So, why in the world are we asked this question now?  Is it not enough sport already, watching the Democratic primary race, what with Hillary's whip, and spiked wheels?

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

If it takes more than a gallon of gasoline to produce a gallon of ethanol, I wonder how much gasoline it takes to make a pound of steak.

I'm guessing the food crisis called for some gasoline on the flame. As I've said uncounted times before, stressing moderation in the use of animal products (meat, egss, dairy) is a good idea all around. Insisting on a religious adherence to a diet devoid of all animal products creates an "us against them" boundary:

"...a vegan diet is the only reasonable diet for people in the developed world who care about the environment or global poverty."

You don't care about the environment or poverty unless you are a full blown, 100%, devout vegan.

The poll presently shows what I would expect to see at the Gristmill. Reasonable responses in the middle, extremes on the end. There isn't much difference between someone who eats little meat and a vegetarian. Both consume small amounts of animal products. Eggs and dairy are very similar to meat when it comes energy used to convert plants into another form of food

Matt

This isn't a contest between vegans and biofuel users. Livestock and biofuels both usurp natural resources. Why isn't it enough to educate people on the importance of moderation in animal products? Not many would advocate to increase the incentive to destroy rainforests with biofuels in place of eating meat.

But this does bring up the question of scale. Which practice is more damaging to the environment?

People who burn 99% soy biodiesel in their cars are usurping roughly 10-15 acres of soybean vegetable oil annually. Most deforestation is happening from the demand for cattle grazing. So I looked into how much cleared rainforest it takes to raise a Brazilian cow.

1 acre =2.47 hectare
1kg = 2.2 lbs.
[200 kg beef / hec] x [2.47 hec / acre] x [2.2lbs / kg] = 1068lbs beef /acre for cattle in Brazil. See note 3.
It takes about 24 months for Brazilian beef to get to market
One soy crop is grown per 12 months
About 0.55 percent of a Brazilian cow becomes beef. See note 2.

[1068lbs beef /acre] x [12 months / 24 months] x 0.55 = 293.7lbs dressed beef /acre

[70lbs beef] / [293.7lbs beef / acre] = 0.24 acres dedicated per American to feed them their 70 lbs of beef. See note 1.

Biodiesel = 11.5 acres per year
Beef = 0.24 acres per year

Assuming that half of the soy crop value is in the crushed beans and the other in the vegetable oil, you can divide that 11.5 by 2.

Anyone who uses B100 made from soybeans usurps roughly 5.75/0.24 = 24 times as much land as someone who eats 70 lbs of beef annually (average American).

Just as one can argue that eating less meat is good, we can now argue that using less biodiesel made from food crops is good. A 5% blend of biodiesel made from food crops is less damaging than a 99% blend.

Notes:

Note 1: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3284/is_n2_v12 ...
Americans eat 70lbs of beef/year down from 94lbs at its peak.

Note 2: http://beef-mag.com/mag/beef_touring_brazil/
The past few years, U.S. imports from Brazil, which aren't subject to quota restrictions, routinely have accounted for 4-5% of U.S. beef imports, or 0.35% of total U.S. supplies 20-30 months. Carcasses yield an average of 50-55% compared to about 65% in America.

Note 3: http://www.newint.org/issue184/fast.htm
"When the same hectare has been felled, torched, razed and seeded with grass for grazing, it will produce at most 200 kilograms of meat a year."

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

It's not necessarily right or wrong. It just is what it is.

Put the Carbon Back

Livestock consume between 40-50% of the crops produced within the US, thereby requiring more land.

Cows produce subtantial amounts of methane (a greenhouse gas)

Present methods of cattle raising (massive feedlots) produce vast quantities of toxic fecal matter and eventually serve to contaminate surrounding water resources.  

Further, you should be well aware of other viable alternatives to Subway. Check out your local Co-op or farmer's market. Check out restaurants that favor locally grown produce. If this sounds like hippy shit, so be it. Enjoy!

References:

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/78/3/660S

http://www.epa.gov/rlep/faq.html

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article ...

My goodness, way too much time on your hands. Maybe the big picture is needed one more time.

There's an economic crisis, an energy crisis, a food crisis, and who knows what the hurricane season has to offer.

'Nuff sed.

