spread of plant diseases, no matter what crop is planted.

The article from The Times stated: “A significant increase in vegetarianism in Britain could cause the collapse of the country’s livestock industry and result in production of meat shifting overseas to countries with few regulations to protect forests and other uncultivated land, it [the WWF report] added.”

I read the entire report looking for that conclusion. I read it again just to be sure I hadn’t missed it. I read it a third time. It’s not there. Anywhere. The report does not discuss vegetarianism in Britain, nor does it mention Britain’s livestock industry, nor does it conclude that Britain’s meat production could shift overseas.

Would you like fries with your public relations propaganda from the meat industry?

Maybe you’d just prefer some facts: The Union of Concerned Scientists found that meat-based diets use about twice as many environmental resources as soy-based diets. Factory-farmed (isn’t that an oxymoron?) meat production takes up to 17 times more land, 26 times more water, 20 times more fossil fuels and uses six times more biocides (pesticides and chemicals).

The Times article did point out that meat substitutes (fake meat products, not raw tofu) tend to be highly processed and involve energy-intensive production methods, although this was not part of the WWF report.

So if you’re concerned about how your food choices affect the environment, you’d do better to eat tofu rather than meat. You can buy freshly made tofu at Nature’s Grace in Honesdale, PA.

- Marcia Nehemiah