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MY NAME is Graham, and I鈥檓 a cheesoholic.

I鈥檓 generally quite restrained at the table, but I can鈥檛 resist cheese. Hard, soft, runny, smoked, blue, British, continental, pasteurised, unpasteurised. If there is cheese on offer, I will keep on eating it until one of us is defeated. I eat it for breakfast and snack on it at night.

Recently, my cheese habit has become even more central to my diet. Last year I quit meat, finally fed up by its environmental and animal welfare record. It wasn鈥檛 easy, but what was there to fill the void? Why, my old friend cheese! Halloumi, paneer and parmesan are now my beef, chicken and pork.

I鈥檓 happy to live without meat. But lately I have been wrangling with my conscience again. Cheese is made from milk, and milk comes from cows. Cattle farming is appalling for the climate. Cows belch out vast amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that no known technology can stop from being vented into the atmosphere. Most dairy farming is a form of factory farming, with all the attendant animal rights issues. I haven鈥檛 kept a record, but I am sure my cheese consumption has gone up since I swore off meat. So have I just swapped one environmental and animal welfare sin for another 鈥� one that is possibly even worse?

This is an uncomfortable question for many people. A number of my colleagues said, half-jokingly, 鈥減lease don鈥檛 do that story鈥�. They were saying they would rather not know. They were right.

The cheese industry is a gigantic, and growing, success story. World production is at least 22 million tonnes a year, up from 15 million tonnes in 2000, and is on expanding as people in traditionally cheeseless cultures in parts of Asia catch on. Even in countries where people do tend to eat cheese, consumption is on the up. In France, people to 27 kilograms per person per year in 2015, a kilogram more than in 2012. The UK cheese market has grown 13 per cent over the same period, and 92 per cent of UK households buy cheese, according to industry body Dairy UK.

Demand for cheese has driven a major expansion of the dairy industry over the past 50 years. In 1970, world production of milk was about 480 million tonnes. It is .

At the same time 鈥� and possibly not coincidentally 鈥� meat consumption is falling, at least in the UK and the . According to a representative consumers published by supermarket chain Waitrose last year, a third of Britons say they have either recently quit meat or are making an effort to eat less. Many are motivated by concerns about animal welfare, the environment and their health. Other recent surveys have .

It is tempting to draw a line between these two trends: that as people cut down on meat, they compensate with cheese (in which case the health argument seems odd, as cheese is a high-fat, high-salt food). There is some evidence that this meat/cheese switch is happening. In the UK at least, people who don鈥檛 eat meat consume more cheese than average. In 2017, a team at the University of Oxford sliced and diced the data from a dietary survey of nearly 200,000 people. Participants were classified by diet 鈥� meat eaters, poultry eaters, fish eaters, vegetarians or vegans 鈥� and their food intake was monitored. The group who ate the most cheese per person were the vegetarians 鈥� that is, eat meat or fish but do eat dairy products.

The compensations of cheese

Their average cheese intake is nearly 30 grams a day, almost twice as much as that of meat eaters. Team member Kathryn Bradbury, now at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, says this suggests some dietary switching. 鈥淭here is definitely some compensation with cheese,鈥� she says.

If people really are shifting from meat to cheese, that is a potential unreported problem for the environment. Animal farming is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. According to the UN鈥檚 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the livestock sector per cent of all human-made greenhouse gas emissions. Cattle alone contribute two-thirds of this. Add in sheep, goats and buffaloes 鈥� the source of almost all the cheese not made from cow鈥檚 milk 鈥� and that goes up to 81 per cent.

Unsurprisingly, the environmental impact of food derived from cattle is huge. In terms of carbon footprint, beef is about as bad as it gets. Figures collected by researchers at the University of Michigan show that producing a kilogram of beef emits an average of of 鈥渃arbon dioxide equivalent鈥�. This means it causes the same amount of warming over 100 years as 26.5 kilograms of pure carbon dioxide. About half of that comes from methane, produced by cows as an unavoidable by-product of digestion, which is a 100-kilometre trip in a typical car.

Lamb 鈥� also produced by a belching ruminant 鈥� isn鈥檛 far behind (see 鈥�Guilty pleasure鈥�). Other meats, such as pork and chicken, result in lower carbon emissions, as do fish. But all of these are still carbon intensive compared with vegetables.

Milk is quite low, at 1.3 kilograms of CO₂ equivalent to produce a kilogram of the stuff. But cheese is many times higher, mainly because 10 litres of milk go into making each kilogram of cheese. The actual footprint varies a lot depending on the variety of cheese, but the mean is 9.8 kilograms of CO₂ (see 鈥�Choose your cheese鈥�). The worst offender is cheddar produced in the US using milk from Holstein-Friesian cows, which comes in at more than 16 kilograms of CO₂.