Onward through the fog

"Let me see here, we got an economic crisis, an energy crisis, a food crisis, and who knows what the hurricane season has to offer and you're worried about ... being a vegan?"

I am very surprised that you do not seem to see the connection between cutting down on animal production and saving  money, energy and therefore limiting the food crisis effects.

Please show me with facts and stats, how eating animals allows more energy, saves money, and improves the food crisis.
Also prove to me how the three are not related, because Sam in my humble opinion, we need to feed the grains to the poor (versus the animals) and stop polluting the environment and using up even more energy.

I look forward to reading your facts, - but of course I know you will not be able to support your pro eating dead animals. And the non-relationship between the negative effects of eating animals and the - energy, economic and food crisis.  

Sam eating dead animals does not make the situation better it only makes it worse.

From the Happy, saving money, healthy vegan!

I think the [acre to hectare] conversion factor you used was accidentally inverted.  I believe there are roughly 2.47 acres per hectare, not the other way around.

I think your point might still stand, but the gap might thus be smaller than the calculation currently shows.

Hope this helps...

Regarding the current food "crisis", I believe a low-meat diet is actually quite relevant to this "big picture" issue.  I'm under the impression we would have an enormous surplus of food grains if we ate the grains directly instead of feeding them to animals and eating the meat.

-----

Hoping to be nice.

I wish more people would do that. I've got nobody double checking me here unless a commenter takes the time to do so.

I revised the calcs below. I also updated the number of acres it would take to power your average American car on soy biodiesel (biased I'm sure to support my point). The first value I used (11.5) didn't account for a lot of things.

I sharpened my pencil at some point to get a number of 14.3 acres. Let me know if you want to check those calcs as well. It's nice to have someone double checking number crunching. People who post calcs are exposing themselves to critique and have to accept that errors will pop up.

1 hectare =2.47 acre
1kg = 2.2 lbs.
[200 kg beef / hec] x [hec / 2.47 acre] x [2.2lbs / kg] = 178.14 lbs beef /acre for cattle in Brazil. See note 3.
It takes about 24 months for Brazilian beef to get to market
One soy crop is grown per 12 months
About 0.55 percent of a Brazilian cow becomes beef. See note 2.

[1778.14lbs beef /acre] x [12 months / 24 months] x 0.55 = 49 lbs dressed beef /acre

[70lbs beef] / [49lbs beef / acre] = 1.43 acres dedicated per American to feed them their 70 lbs of beef. See note 1.

Biodiesel = 14.3 acres per year
Beef = 1.43 acres per year
14.5/1.43 = 10.00

Anyone who uses B100 made from soybeans usurps roughly (14.5/2)/1.43 = 5 times as much land as someone who eats 70 lbs of beef annually (average American).

Glad the calcs still support my argument ...that would really have been embarrassing.

In theory, we would have an enormous surplus of food grains if we ate the grains directly instead of feeding them to animals and eating the meat. But in reality, few people are going to voluntarily give up animal products. Dairy is pretty much as bad as meat in that respect. You would have to go vegan, not vegetarian.

Also you can see that by eating say, 7 pounds of meat instead of 70, you still drop your footprint ten times.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Even if people just switched over to chicken and pork (mostly chicken), from cows the savings in energy would be tremendous.

Not to mention the health benefits, since (generally), chicken and pork are healthier (especially chicken)...

You can't do this with fuel farming, it strips the soil of carbon.

So if 5% of our energy came from biogas (sourced from manure and biomass that would otherwise emit methane), all other energy related CO2 emissions would be offset.  That's the weird fact I've only recently realized.  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

The comment by atreyger above, that grazed animals often eat things humans can't digest is a nice reminder, considering the last comment I posted.  That's particularly relevant if the grazing is done on land that wouldn't (or shouldn't) support grain farming, though we would want to be careful that the land would (and should) support the grazing.

-----


Hoping to be nice.

