Posted on 08/10/2009 10:55:34 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
One of the persistent, shallow global food myths is that the world could feed more people if we gave up eating meat. Ezra Klein wrote another misguided column about this--"The Meat of the Problem"--in the Washington Post of July 29. Klein cites as his authority a naive "study" by the kids at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Klein asserts, "It is more energy efficient to grow grain and feed it to people than it is to grow grain and turn it into feed that we give to calves until they become adults that we then slaughter to feed to people."
No, Mr. Klein, it isn't. Either your kids haven't done their homework, or they deliberately set out to promote vegetarian diets.
Point One: Our biggest source of livestock feed is . . . (drum-roll) . . . grass! Humans can't get nourishment from it, but huge tracts of the earth's land are too dry, too steep or too rocky for grain. We let cows and calves harvest sparse crops of grass from massive tracts of the American Great Plains, Canadian Prairie Provinces, the Australian Outback, New Zealand, the sandy steppes of Hungary, and huge tracts of Khazakstan--to name but a few grasslands.
Point Two: If these grassy areas aren't grazed by animals, the dry grass will ultimately be struck by lightning, ignite, and release fiery clouds of CO2!
Point Three: Livestock happily and constructively eat lots of other stuff that humans can't or won't consume, including millions of tons of peanut hulls, citrus pulp, molasses, feather meal, wheat bran, meat and bone meal from slaughter plants, corn gluten meal, and on down a long list. Without livestock, you have no more food for humans, but a huge waste disposal problem.(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at rightwingnews.com ...
Yes, please stop eating meat. I’d like the price of Prime Rib Eye steaks to come down.
I mean, to combat global warming of course.
Mmmm, global warming.
What about the idiocy of growing grain to fuel cars?
Want to be really “efficient”?
Reduce mankind’s numbers by introducing the public to tasty Soylent Green.
Vegetables are what food eats!
A child needs red meat protein when growing up, not bullsh-t.
Regarding meat, it is hard to carry genetic modification too far because the animal will die. They want you to eat more genetically modified vegetables. Disgusting, pass the juicy steak.
Seriously, was this “study” given ANY critical thought at all at CMU? Do they realize that they’re seriously proposing that people raise and eat hay?
Or we could ditch this whole global warming thing and stop diverting corn and sugar crops to ethanol production.
So, are wild carnivores going veggie?
Only if it means disposing of the 'meatheads'....
My doc just told me I should try the NEANDERTHIN eating plan....and I am.....as I was always craving protein...NO LONGER craving it....looking better than ever....always full. Grains can make humans SICK (and fat)!
Yeah, but where can I get fresh dinosaur or mastodon meat in my neighborhood?
I'll settle for pterodactyl.
Humans are omnivores, we eat anything, if it can be digested we will have a go at it. To say that we will eat only plant resources goes against basic human nature. Forcing people to act against the way we are wired doesn’t work. This is kin to the same lame thinking as radical communism.
Vegetarians are much more easier to mold and bend to a government’s whims. They are more dull and less rebellious.
There is a reason some of the brutal regimes in the past outlawed meat eating for the peons.
Yup. my tagline.
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