Customer Reviews

Meat the Truth

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This is a good introduction to understand the link between livestock farming and carbon emissions.
Marianne Thieme (leader of the Party for the Animals in Holland) succeeds in highlighting to the public what other documentaries about climate change have missed: the fact that industrialised livestock farming is not sustainable for the Earth, for the animals, for the communities.
I absolutely recommend watching this documentary.

The meat industry as the number one cause of global warming is not informed to the public by the government. This documentary reveals this real "inconvenient truth". Highly recommended for everyone who cares about our planet, each inhabitant needs to take action to save the earth before it's too late.

Scientific info from FAO, Worldwatch institute, Free university Amsterdam and much much more about the problems of rising meat consumption.
Nice carbon saving table: Carbon savings that could be achieved in the USA through a reduction
in meat consumption
CARBON SAVINGS USA
Days
per
week
no
meat
CO2 in
Megatons
per
annum
If all Americans ate no meat for .... days a week
This would result in the same carbon savings as taking 19.2 million cars
off the road in the USA for a year long.
1 day 99,6
If all Americans did not eat meat for one day a week, they would save
99.6 megatons of greenhouse gas emissions. This would save 46 million
return flights from New York to Los Angeles and back from Los Angeles to
New York.
2 days 199.2 If everyone in the US did not eat meat for two days a week, they would
save 199 megatons of greenhouse gas emissions. This would have the
same positive effect on reducing greenhouse gases as replacing ALL
household appliances in the US with energy efficient ones.
3 days 298.6 If all Americans did not eat meat for three days a week, they would save
almost 300 megatons of greenhouse gas emissions. This would have a
greater impact on the climate than replacing all US cars with Toyota Prius
models.
4 days 398.4 If everyone in the US did not eat meat for four days a week, they would
save 398 megatons of greenhouse gas emissions. This would result in
carbon savings equivalent to halving the domestic use of all electricity,
gas, oil, petroleum and kerosene in the United States.
5 days 498 If all Americans abstained from eat meat for five days a week, they
would save 498 megatons of greenhouse gas emissions. This would result
in carbon savings equivalent to planting 13 billion trees in your garden
and letting them grow for ten years. That is 43 trees per American!
6 days 597.6 If all Americans did not eat meat for six days a week, they would save
nearly 600 megatons of greenhouse gas emissions. This would lead to the
same carbon savings as eliminating the total electricity use of all
households in the United States.
7 days 697.2 If everyone in the United States ate a vegetarian diet for seven
days, they would save around seven hundred megatons of
greenhouse gas emissions. That would be just the same removing all
of the cars in the USA off the roads. [...]

The "Meat the Truth" documentary increases awareness on the livestock industry as an important contributor to climate change. This is a critically important objective. However it misses the opportunity to suggest the set of solutions which could effectively contribute to address the problem. Reducing meat consumption is only part of the solution:

- The documentary does not explain that the benefits of reduced meat consumption would not be limited to the environment, but it would also significantly improve health, particularly in the west where obesity and cardiovascular diseases are continuing to increase mostly because of excessive meat consumption;

- Even if some viewers will reduce consumption of meat, global consumption will continue to rise. Additional approaches to address the environmental challenge in the production system cannot be left outside. Greenhouse gas emissions in the livestock industry can be significantly reduced at negative or low cost, such as in the case of methane capture and conversion into cost-effective clean-energy;
- Finally, some gruesome images showing animals while defecating do not add any value. On the contrary, they turn away moderate viewers who could actually play an important role in addressing this problem.

My suggestion to the producers is to cut a short video clip with the main message, using the well done cartoons, and distribute it though schools.

Found this to be a very informative d.v.d. about just how much we can influence the health of our earth by the simple food chioces we make everyday....some fascinating points...well worth watching.

I love this movie. Once I saw that 18% of carbon emissions came from animal agriculture I was done with meat and meat products. This is essential viewing for all who care about the planet.

So there's no problem with my going into the woods and shooting a deer or a turkey right? Or is this a step in a gradual process to get people to acknowledge animals as equal beings? Reading about the author's background, I doubt she would have anything positive to say about ANY diet that involves meat in whatever form, industrially raised or not.