An athlete I’m not. If you ever see me running, you should run, too, because whatever is pursuing me is terrifying. Lucky for you, though, if it hasn’t yet caught me, we can assume it’s also slow.

While I have limited experience in fueling athletes, I hope the Olympians bound for Paris are bringing their vitamins because 60% of the meals served to the athletes will be plant-based and vegan. Meat-free hot dogs and plant-based tuna are on the menu that is shouting the health benefits from the rooftops of Paris. I’m not suggesting foie gras be the base of the Olympic food pyramid either, but vegan and plant based in the name of carbon footprint reduction is false.

I’m supportive of not only choosing your own dang lunch, but also for supporting other sectors of agricultural production outside animal protein. That said, serving a large percentage of vegan meals while touting the purpose is to reduce the carbon footprint is patently untrue.

The court of public opinion has trumped the science on greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and carbon footprints. How someone can look at the Front Range and blame a pasture of cattle for pollution seems a stretch, but here we are.

Methane has long been the antagonist of the storyline fed to the public and it is produced through the digestion process in cattle. Because they are ruminants, they can upcycle forage that can’t be consumed by humans on lands that are inappropriate for tillage and turn it into edible protein. They were upcycling long before thrifting was en vogue. To eliminate cattle in the name of environmental stewardship would be misguided and would ignore their upcycling ability, the benefits of grazing as conservation, and the ability of the U.S. to feed itself high quality protein.

There have been multiple studies on feed additives that can be added to cattle rations to reduce methane production. Among them are essential oils, citrus, and red seaweed. I can’t imagine a truckload of essential oils is cheap and the trucking on red seaweed or citrus could very well negate any benefit since feedyards are not located near oceans or orange groves.

Water consumption also tends to be a sticking point for messaging about the evils of beef production. I’m not certain of the comparison between the water utilized by cattle production and the water utilized by lawns and sprayed onto roadways by poorly aligned sprinklers in metro areas, but it would be interesting.

Dr. Frank Mitloehner is the GHG Guru at UC Davis and maintains the environmental impact of livestock production is overstated. According to Mitloehner, livestock emissions are responsible for 4% of greenhouse gasses, while fossil fuels contribute 80%. Additionally, the cattle industry has been committed to reducing carbon emissions. Ranchers are the original conservationists and lecturing a fifth-generation rancher about the need for him to become sustainable is tone deaf.

The factoid that is thrown out is a 2013 estimate by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. It claims that livestock production is responsible for 14.5% of global GHG emissions.

American beef production leads the world in reducing environmental impacts and that is reflected in the numbers. Between 1961 and 2019, the U.S. beef industry has reduced emissions per pound of beef produced by more than 40% while also producing more than 67% more beef per animal. Emissions from cattle, including those that come from the feed production, fuel, and electricity account for 3.7% of the total greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. Currently, emissions from U.S. beef cattle are less than 0.5% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Emissions from beef cattle represent 2.2% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. It’s time to stop throwing out bad data about an industry that is far from an environmental enemy.

Beef plays a solid role in a healthy diet by providing more nutrients in fewer calories than many food choices. A 3 oz. serving of beef provides over 50% of the daily value of protein and is an excellent source of zinc, vitamins B6 and B12, niacin, and phosphorus and a good source of iron. To consume the same amount of protein in that 3 oz of beef, an athlete would have to eat six tablespoons of peanut butter or three cups of quinoa and the substantial amount of calories those food contain in that amount. The beef is 156 calories compared to 564 for peanut butter of 666 for quinoa. I’ve sat through enough Weight Watchers meetings to do that math.

Removing all livestock and poultry from the U.S. food system would only reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by only 0.36 percent. It would also, more importantly, take affordable, high-quality protein off the plates of those who need it. Besides, seven days without beef makes one weak.