Burger King aiming to drive beef into China

A worrying situation appears to be brewing in Asia at the moment. Burger King, the world's second largest burger retailer, is aiming to expand its stake in the Chinese market. The fast food market in China is estimated to be only a $29 million industry however people believe this is set to grow considerably.

One of the problems faced by Burger King when expanding in the Chinese market is that the Chinese consumer much prefers chicken. Whilst Burger King has adapted it's menus towards chicken products it hopes to piggy back the marketing McDonalds have already undertaken in China to promote beef. This has been carried out through adverts such as the 'Feel the Beef' campaign aiming to promote the sexy Western view of beef. Apparently this advertising has already had some success in changing the views of beef in China (see Economist article).

Where the worry arises is with the potential huge increase in methane (a well know greenhouse gas) from the cows needed to produce all the additional beef for the Whoppers and Big Macs pressed upon the giant population of China. Currently cows account for 40% of methane globally which when added to the fact that methane is 20 times worse for climate change that CO2 emissions, makes the potentially huge addition to the 1.5 billion cattle worldwide a very scary prospect.

Once again there is a massive short falling in the awareness of the impact of eating large quantities of beef. A recent survey by the consultancy firm, McKinsey, found that whilst 'eating less beef' was the third best way for people to reduce their emissions only 3% of the survey respondents ranked it as such (the top two methods are drive a more fuel-efficient car and improve home insulation).

As seen from the excerpt from the BBC's Bloom website in the previous post, eating less meat (and beef in particular) can have a profound difference on climate change. So there needs to be a significant drive towards this goal and clearly promoting beef to such a potentially massive market as China definitely does not seem like the right direction to move in and appears . However on our own small scale if people can change their eating habits the whole planet can benefit.

To finish here are some recommendations for changing your eating habits:

• Eat less meat!
  
• Eat more chicken and pork - meats with the lowest climate impact because they come from animals that don't burp methane, research suggests
• Eat local meat if possible to avoid emissions from transport
• Consider soya as an alternative to dairy

Eat less meat!

This is an interesting excerpt from the BBC Bloom website about why eating less meat can be hugely beneficial for the environment. And this definitely something we can all do!

Visit here for the full article and have a play around on the rest of the Bloom website because it's very very enlightening.

"A vegan in a 4x4 can do the climate more good than a meat-eater driving a hybrid car. Food for thought?

Livestock produce more greenhouse gases than all the world's transport combined, with beef production singled out by a recent UN report as a particular enemy at the gate. Why? Because cattle belch. Methane is a greenhouse gas more than 20 times worse for climate change than CO2 emissions and cattle are full of it. There are 1.5 billion cattle and buffalo worldwide, each producing more greenhouse gas in a day than the average 4x4.

According to the World Health Organisation, the average Briton eats twice the amount of protein they need in a year. By halving the amount of beef you eat, you could save almost as much CO2 as recycling for a year. By going vegan, you can slice off almost as much CO2 in a year as skipping a single return flight to India.

And cows, sheep, pigs and chickens are responsible for more emissions than just their... well, emissions. So, should we be choosing our meats more carefully?

Together, belched methane from cows and sheep, plus methane from manure, account for about 40% of global methane emissions. But that's not the whole story.

Livestock production also plays a big part in deforestation for grazing and cultivating animal feeds such as soya. Deforestation is currently responsible for a staggering quarter of all global man-made CO2 emissions.

Add to that the fact that manure and fertilisers used to grow crops to feed livestock produce two-thirds of global human emissions of nitrous oxide (a gas almost 300 times as damaging to the climate as CO2 ) and you start to see the scale of the problem.

When you crunch those numbers, a single kilo of beef can be responsible for more greenhouse gas than driving for three hours while leaving all the lights on at home, according to 2007 Japanese research published in the journal Animal Science.

Cows can even offer vegetarians something to ruminate on - a veggie who scoffs a lot of dairy products can actually be as bad for the climate as a meat-eater. That's because the dairy industry accounts for about 23% of UK food emissions.

If the UK went the whole hog and stopped eating meat and dairy entirely, without increasing how much we eat of other foods, we would cut our greenhouse gas emissions by 8%. While this may be an unikely scenario, even eating a bit less could lower demand and reduce emissions significantly."

Top Three Reasons Not To Eat Fish

A good little video documenting why eating fish is bad for you and the environment.

http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/video.asp?video=fish_3_reasons&Player=wm