He said, "You mean, giving food made from insects to the carnivorous fish."  I said, "Well, yes, for starters, because feeding the carnivorous fish littler fish is obviously unsustainable, so it would be great if we can get them to eat bugs.  But beyond that, WE have to learn to eat bugs -- cockroaches, termites, crickets ... "

The Go Green Expo was a lot of fun; very very very consumerist, however, with every possible kind of product being sold in a green form.  On my way out yesterday, I went up to the third floor, out of curiosity, and that is where the cars were on display.  There was a Nissan Something, a gorgeous shade of pale silvery grayish green-blue, only warmer.  Having owned and driven a Honda Civic a few years ago, I went over to the hybrid Honda Civic, which obligingly had its mouth wide open for me to inspect.  Looking at it, I had no idea what I was looking at, and thought, "God!, I wish BioD were here, to explain this to me!"  There was indeed a not uncute sales rep, with whom I would have had few objections to starting a conversation, but the lad was already busy fielding questions from an earnest New Jersey couple, so I just thought a Stoic thought and moved on.

What we were doing at the Oceana booth was a particular project: asking people to sign petition forms mounted nicely on clipboards, the petitions to go to a few supermarket chains, viz. Food Emporium, Pathmark, and A&P, with the request that they post near their seafood counters the FDA advisory on mercury-contaminated seafood (big fish especially, at the top of the food chain, e.g. tuna and swordfish).

And almost everybody we asked, wanted to stop and talk and sign!  The mood was amazing and beautiful; we all felt that we were on the same side, we were all family; unlike what happens often enough in Gristmill threads, there was no sense of recrimination, or of charges of green-washing or hypocrisy.

We had three pictures on the back wall, of a sea turtle, some hammerhead sharks, and a coral colony, which illustrated nicely Oceana's emphases on reforming and regulating fisheries and fishing methods, and on global warming as a cause of increasing acidification of the oceans.  And I brought along my Smithsonian Handbooks guide to "Whales Dolphins and Porpoises," and showed people the picture of the Right Whale.

Presumably what we are hoping for, subtly, with regard to the supermarket petition (and, by the way, some food stores have already posted the FDA advisory, e.g. Whole Foods, Albertson's and Trader Joe's), is that potential customers will be dissuaded against buying seafood, at least certain kinds -- which would be great, if lots of people get that message.  But that is NOT the official Oceana position, and I do not claim in any way to represent it.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

The study, published in the journal Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, is the first to examine the land requirements of complete diets. The researchers compared 42 diets with the same number of calories and a core of grains, fruits, vegetables and dairy products (using only foods that can be produced in New York state), but with varying amounts of meat (from none to 13.4 ounces daily) and fat (from 20 to 45 percent of calories) to determine each diet's 'agricultural land footprint'. They found a fivefold difference between the two extremes.

    A person following a low-fat vegetarian diet, for example, will need less than half (0.44) an acre per person per year to produce their food. A high-fat diet with a lot of meat, on the other hand, needs 2.11 acres. Surprisingly, however, a vegetarian diet is not necessarily the most efficient in terms of land use. - Christian Peters, lead author, postdoctoral associate in crop and soil sciences

The reason for the lower land use efficiency of the all vegetarian diet is that fruits, vegetables and grains must be grown on high-quality cropland. Meat and dairy products from ruminant animals are supported by lower quality, but more widely available, land that can support pasture and hay. A large pool of such land is available in New York state because for sustainable use, most farmland requires a crop rotation with such perennial crops as pasture and hay.

Thus, although vegetarian diets in New York state may require less land per person, they use more high-valued land. While meat increases land-use requirements, diets including modest amounts of meat can feed more people than some higher fat vegetarian diets.

The study: Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems (2007), 22:145-153 Cambridge University Press
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007
doi:10.1017/S1742170507001767

"Testing a complete-diet model for estimating the land resource requirements of food consumption and agricultural carrying capacity: The New York State example".

Reason must rule.

SpaSh,
thanks for that historical item about bison.

What in the world was the "New York Zoo"?  The Central Park Zoo, maybe? -- now affiliated with the Bronx Zoo and the Brooklyn Aquarium under the direction of the Wildlife Conservation Society.

There are indeed some beautiful remote corners of the Bronx Zoo, where hoofed mammals have a lot of space, such as the nearly extinct Chinese Pere-David deer.  I do not recall seeing American bison -- I think they may have European bison -- but I could be wrong, memory being as faulty as it is.  (I am old, I am old, I wear my trousers rolled; do I dare to eat a peach?; should I walk upon the beach?)

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

However there was a time when majority of humans did that, as recently as 50 years ago. And than a little bit became the norm which led to over eating. - People have a hard time with understanding "a little bit". A little bit of meat to one person is completely different to another.

