Green turkeys? New or Old World tradition? The peculiar tradition of modern American Thanksgiving provides a case study for both geographers and historians – and a quandary for environmentalists. The popular image of New England “pilgrims” wearing high hats and lots of buckles while desperately trying to survive the “New World” borders on being kinky. The supposed get-together barbecue with the Wampanoag Indians in 1621 is debatable, to say the least. Making turkey the main staple of the “Thanksgiving” menu is a modern, commercial ploy. And then there’s the organic issue. Oh dear.
To paraphrase environmentalist Brenden Koerner, organic turkeys, which haven’t been given antibiotics, are a popular choice among green-minded consumers. Organic farming techniques may increase agricultural yields over the long haul, by maintaining soil and water quality. But these findings apply primarily to crops, rather than animals. And you’ll have to pay a significant premium to go organic. However, according to a study by Cornell, it takes 13 units of fossil fuel to produce a single unit of “inorganic” turkey protein; for broiler chickens, on the other hand, the ratio is a mere 4:1.
Koerner goes on to comment: “so, let’s say everyone in the United States ate roast chicken instead of roast turkey this Thanksgiving—how would that impact the holiday’s carbon footprint? According to the National Turkey Federation, 88 percent of Americans will eat turkey this Thursday, which translates into around 264 million people. Let’s be conservative and estimate that each diner will consume 400 kilocalories’ worth of turkey alone (a figure that doesn’t factor in gravy or the butter used for basting). There are approximately 1.5 million kilocalories in a barrel of oil. A quick calculation reveals, then, that filling one’s collective gullet with turkey on Thanksgiving requires 915,200 barrels of oil. Satiating our poultry cravings with chicken, by contrast, would consume only around 281,600 barrels of oil. Net savings: 633,600 barrels of crude, which translates into roughly 12,355,200 gallons of gas. Since a gallon of gas produces 19.564 pounds of carbon dioxide, then we’d reduce Thanksgiving’s CO2 output by about 109,641 metric tons. Sounds great, huh? And it’s certainly better than nothing. But that impressive-sounding figure represents about one-thousandth of 1 percent of the nation’s annual CO2 emissions. Which is a potent reminder of how hard it’s going to be to right our environmental ship—and, in a strange way, why it’s worth doing in the first place” (http://www.slate.com/id/2178290/).
We don’t know whether or not the pilgrims and Indians ate turkey for that first Thanksgiving, though we do know that the Indians brought deer meat. Governor William Bradford sent men out to hunt wild fowl for the feast, but, since the pilgrims called all wild fowl “turkey,” we don’t know if turkey (as we know it) ended up on the menu. Since the Pilgrims had no sugar or flour at that point in time, it’s also doubtful that they made pumpkin pie or cranberry relish—and, since they thought New World potatoes were poisonous, there were no mashed potatoes either. For all we know, venison, oysters, and eels were the centerpieces for that first Thanksgiving. Not that it really matters—Thanksgiving is much more than food, green or not.
Editor’s guilty note: My “inorganic” Thanksgiving turkey is roasting as I write…
Article by Bill Norrington
