Not only is meat an extremely inefficient way of producing food, but it is most likely to be the cause of the next pandemic.
The connection occurs because an estimated two thirds of all antibiotics are given to animals mainly to stimulate growth for food production, not to cure disease
Antibiotics are drugs and medications that fight bacterial infections. The first recorded antibiotic was the well known Penicillin, identified by Alexander Fleming in 1928. Since then a huge number of medical procedures have been developed which would not have been possible without antibiotics.
Antibiotic Resistance is the ability of bacteria and fungi to defeat these drugs. Currently the race between resistance and the development of next-generation antibiotics is not looking good with grim implications for humanity.
Any antibiotic use, in people, animals, or crops, can lead to resistance, therefore it is is important to use antibiotics only when necessary
One response to this situation is to reduce meat consumption or to consume only organic meat. This is certainly a step in the right direction.
However moving to organic meat production increases land use for food production, and therefore increases the pressure on wild life. And it continues to treat sentient feeling animals as an exploitable commodity.
A second response is to look at technological solutions that produce protein from non-animal sources.
The Good Food Institute [1] is researching viable long term global solutions. It will be a while before these are generally available, although cultured meat is now on the menu of a restaurant in Singapore [2]
To my mind the impending threat to human health is so great that the only reasonable response is to abandon meat and dairy consumption completely.
By doing this both our health and the health of the natural world around us will benefit.
References
[1] https://gfi.org
[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/18/singapore-restaurant-first-ever-to-serve-eat-just-lab-grown-chicken.html
