Citations:

Primary article used:

Dutkiewicz, J. (2019, March 07). What the Green New Deal will mean for your hamburger | Jan Dutkiewicz. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/07/green-new-deal-clean-meat-hamburger

Additional article used:

Pierre-louis, K. (2019, March 08). No One Is Taking Your Hamburgers. But Would It Even Be a Good Idea? Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/climate/hamburgers-cows-green-new-deal.html

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The questions: who/what/where/when/why/how?

Alexandra Ocasio Cortez (AOC) a democratic representative from NY proposed the Green New Deal in late 2018 in order to lower greenhouse gas emissions. The article mentions ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by finding alternatives to industrial agriculture; the alternative being “clean meat.” Clean meat is created using cellular agriculture technology, which produces meat that are genetically identical and taste the same as meats that come from animal stem cells grown in a lab.

Impact/Relevance

The topic that this article talks about involves the triple bottom line, which achieves sustainability in the economy, society, and environment. The most powerful environmental impact that the article mentions is that clean meat generates 96% less greenhouse gas emissions, uses 99% less land, and 96% less water. An interesting fact that I read, said that 14% of greenhouse gas emissions come from industrial agriculture, and 9 billion animals are slaughtered in the US every year. The social impact that relates to the topic are that the people who work in slaughterhouses could potentially lose their job, if clean meat technology becomes a thing. Another social impact is that people are feeling forced to change diets; people may feel this way, because they have lived off of the slaughtering of animals their whole lives, and are scared or close-minded to trying alternative meats. The economic impact from this proposition has already been mentioned above with the loss of jobs, but another economic impact is, the increased profit for plant-based companies for their alternative options. The main goal is to find a way to sustainably produce food that meets the food security of the nation.

Question posed

Being a public health major, I question the health impacts of alternative options. My question while reading the articles was, what are the possible health outcomes that are a result of the clean meat technology presented? According to the World Cancer Research Fund, limiting the consumption of red meats lowers the risk of cancer. At the same time, the article found that nutritional deficiencies would increase, specifically protein. Yes, there are alternative ways to get protein in one’s diet, like the consumption of lentils, quinoa, nuts, and dark greens to name a few, but studies have shown that even eating those foods, the body would still be in deficiency.

Why I chose this article?

I decided to choose this article to do my news report on, because I am interested in nutrition and the health outcomes that come from healthy eating. I found this topic interesting, because I decided to go vegan last year for about 6 months, and really learned a lot. Unfortunately, I stopped due to not having the time to meal plan. Although, I am no longer vegan, I try to eat only white meats and reduce my consumption of dark meats. I also try to reduce the amount of animal products I eat in general.