I know, I know, I've been obsessing lately over the World Food Crisis. But why not? It's an issue that affects everyone, from the increased hits to our budget during the weekly trip to the grocery store to decreased portion sizes in restaurants. And considering the food unrest in countries like Malaysia, Egypt, Haiti and India, it could cause lasting political change in the world that the US might have to deal with down the road. And, no matter how you look at it, people are starving.
Lately, I've focused on biofuels as one of the insidiously evil underlying causes of this food crisis, that just so happens to cause irreparable harm to the environment in the process. Today, The Independent nailed an even bigger culprit — meat.
According to The Independent, almost 40% of all the grain grown in the world is slated for animal feed. Feeding animals is an inefficient process, requiring about 8 kilos of grain to produce every kilo of cow flesh, or 2k for every k of chicken. Meat production uses 6 to 17 times as much land, 5 to 26 times as much water, 6 to 20 times as much fossil fuels and 6 times as much biocides as grain. Just to cap it all off, remember that a single cow produces as much greenhouse gasses every day as an SUV out for a 45 minute cruise. And America is the world's largest consumer of red meat.
It's not all our fault — giant developing countries like India, China and Indonesia are consuming more meat than ever before, twice as much as 20 years ago. I guess we can look forward to that leveling off once the people in those countries start contracting diabetes and heart disease at record rates.
If you eat meat — like me —it's likely that none of this will change your carnivorous ways. But a little extra knowledge about what goes into getting that steak to your plate, and what effects it has on the environment, starving families and world politics, might make you cut back. Just a little. Like me.
This article appears in Apr 16-22, 2008.