The Hunger Games
In the 2006 edition of The Higher Taste: A Guide to Gourmet Vegetarian
Cooking and a Karma-Free Diet, we read:
Food expert Frances Moore Lappe, author of the 1971 bestseller Diet for a
Small Planet, once said in a television interview that we should look at a
piece of steak as if it were a Cadillac. "What I mean," she explained, "is
that we in America are hooked on gas-guzzling automobiles because of the
illusion of cheap petroleum. Likewise, we got hooked on a grain-fed,
meat-centered diet because of the illusion of cheap grain."
The process of using grain to produce meat is incredibly wasteful: the
USDA's Economic Research Service shows that we receive only one pound of
beef for each sixteen pounds of grain. In his book Proteins: Their
Chemistry and Politics, Dr. Aaron Altschul notes that in terms of calorie
units per acre, a diet of grains, vegetables, and beans will support twenty
times as many people than a meat-centered diet.
As it stands now, about half of the harvested acreage in America and in a
number of European, African, and Asian countries is used to feed animals.
If the earth's arable land were used primarily for the production of
vegetarian foods, the planet could easily support a human population of
twenty billion or larger.
Points and facts such as these have led food experts to point out that the
world hunger problem is largely illusory. The Global Hunger Alliance
writes:
"Most hunger deaths are due to chronic malnutrition caused by inequitable
distribution and inefficient use of existing food resources. At the same
time, wasteful agricultural practices, such as the intensive livestock
operations known as factory farming, are rapidly polluting and depleting the
natural resources upon which all life depends. Trying to produce more foods
by these methods would lead only to more water pollution, soil degradation,
and, ultimately, more hunger."
A report submitted to the United Nations World Food Conference concurs:
"The overconsumption of meat by the rich means hunger for the poor. This
wasteful agriculture must be changed--by the suppression of feedlots where
beef are fattened on grains, and even a massive reduction of beef cattle."
Pound for pound, many vegetarian foods are better sources of protein than
meat. A 100-gram portion of lentils yields twenty-five grams of protein,
while a hundred grams of soybeans yields thirty-four grams of protein.
But although meat provides less protein, it costs more. A spot check of
supermarkets in Florida in August 2005 showed sirloin steak costing $7.87 a
pound, while staple ingredients for delicious vegetarian meals averaged less
than $1.50 a pound.
Becoming a vegetarian could potentially save an individual shopper at least
several hundred dollars each year, thousands of dollars over the course of a
lifetime. The savings to consumers as a whole would amount to billions of
dollars annually. Considering all this, it's hard to see how anyone could
afford not to become a vegetarian.
"If you could feel or see the suffering, you wouldn't think twice. Give
back life. Don't eat meat." - actress Kim Basinger
Vegan author John Robbins similarly writes in his 1987 Pulitzer Prize
nominated Diet for a New America:
"The livestock population of the United States today consumes enough grain
and soybeans to feed over five times the entire human population of the
country. We feed these animals over 80% of the corn we grow, and over 95% of
the oats... Less than half the harvested agricultural acreage in the United
States is used to grow food for people. Most of it is used to grow livestock
feed...
"The developing nations are copying us. They associate meat-eating with the
economic status of the developed nations, and strive to emulate it. The tiny
minority who can afford meat in those countries eats it, even while many of
their people go to bed hungry at night, and mothers watch their children
starve...
"To supply one person with a meat habit food for a year requires
three-and-a-quarter acres. To supply one lacto-ovo-vegetarian requires only
one-half of an acre. To supply one pure vegetarian (vegan) requires only
one-sixth of an acre. In other words, a given acreage can feed twenty times
as many people eating a pure vegetarian (vegan) diet-style as it could
people eating the standard American diet-style...
"In a world in which a child dies of starvation every two seconds, an
agricultural system designed to feed our meat habit is a blasphemy. Yet it
continues, because we continue to support it. Those who profit from this
system do not need us to condone what they are doing. The only support they
need from us is our money. As long as enough people continue to purchase
their products they will have the resources to fight reforms, pump millions
of dollars of 'educational' propaganda into our schools, and defend
themselves against medical and ethical truths.
"A rapidly growing number of Americans are withdrawing support from this
insane system by refusing to consume meat. For them, this new direction in
diet-style is a way of joining hands with others and saying we will not
support a system which wastes such vast amounts of food while people in this
world do not have enough to eat."
Democrats For Life of America (DFLA), 601 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, South
Building, Suite 900, Washington, DC 20004 (202) 220-3066.
Go on to: The Next Step in Social Progress
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