Majority of American's are the people we see in every walmart wadding around their 20 to 50 pounds over weight bodies. These people will not limit their consumption and therefore places like McDeath and Killer King will always be in business

The only way I can see change is if the food business's start to offer smaller portions and healthy vegetarain or vegan foods. And until than the majority of people in this country will continue contributing to the energy, economic and food crisis.

Personally, I could never be responsible for knowingly taking the life of another animal, when I have so many other wonderful, fresh and healthy choices.  

Until I remembered all of the cattle grown in ex-rainforests, which would suddenly become much cheaper than US cows.  How are we going to deal with pricing imported products when we cap-and-trade?  Should there be some sort of estimated carbon footprint for every product?

Maybe, as Canis suggests, we should then eat the ensuing horde of hornets?  But is it ethically OK to eat bugs?  Are insects sentient? Oh, there but for the grace of God go I.....

I find that on average 80 of all meats (chicken, fish, seafood, beef) in supermarkets is borderline fresh.

However, I think I have a nose for quality, and can pick out the best.

I recently bought chicken at Valley Harvest in Kent, WA.  It was fresh, the skin white not yellow.  When I opened the package, the meat was moist, but it did not spill watery juice everywhere.

I roasted with with fresh basil leaves and garlic.   I can't imagine anything being as healthy.


Texeme.Construct(function(x)=Participation(x))

Of course save our beloved dragon flies.  Affectionate as they are towards warm human bodies sitting in the summer sun, attracting mosquitoes for their luncheon.

Those hordes of hoppers that scour the earth though?  Turn them into soylent green..  soylent green is grasshoppers!  it's grasshoppers..gasp.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Countless others are doing same now, including Ted Turner.

As far as I can tell, the feds had nothing to do with bringing them back; however, they had an awful lot to do with decimating the population.

but going nuts is NOT efficient, by most standards."

What?

Lin Yu Tang said, "Patriotism is the memory of foods eaten in childhood." We are a nation raised on the belief that cheap meat is a right. Even if cheap meat is a relatively new phenomenon.(last 30 years)

Beef and dairy should be fed grass. That would go a long way in helping the food supply and environment.

It is good to see a thread like this not turn petty and personal. Happy Eating!

Grow corn
Just for food
Not cars

Scientists have found which is the most efficient diet in New York State. They conclude it is: a diet with a little bit of meat and dairy.

Canis bizarrely replied:

"Thank you, Jonas,

but going nuts is NOT efficient, by most standards."

Atreyger rationally asked Canis:

What?

And I would have to second that:

Canis, what is your problem with science?

Best blog ever!  Welcome to the party.  Yippee!

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

It must be something in the brain, which says that animal protein somehow offers the best combination of nutrition, taste and status. This idea is probably a remnant of our primitive hunter-gatherer background.

I'm not sure whether rational arguments - that less meat in the diet is better for your health, for your purse and for the environment - are sufficiently strong to beat this primitive intuition.

Pricing mechanisms may work (putting a price on carbon and indirect emissions from meat production), but it would be interesting to learn more about the deep psychology of our - apparently universally shared - desire for meat.

Q: What is it that makes people want to eat more meat?

A: There are several factors that make people eat more meat. - nothing to do with real protein
1)    the easiness of getting fast food
2)    all tasty flavors from the spices and oils the animal is cook in - (ironically all the spices and oil come from plants)
3)    Good marketing - to eat animals is a sign of wealth and freedom
4)    More women are working, and therefore going for the easy pre made boxed high fatty cheap meats. - I am not against women working, as I am professional female, however I see many of my counter parts not really cooking for their families but opening the freezer and getting out a colorful box and heating the contents in the micro way.
5)    The meat industry has brainwashed the protein myth so much it has become globally believed
6)    Domination, many cultures believe that to prove your manhood you must bring down a breast - hunting -
7)    Poor stereotypes still exist, that if you do not eat meat you are week and gay! - Versus a strong and fit!  
8)    In India people are trying to be more western by eating easily available meat
9) peoples unhealthy bodies are used to high levels of fatty foods and therefore wish to continue that fatty diet

Well, there's taste. Obviously there are individual taste differences and I'm sure there are some vegetarians out there who don't like the taste of meat at all (I, for one, can't abide any form of seafood) but for most humans it seems, meat tastes good.  Why do people crave chocolate?

