Eco-Consequences of Low-Carb Diets

Despite the Christmas 2003 discovery in Washington State of the first U.S. case of mad cow disease, meat-heavy Atkins-like diets soared in popularity last year. An estimated 26 million Americans may have been on low-carbohydrate diets, and 3,737 low-carb products and varieties hit supermarket shelves in 2004. By November of 2004, however, the craze appeared to be slowing: The number of those surveyed on a low-carb diet was half what it had been earlier in the year. Atkins Nutritionals saw sales drop 32 percent and announced layoffs of 40 percent of its employees.

Dieters may have finally heeded warnings from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, the American Heart Association, the American Dietetic Association and the American Kidney Fund about the adverse health effects of low-carb diets, which are heavy in saturated animal fats that increase the risk of obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. That such diets appear to be on the way out is good news not only for the health of dieters but also for the environment.

"We can't have the entire population of the United States eating meat like that," says certified holistic health counselor Alex Jamieson. The reason, argue ecologist Marty Bender and plant breeder Stan Cox of the Land Institute in an article on low-carb diets, is that increased demand for meat would lead to increased production. "Already, industry analysts give much of the credit for this fall's [2003] sharply higher beef and egg prices to high-protein, low-carb dieters," write Bender and Cox. "Stepped-up production is sure to follow." They claim that if all the earth's overweight inhabitants went on an Atkins-style diet, animal protein requirements would increase from a worldwide average of 56 grams to about 100 grams per day, requiring the meat, dairy, poultry and seafood industries to increase output by 25 percent. This would mean "at least a 7 percent increase in cropland worldwide at a time when farmers are already using most of their better land." Cox and Bender argue that this would lead to erosion and increased pollution from pesticide use, not to mention overgrazing and degradation of farmland.