After writing about how high in carbon beef is and some of its other problems, it seemed logical to consider what other animal-based foods are also high carbon.

There are many, including one of the highest-carbon, which is lamb. Lambs and mature sheep are ruminant animals that emit methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide, “As we see, methane emissions are large for beef and lamb. This is because cattle and lamb are what we call ‘ruminants’, in the process of digesting food they produce a lot of methane. If we removed methane their emissions would fall by around half. It also matters a lot for dairy production, and a reasonable amount for farmed shrimps and fish.”

Producing food for them also generates carbon, as does transporting them for slaughter. It’s a bizarre cycle, isn’t it? Raising high-carbon animals by farming in a carbon-intensive way to grow food for them, which generates ever more carbon. Processing and refrigeration also consume energy which generates carbon.

Converting formerly wild land for raising high-carbon farm animals also is a source of carbon emissions, “Where do the non-methane emissions from cattle and lamb come from? For most producers the key emissions sources are due land use changes; the conversion of peat soils to agriculture; the land required to grow animal feed; the pasture management (including liming, fertilizing, and irrigation); and the emissions from slaughter waste.”

There is another source of greenhouse gases which may not be well known or known much about much, which is food waste: “Relatively little meat is wasted worldwide, but even small amounts of meat waste produce large amounts of greenhouse gases. Even among meats and dairy products, there is quite a bit of variation in levels of impact: Emissions are highest for beef and lamb, but much lower for pork, chicken, eggs and dairy.” 

Eating lambs is not necessary at all for human nutrition. There has been a myth or a bit of profound ignorance about food sources of protein.

For too long, animal foods have been believed to be complete protein while plant foods were incomplete. However, it has been discovered that plenty of plant foods have all 9 essential amino acids and therefore are complete protein.

There’s another connection which is not obvious. Many people, if not most seem to believe the happiness is pleasure so they try to consume and indulgence themselves with anything that gives them pleasure, including eat foods that result in mass destruction of billions of animals and cause great harm to the planet. The trouble is, happiness actually has very little or nothing to do with pleasure. 

Neuroscientist Moran Cerf studied neuroscience research to try to find out which factors do contribute to human happiness. The number one factor, he says in the below video, is sleep, number 2 is social connectedness, number 3 is spirituality, number 4 is volunteering, and number 5 is exercise. Pleasure and self-indulgence are not on the list. He begins to talk about happiness research at about the 14:00 mark.

For nutrition, eating lambs is not necessary at all. For happiness, eating pleasurable foods is not helpful either because happiness is not based on pleasure. While there are many ignorant people who believe they are happy after eating a lamb chop, a donut, or drinking coffee, these people have confused a superficial, temporary pleasure with happiness. Overindulging does not result in any lasting happiness; it does result in a dependency upon ingesting what may be harmful to the planet and human health.

For the pleasure seekers, the tragedy is they may never understand that happiness is not pleasure and waste their opportunities to know what happiness is. Many of the them are also overweight or obese, which harms their own health.

The tragedy for the lambs is that they are born into captivity and are killed for no compelling reasons. Farming them is also carbon-intensive as noted.