Maybe biology?  I often think that, if we knew how to listen, our bodies would tell us exactly what we need for optimal health and the answers may surprise us. I was a vegetarian for a few years in college; at the time, meat really did not tastte good, nor smell good, to me.  In fact, it made me slightly queasy just thinking about it.  Therefore, it was easy for me to stop eating it.  How or why did this happen?  I don't know - it wasn't a big moral issue for me; I obviously felt better than no animals had to die to feed me lunch, but that wasn't the driving force, it was that suddenly meat just didn't appeal. What was going on in my body at that time that made me not want to eat meat?  I really have no idea; one obvious thing I can think of is that I was a long-distance runner in high school (I was training at about 17-22 miles a day) and yet I pretty much stopped running in college.  Maybe my body was just telling me that I didn't need all that protein anymore?  When I got out of college, I started training for a marathon, and perhaps coincidentally (or perhaps not) I also started eating meat again.  Just small bits of chicken at first... then a bit of pork. I never got back into the habit of beef, and haven't eaten it now in over 20 years. This might have been simple laziness on my part, as it is easier and more convenient (at least it was in the early 90's) to get your protein from meat than from veggie sources. But I distinctly remember craving meat.  In fact, there was a minor war between my brain, which was still creeped out by the thought of eating flesh, and my stomach, which kept growling & salivating at burgers on a grill, or chicken fajitas, or linguica pizza.  My stomach won.  Another bit of anecdotal evidence; my Mom was a vegetarian for nearly 30 years, when six or seven years ago, she broke a hip in a fall.  She starting craving steak (and weirdly steak was the only meat she craved) and the craving got so bad that she made me go to the store, buy a steak, and cook it for her.  It was comedy; I hadn't eaten steak since childhood, and I had never cooked one. She hadn't cooked one in 30 years.  Granted, it is not that difficult a task, but we were laughing somewhat hysterically; neither of us wanted to touch it, neither of us really knew how to cook it, but she simply had to have it.  Since that day she's continued eating meat; pretty small amounts, and she eats a mostly vegetarian diet, but she still eats it every now and then.

Local and grass-fed is ideal but not the norm.

I have heard that there are vegetarian or vegan athletes, with some having achieved some great successes (Carl Lewis, for example). It's apparent though, that at the same time the majority of the athletes are not vegan, and there is a skewed distribution towards ultra-marathon, marathon and long-distance runners. I'm not sure how that's related, but I'm just throwing it out there.

To think that caveman mentally makes us eat more meat is silly, because than the same mentally would make me resist wearing clothes. Because cavemen did not wear much clothing.

Strange way of reasoning; it's not because we have changed in some respects, that it's impossible that we haven't changed in others.

The rest of your argumentation is interesting, but not convincing enough:

1)    the easiness of getting fast food

In modern societies it is just as easy to get vegetables and fruits; in my super market, the veggie section is right next to the meat section.

So our craving for meat is not related to the way the market is organised.

2)    all tasty flavors from the spices and oils the animal is cook in - (ironically all the spices and oil come from plants)

But there are just as many tasty ways to prepare vegetables, so that's not really a sound reason either. People seem to prefer meat, despite this.

3) Good marketing - to eat animals is a sign of wealth and freedom

Yes, status has been mentioned before. But then again, why don't the veggie firms succeed in conveying an equally strong marketing message? They have all the tools available. Seems like people seem to prefer meat, for other reasons.

4)    More women are working, and therefore going for the easy pre made boxed high fatty cheap meats. - I am not against women working, as I am professional female, however I see many of my counter parts not really cooking for their families but opening the freezer and getting out a colorful box and heating the contents in the micro way.

So you are saying there are no micro-wave vegetable dishes? How strange, I have seen plenty of them in my super market.

Again, not a very convincing argument.

5)    The meat industry has brainwashed the protein myth so much it has become globally believed

Strange; the veggie & fruit industry is equally powerful. So why do people prefer to be brainwashed by the meat industry, and not by the veggie industry?

The argument doesn't stick.

6)    Domination, many cultures believe that to prove your manhood you must bring down a breast - hunting -

So first you ridicule my idea of a primitive hunter-mentality at work in consumption patterns, and now you say it does make sense.

Which will it be then?

7)    Poor stereotypes still exist, that if you do not eat meat you are week and gay! - Versus a strong and fit!

