Eat less meat. Even carnivores are doing it

When Mark Bittman publishes a 2,000-word piece in The New York Times that puts meat consumption on a par with peak oil, it’s a sign that the zeitgeist has migrated sideways a couple degrees. In the article, the (meat-eating) author of the recent, massive recipe-book “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian” tears into feedlots, manure, and over-consumption.

As Bittman points out, in 1961, the world’s total meat supply was 71 million tons; today, with help from our “improved” feedlot technologies, we’re producing 284 million tons of meat. Livestock production creates more than 20 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases, even more than transportation (also a necessary component of livestock production).

American grain-fed beef requires ten times more grain to produce equal calories as people would glean from eating the grain itself. Then there’s the waste management problem—Iowa’s hog farms alone are responsible for more than fifty million tons of excrement annually. We have them and the other confined animal feeding operations in the US to thank for nearly three-quarters of our water-quality problems......

Source: Eat less meat. Even carnivores are doing it

Link: Going meatless? Your quest needn't be fruitless in Philadelphia


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