"Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler" by Mark Bittman...my comments

Mark Bittman in his article, "Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler, NY Times, Jan 27, 2008
touches a nerve in American's love affair with meat. To live 'Green' today means somehow
'stepping lightly' with as little of a carbon footprint as possible. EATING MEAT does not do this. "Americans eat about eight ounces a day, roughly twice the global average, At about 5 percent of the world' s population, we process( that is, grow and kill) nearly 10 billion animals a year, more than 15 percent of the world's total."
Michael Pollan, in his book "Ominivore's Dilemma' followed his purchased heifer from calf to slaughter, and experienced first-hand the huge, unsanitary confined animal feeding plants, the assembly-line factories; and discovered that the stomachs of cattle are meant to digest grass, not grain, and that this diet causes enough health problems that administration of antibiotics is necessary. The feeding of grain to cattle is highly inefficient. According to Rosamond Naylor, an associate professor of economics at Stanford University, "about two to five times more grain is required to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption." Some "800 million people on the planet suffer from hunger and malnutrition, but the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens."
Then there is the growing demand for ethanol; if more crops are grown for fuel, then food prices (food crops) will be driven up, "last year, there was a 40% rise in the food price index calcuated by the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organization." This could have tragic consequences for peoples of poorer nations.