That's like blaming the underdevelopment of Africa on stereotypes about black people. I'm not convinced.

By the way, aren't our modern societies overly 'feminised' nowadays? 'Metrosexuals' and all that? You would suppose that in your universe of stereotypes, this would mean more people would become vegetarian, because that fits best with the current cultural trends.

Strangely enough, the number of vegetarians does not seem to grow that much.

8)    In India people are trying to be more western by eating easily available meat

Mmm, the copycat argument. Not convinced. Even in the remotest non-westernized African village, people will buy and serve meat when they have the means to do so.

Traditional hospitality in many, many cultures is totally focused on the capacity to provide meat to the guest. The poorest of the poor will butcher their last goat when they have an important visitor. So clearly, they want to prove something.

This is an anthropological observation that bears some cross-cultural significance in that the practise can be found universally.

9) peoples unhealthy bodies are used to high levels of fatty foods and therefore wish to continue that fatty diet

With this, I agree. Habituation is certainly part of the problem, but it doesn't explain the origins and root causes of the phenomenon.

http://www.seward.coop/files/Sprout_Aug_Sept_07.pdf

Here's a quote from the article:

"Lorentz Meats had been around as a family business for years. Sons Mike and Rob Lorentz knew they couldn't continue that tradition without rethinking their business strategy, and quite literally, the execution. One brother excelled at the hands-on running of the plant and one went for his MBA, but they both agreed that they wanted to implement Dr. Temple Grandin's theories on animal compassion. They built a new plant on the outskirts of their home town with such confidence in their operation that (unlike possibly any other killing floor in the United States) one can view from the second floor windows the beginning to the end, and the packaging beyond--the entire process of breaking down an animal from live to store-ready poundage. This is not casual viewing, it's difficult to watch. But it's not hidden and it's also not corporate carnage, nor a hideously dehumanizing production. It's slow paced and dignified. And if we're going to eat steaks or burgers, this is truly the way to know that it's done with a modicum of integrity for you, the cow, and the worker. No secrets."

I've haven't yet had a chance to visit (but I would like to, as I do buy meat from Thousand Hills Cattle Co., which is processed by Lorentz Meats).  I doubt it will make me vegetarian; I've raised and butchered chickens before, and I still find chicken to be quite tasty.

It's fine by me if your conscience does not allow you to eat meat - I'm not going to push my value system on you.  But please do not imply that I'm condoning cruelty to animals by eating meat - I do my best to buy meat from animals humanely raised and slaughtered, and that is what I believe is right.

As atreyger mentioned, I've personally found it pretty much impossible to go without meat at times when I am very physically active.  And I've learned from experience that if I want to survive a looonnnnggg day in the mountains, I had better bring along a sandwich with some meat (weirdly, bacon seems to be the best 'endurance' food for me - somehow the ideal combination of protein, fat & salt?); I've tried hummus, cheese, Clif Bars, etc., and I will run out of energy sooner than if I simply pack a chicken sandwich (or anything with bacon).

But, as in the Carl Lewis example, my body is likely different from anyone else's body... some people may have experiences like mine and like atreyger's, while others may feel more healthy and more energized on a strict vegan diet.

I actually Googled "why do humans crave meat?" and came up with a lot of blog posts :) but no credible scientific information.  No one even seems to know why we crave anything; some believe that a craving suggests a deficiency of some key element in our diet (iron, vitamins, etc.) while others claim that there is no evidence to support that.  Why do pregnant women crave often bizarre foods or food combinations?  No one seems to know.  Most doctors seem to be of the "if it won't hurt you, go ahead and indulge your craving" school.

Maybe some of us really do need meat in order to be optimally healthy and fit and perhaps others need not to eat meat to achieve the same goals. Maybe, as in my case, and my Mom's, at different times in your life your body will have different requirements and this will affect your food cravings.

Certainly craving is not the only reason people eat meat; convenience, status, and tradition clearly play their parts, as has been mentioned.  But I think, with some dedication, these things are a bit easier to overcome than the actual craving for meat; why we crave meat seems to me the most interesting question.

Our primitive ancestors, perhaps some shrew-like critters, were drawn to roasted carcasses following forest and grass fires. Quick and very easy protein when other food might be scarce. This was reinforced during our time on the African savanna. Seems pretty obvious and straight forward. Thus, we a drawn to restaurants or outdoor grills when folks are cooking meat. It is a very natural and genetically programmed response.