On this basis, a quick calculation suggests that substituting cheese for some meats 鈥� say, halloumi for chicken 鈥� can double a meal鈥檚 carbon footprint. That isn鈥檛 what I set out to achieve. But this is only a rough estimate. 鈥淭he problems with that comparison are that people might not eat the same amount of cheese as they would meat, and there are more environmental impact categories than just carbon footprint,鈥� says Helen Breewood of the Food Climate Research Network at the University of Oxford.

Another way to look at this issue is the carbon footprint per calorie. By this measure, dairy products as a whole have a lower carbon footprint than any meat, so a straight calorie-for-calorie swap may mean cheese is no worse than chicken. Unfortunately, the studies published so far don鈥檛 look at cheese on its own, but bundle it into a general dairy category along with milk, cream, butter and yogurt. And we don鈥檛 know whether people really swap calorie for calorie as they tuck into the cheese board (gram for gram, cheese tends to contain more calories than meat), so it is impossible to be sure.

More clearly on the plus side, each calorie of dairy less land and less energy than a calorie of meat. That is potentially good news for those who substitute cheese for meat, although, again, it isn鈥檛 considered separately from other dairy products.

But even if we set aside the question of swapping meat for cheese, the environmental impact of dairy farming is a growing issue. 鈥淲e are facing a lot of criticism,鈥� says Juha Nousiainen, a senior vice president of Valio, Finland鈥檚 largest dairy company. Finland is a world leader in developing a carbon-neutral economy and the dairy industry is trying to do its bit. 鈥淲e cannot hide from this question any more,鈥� says Nousiainen. The industry has already halved its emissions since 1970, largely by breeding less burpy cows and improving their feed. Intensification has also helped. But, says Nousiainen, 鈥渢he current means to reduce methane have been exhausted鈥�.

Valio鈥檚 solution is the 鈥渮ero carbon cow鈥� project. This is an extremely challenging goal as methane production is inevitable and it can鈥檛 be captured from cows in fields. The answer is to offset it: manage the pasture better so the grass becomes a carbon sink rather than a carbon source. That isn鈥檛 as piddling as it may sound. According to the FAO, tonnes of carbon per hectare per year 鈥� more than an equivalent area of boreal forest. 鈥淚t is a hell of a lot of carbon,鈥� says Nousiainen.

Even that, however, will only solve about half the problem. The rest will have to come from many small interventions such as using manure as a biofuel and capturing the methane emitted inside barns. As yet, these are just plans on the drawing board. But if they work 鈥渨e can get very near to zero鈥�, says Nousiainen.

The environmental impacts are one thing. What about animal rights? If you are concerned about the welfare implications of meat but don鈥檛 think too much about cheese, you might want to look away now.

鈥淒airy farming is hideous,鈥� says Marc Bekoff at the University of Colorado, Boulder, a pioneer of research into animal emotions. 鈥淭he ethical issues surrounding dairy are just as egregious as those surrounding meat.鈥�

For researchers, getting access to dairy farms to document how they operate isn鈥檛 easy. In 2010, , a geographer now at the University of Washington, embarked on an investigation of the US dairy industry. It took her four years to gather enough material to publish, but what she found is shocking. Her peer-reviewed book 鈥� named after a wretched animal she encountered at a cattle auction 鈥� describes the highly industrialised process of milk production and the toll it exacts on cows.

Most dairy cows are born on large dairy farms to adult dairy cows. They are separated from their mothers straight after birth, raised until they are about 18 months old, then artificially inseminated. In the meantime, they are dehorned, ear-tagged and, in some countries, have their tails docked 鈥� in which most of the tail is removed. These procedures are usually done without anaesthetic.

Nine months later they give birth. Their calves are taken off them immediately and they are then milked several times a day. To continue producing milk, they must be inseminated once a year, meaning they are pregnant most of the time. They aren鈥檛 allowed to bond with their calves 鈥� the US Bovine Alliance on Management and Nutrition , to minimise trauma for both calf and cow. Female calves go into the dairy herd. Male calves are usually killed right away or reared for meat and slaughtered within six months.

A dairy cow typically goes through this cycle of insemination, birth, separation and lactation at least twice, but often multiple times. Somewhere between the ages of 3 and 7 their productivity or fertility, or both, declines to a point where they are no longer profitable. They are now considered spent, and sent to the slaughterhouse.

The US has about 9.3 million dairy cows at any one time. Around 3 million of those are slaughtered every year, along with half a million of their male calves. The dairy industry is thus intimately intertwined with meat production. 鈥淧eople don鈥檛 know that,鈥� says Bekoff.

Gillespie also describes visiting a 鈥渃ull auction鈥� where the spent cows on sale are visibly knackered. That is where she saw cow #1389, which was in such poor condition that nobody bought her. She collapsed in the auction ring and died later that day.

Bekoff says these practices are likely to cause great distress. 鈥淐ows are mammals. They have rich and deep emotional lives, including pain and suffering. I always say that their emotions may be different from human emotions, but there鈥檚 no doubt that having a calf ripped away from its mother is a horrific experience for both of them. They鈥檙e stressed and traumatised.鈥� Arguably, dairy has bigger welfare issues than meat because individual cows endure years of misery before being slaughtered, he says.

