Festive turkey dinners could cost the Earth

Straits Times 7 Dec 09;

DREAMING OF A GREEN CHRISTMAS is a three-part weekly series leading up to Christmas which looks at how environmentally friendly some of the festive traditions are. This week, we look at the prevalence of turkeys at Christmas lunches and dinners. Next Monday, we look at how green Christmas trees are.
By Kimberly Spykerman & Grace Chua

TURKEY is a festive season must-have at hotel Christmas buffets and family dinners, with demand shooting up every November and December.

The frozen birds are flown in from as far away as Brazil and the United States, and their carbon footprint - a measure of the greenhouse gases caused by a product - could be substantial.

Dr Matthias Roth, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore's geography department, said: 'Meat consumption relies on the meat production industry or factory farms which produce meat for the consumer at very high rates.

'It is generally accepted that a meat-heavy diet has a significant impact on pollution, water scarcity and land degradation. All these sectors produce significant contributions to man-made greenhouse gas emissions.'

A British study estimated in 2007 that all the turkey dinners consumed in Britain each year were responsible for 51,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions - equivalent to driving around the world 6,000 times.

That figure was for traditional meals for eight, including the turkey and stuffing, roast potatoes and vegetables, bread sauce, cranberry sauce and other dishes, and assumed one-third of the population was tucking into such a meal.

In Singapore, the amount of turkey imported shoots up in September and October, as wholesalers stock up for the American Thanksgiving celebrations in November and Christmas in December.

The time lag is because it takes four to six weeks for the birds to be shipped here from as far away as the US, Brazil and Chile.

In the September and October peak months, more than 150 tonnes of the frozen meat are imported on average each month, compared with less than 40 tonnes in a typical month.

Supermarkets and butchers say that there is little demand for the meat for the most part of the year, but that orders start pouring in towards the end of November.

Ms Kellie Webster, communications and office manager of The Butcher, a butchery near Holland Road, said: 'We've got turkeys coming out our ears at Christmas and Thanksgiving.' She added that they sell about 300 turkeys in the two-month period, compared with the usual 20 in a month.

Most major supermarkets such as FairPrice, Cold Storage and Sheng Siong offer turkey only during the festive season. Demand for the meat at the supermarkets usually jumps between 10 per cent and 30 per cent during this period.

The year-end turkey overload is to be found at hotels too. For instance, the InterContinental Singapore orders eight more turkeys a day than its usual three, while the Shangri-La Hotel uses 1,800kg to 2,200kg of turkey, compared with virtually none during the rest of the year.

It is not just the turkey that adds to the footprint, but also the trimmings associated with it. Bagged stuffing mix, cranberries, brussels sprouts and potatoes all have to be imported as well.

In the British turkey-dinner assessment, most of the food, including the turkey, was produced within Britain. Only the cranberry sauce was imported from the US - and it contributed to half the carbon budget for transport.

But do not go substituting turkey for roast beef either: Beef production consumes more energy and produces more carbon dioxide than poultry. By some reckoning, it contributes 78 per cent to carbon emissions from livestock farming, versus 8 per cent from poultry.

If you want to go green this Christmas, the best way is probably to 'eat local' so that meats and produce do not need to be flown from the other side of the world to land on your plate.

This reduces the carbon emissions from transport, but consumers must ensure the food production methods - such as the use of feed and fertilisers - do not generate more greenhouse gases than production methods overseas.

For instance, tomatoes grown in sunny Spain result in less carbon dioxide than out-of-season tomatoes grown in heated British greenhouses.

So, instead of turkey, have chicken. Or pair the turkey with local veggies instead of imported ones.

Or - the unthinkable, perhaps - have a vegetarian Christmas dinner.

A diet of greens does not mean that carbon dioxide emissions are not produced - the amount is simply reduced as it takes more fossil fuel energy to produce and transport meat than to deliver equivalent amounts of protein from plants.

And Singapore has to import most of its food.

'Researchers have found that the difference between a red meat diet and a vegan diet in terms of greenhouse gas emissions is similar to the difference between driving a sedan and driving an SUV,' said Dr Roth.

So, tuck into a black pepper steak - made entirely of flour and soya beans.

That is what animal lover Louis Ng does when his family digs into ham and beef for Christmas dinner - things he enjoyed before he became a vegetarian 10 years ago.

'Everybody says it tastes the same as the real thing...I've even cooked it for my grandmother and she couldn't tell the difference,' said Mr Ng, who is the executive director of the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society, an animal welfare group.

In the US, more options for vegetarians to enjoy a 'turkey dinner' have been sprouting. These meat substitutes, usually made of wheat protein and tofu, even come packaged with all the trimmings, like stuffing made with mushrooms, apples and butternut squash.

Unfortunately, supermarkets such as FairPrice and Sheng Siong say they do not carry such products.