I guess that would make hardcore vegetarians intellectually superior because, knowing the consumption of meat depends on killing sentient beings and is currently harming Earth's ecosystems, they can override deeply rooted instincts... or vegetarians have lost those genes. I am apparently not intellectually superior, nor have I lost the hypothetical genes.

By the way, a quick way to increase traffic to your website might be posting something about eating meat. Too many people enjoying the spring weather??? It is currently snowing here.

Can you suggest some proper ways of preparing bison? I've tried bison burgers a couple times and they are, in my opinion, just not as tasty as beef burgers. Perhaps I'm not cooking it properly.

Bison seem the most environmentally sound source of meat, especially if it helps subsidize restoration of North American grassland habitat. Better to grow bison than biofuel, no?

How is that about you?

Hope that helps.

=============

Long after I gave up eating beef, I was still (somehow) making burgers for the summer roofdeck parties I would have in Boston.

I always used to add Worcestershire sauce (mostly because I used to love it on steak), and usually some diced onion, garlic and Tabasco.... but my secret ingredient for really moist yummy burgers was pineapple juice.  The acids tenderize the meat and keep it from drying out on the grill.  I had read it somewhere - Food & Wine, or Gourmet maybe - but it seemed to work as people used to rave about those burgers. (If you Google it I'm sure you'll find a recipe).  I never actually tasted one, so unfortunately I have no empirical evidence.

I now suspect that any acidic juice (orange, lemon, lime) would work as a tenderizer, but maybe because pineapple is sweeter it goes better with a "meat" flavor.

President William McKinley set aside these mountains as a Forest Reserve in 1901. Then Theodore Roosevelt renamed it a Game Preserve in 1905. It is the oldest managed wildlife preserve in the United States.

In October 1907, fifteen bison were donated from the New York Zoological Society and arrived at the Preserve via the Cache railhead. This was the beginning of the re-stocking effort at the refuge.

Of course both these initiatives would seem to have been motivated at least as much by the urge to maintain hunting stocks as for any altruistic desire to preserve the species. But we should be grateful nonetheless.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

Cooking and eating is an art so closely intertwined with the very nature of our senses, that it defies intellectual analysis.  We can describe aspects of it, think about it, appreciate it.  But like all art it really defies linear rational thought.

So if one wants to fully experience their own nature, they ought to consider at least the ocasional dietary excursion into every area of food.  Without experiencing the ocasional meat, dairy, or egg based food, I would feel I was leaving something important out of my life.  life as art, art as life.

Food really is fundamentally sensual, it starts with the umbilical cord, and ends with the last sip of broth.  

Puritanical veganism is just not for me.  Grass fed free range animal products at the peak of flavor, that's a peak experience.  Hunting or raising chickens, and then eating the meat and eggs, that's a peak experience.  

If you have ever heard the happy chicken music in the summer sun after you feed your chickens some nice garden and food scaps, you know what I mean.  I need a happy chicken music video on my blog.

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I wonder how much meat is discarded because it's gone bad

I've been wondering that a lot as well.

I've never worked in a supermarket (my "teen job" was serving coffee to Bingo ladies at the American Legion hall)...but I wonder how much fresh produce -- meat, fish, vegetables, fruit -- is discarded.

I mean, even during the peak shopping hours, it only seems like 10% of the people are buying real food; most are buying frozen, processed, canned or non-edible goods -- yet the trays of fresh food are stocked full.  

Where does it all go?


Texeme.Construct(function(x)=Participation(x))

People have the gluttony response to the all the high-density foods  --  fat, sugar, and meat.  I expect this tendency is because our bodies' primary concern is still fending off starvation, no matter how far from it we may be, and those foods are efficient on that score.

There's a reasonable amount of evidence that different bodies do well on different diets.   I followed the macrobiotic diet (vegan with occasional fish) for quite a while, and learned that for some people, it does not lead to good health.  (It worked fine for me.)   There's the whole blood-type theory (Eat Right 4 Your Type), which posits that people with blood type O are actually healthiest on a meat-and-vegetables diet.  

However, the amount and quality (not freshness, but healthiness) of meat in the Standard American Diet aren't healthy for anyone, would be my guess.