The research literature on cow-calf separation is quite mixed. Some studies find little to no evidence of distress, based on behaviour, heart rate and levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Others find the opposite. The evidence does support the claim that earlier separation reduces the distress felt by cows and calves. But this is implicit acknowledgement that the process causes distress whenever it happens.

听

Many of the welfare issues are exacerbated by intensification. Gillespie reports that, in the US, milk production per cow increased 13 per cent between 2007 and 2016. 鈥淓verybody wants cows to produce more milk,鈥� says , an independent animal welfare consultant with a string of peer-reviewed scientific publications to her name. 鈥淧utting that pressure on cows causes health and welfare problems.鈥� The three main ones are the udder infection mastitis, lameness from carrying large amounts of milk, and hunger. 鈥淪ome herds are milked three times a day. Many dairy cows cannot eat enough to sustain that,鈥� she says. 鈥淭here isn鈥檛 enough pasture, so they鈥檙e often housed indoors all year round and fed high-energy feed. They鈥檙e constantly starving and, as a consequence of that, have very short lives.鈥� The natural lifespan of a cow is about 20 years, she says. Most dairy cows are slaughtered at 5.

The dairy industry is well aware of these issues. The European Dairy Association says it , science-based set out by the World Organisation for Animal Health. These are: freedom from hunger, malnutrition and thirst; freedom from fear and distress; freedom from physical and thermal discomfort; freedom from pain, injury and disease; and freedom to express normal patterns of behaviour.

However, there is ample that these freedoms are routinely violated. For example, many dairy farms in Canada, the US and parts of Europe use 鈥渢ie stalls鈥�, where cattle are restricted to a single pen for most of their life. 鈥淭ethering is a huge problem,鈥� says Lambert. That isn鈥檛 freedom to express normal patterns of behaviour. It is unlikely that calf separation constitutes being free from distress; being starved isn鈥檛 freedom from hunger; a cow with mastitis or lameness isn鈥檛 free from physical discomfort.

On environmental issues, the industry reluctantly acknowledges that there are areas for improvement. 鈥淚 think you鈥檒l actually find that the dairy sector globally is doing an awful lot in terms of its environmental impact and we have a good handle on our environmental impact,鈥� says Judith Bryans, president of the International Dairy Federation. 鈥淲hich you can鈥檛 actually say for a lot of the other sectors.鈥� But when I pressed her for specifics and put it to her that cattle farming still has a long way to go, she disputed my figures, accused me of bias and put the phone down on me. She later emailed me with figures showing that dairy accounts for 2.7 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

So what to do? Switching to sheep鈥檚 or goat鈥檚 cheese isn鈥檛 the answer. They also belch out lots of methane. And, due to less intensive management, the carbon footprint of their milk is higher than that from cows: about 5 kilograms of CO₂-equivalent per kilogram. Goat farming also has welfare issues. 鈥淭here is an image of goat鈥檚 cheese automatically being higher welfare,鈥� says animal behaviour researcher Alan McElligott at the University of Roehampton in London. 鈥淏ut goats are farmed intensively as well. So I don鈥檛 think that鈥檚 an answer in terms of animal welfare.鈥�

There are now plenty of plant-based cheese substitutes, but in my (limited) experience, the taste and texture mean these vegan varieties are unconvincing (see 鈥�Alternative cheese put to the test鈥�). They are mostly made from water, starch, coconut oil, salt, flavourings and various other additives, and they bring environmental concerns of their own. 鈥淎 problem with plant-based cheese alternatives, quite apart from their questionable nutritional value 鈥� many are high in fat with little protein 鈥� is that they often use palm oil, which has been associated with deforestation,鈥� says Breewood.

Some dairy farms are experimenting with 鈥渃alf-at-foot鈥� farming, where calves stay with their mothers until weaned. This is better for welfare, but is almost certain to be more carbon-intensive because a portion of the milk goes to their calves. Extensive dairy farming, where cows can graze freely, is more damaging to the environment because it requires more land than intensive farming. There simply isn鈥檛 enough land to supply global demand in this way, says Lambert.

For purists, these alternative systems smack of what Bekoff calls 鈥渉umane washing鈥�: the animal-welfare equivalent of greenwashing. The cows are still turned into milk machines and male calves are still surplus to requirements.

Ultimately, says Lambert, there is no win-win solution. The only easy way to reduce the environmental impact of dairy is to intensify the farms, but that intensifies the welfare problems. If you are concerned about the environmental and animal welfare impacts of dairy, you have to cut down or renounce it entirely. Bekoff acknowledges that this can be a sacrifice. 鈥淚 think cheese is the hardest thing for people to give up,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 have never heard anyone say, 鈥業 miss milk or yogurt鈥�. But people miss cheese.鈥�

I will miss it terribly. But .