Hungry world 'must eat less meat'

[ott]

World water supplies will not be enough for our descendants to enjoy the sort of diet the West eats now, experts say.

The World Water Week in Stockholm will be told the growth in demand for meat and dairy products is unsustainable.

Animals need much more water than grain to produce the same amount of food, and ending malnutrition and feeding even more mouths will take still more water.

Scientists say the world will have to change its consumption patterns to have any realistic hope of feeding itself.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3559542.stm

[NMDemDist2]

1. that is one of the main reasons I was vegetarian

I loved wild rivers and white water rafting and cows took too much water away from my playgrounds

i was so young and selfish LOL

but it is an excellent reason :)

[phantom power]

4. selfishness, in the service of whitewater, is no vice!

[cprise]

5. Foolishness, in the spirit of Goldwater, is no vice!

(sorry ...could ...not ...resist)

[Trillo]

2. The real reason for the contempt expressed towards the Atkins diet.

I have no doubts that what this article says is basically correct, i.e., that more total mouths can be fed with grains than with meats and grains. What I do view with suspicion, is the profit margin and markup of grain products versus meat products. Whenever I hear about the need to convert to more grains, I smell corporate influence ($$$) in the wind.

It's really easy to compare the wholesale prices of wheat versus retail prices of wheat products such as bread and note the huge markups, whereas the wholesale prices of butchered cows versus the retail cost of meat is strikingly narrower.

Pretty soon, only the CEOs will be able to afford to eat meats. But that's no doubt why they pay themselves so much more: they'll "need" gasoline and food, while the rest of us lose our jobs, pensions, and incomes....

I think if the markup spread of wheat and grain products narrows to that of today's meat spreads, then my suspicions of corporate influence in these matters will be reduced.

[Dogmudgeon]

3. The REAL Real Reason

Is rad-vedge snobbery, and little more.

Incidentally, low-carb diets do not demand any meat consumption at all. Many low-carb dieters find that they are eating less meat than on their "regular" diets, and vegetarian versions of low-carb diets are used by hundreds of thousands of people.

I also find it "interesting" that the rad-vedge moralists turn a blind eye to modern farming techniques. They are incredibly wasteful and destructive, and are a large part of the reason why animal production is as wasteful as it is.

Much of the food produced in the world is from "Green Revolution" foodstuffs -- vegetable foods that require specially engineered seeds and large amounts of petroleum-derived fertilizer.

Corporate influence runs up and down the entire food chain; its poison has permeated the entire biosphere, and demonizing a small number of people for desperately trying to optimize their health smacks of bourgeoise Euro-American lifestyle snobbery. In the face of a growing eco-catastrophe, it's laughable.

--bkl

[cprise]

6. Is there anyone you DO agree with?

It's definately not corporate farms or "rad-veg moralists".

Anyway, the last time I checked it was mainly the "rad-veg" people pushing organic farming.

I think optimizing health and diet can prevent people from getting cranky.

[Trillo]

7. I appreciated BareKnuckledLiberal's post...

There is certainly food-for-thought in the ideas BKL expressed. I was going to write a long-winded reply, and in fact I did, but then I decided not to post it.

Overuse of synthetic fertilizers has been well documented, and is responsible for other ecological problems such as algae blooms. One might even say that synthetic fertilizers are responsible for the current population boom, starting in the early 1900s. One could make one further intellectual jump, that agriculture itself is responsible for the long-term overpopulation of humans on this planet, and has contributed greatly to the misery and suffering of most people over the course of some 6000 years.

[treepig]

8. what happened 6000 years ago?

are you saying that before that people didn't suffer?

or is that when agriculture began, putting an end to that idyllic hunterer-gatherer lifestyle?

or is it that there simply weren't any people around before then because god had not yet created them?

[Trillo]

9. 6000 years ago, "agriculture" began: so did "slavery."

Also, many wars were fought over crop land.

There was a good discussion in the Meeting Room about this:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=111&topic_id=23181

edit: typo and reheadlined

[treepig]

10. i tend to stay out of the meeting room

interesting thread, tho.

anyhow, i've always been taught agriculture is older than 6,000 years:

10,000 years old?

http://www.agron.iastate.edu/courses/agron342/diamondmistake.html

15,000 years old?

http://www.zoo.ufl.edu/gpryor/human.evolution.timeline.html

in any event, i suspect that wars and slavery are deeply rooted in human nature and go beyond disputes over cropland.

[Trillo]

11. A bigger question, historically, "What happens when the food runs out?" nt

[phantom power]

12. Historically, people migrated. But today there's nowhere to go.

We're at a sort of unprecedented point in history. We've substantially filled up the habitable area of earth.

Suppose that this ongoing drought in the southwest continues for another 10 years. Happens all the time, geologically speaking. The previous times it happened, people packed up and left (or some of them starved, I suppose). But now there are tens of millions of people living here. I wonder what the plan-B is? Show up on the doorstep of the "great-lakes" states, and get hi-paying managerial jobs at the local Big-Boy?