From: oak@mwilliams.eche.ualberta.ca (Nilesh Oak)
Subject: The hidden cost of meat ( The myth of scarcity)
Organization: University Of Alberta, Edmonton Canada
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 08:14:21 GMT

THE HIDDEN COST OF MEAT ( THE MYTH OF SCARCITY )
 
In his 1975 bestseller, The Eco-Spasm Report, futurist Alvin Toffler, author
of Future Shock and The Third Wave, suggested a positive hope for the world's 
food crisis.  He anticipated "the sudden rise of a religious movement in the 
West that restricts the eating of beef and other animal products and thereby
saves billions of tons of grain and provides a nourishing diet for the World 
as a whole."
 
SOLVING THE HUNGER PROBLEM:
 
Food expert Francis Moore Lappe, author of the best-selling "Diet for a small 
planet, said in a television interview that we should look at a piece of steak 
as a Cadillac. " What I mean," she explained, "is that we are in America are 
hooked on gas-guzzling automobiles beacause of the illusion of cheap petroleum.  Likewise, we got hooked on a grain fed, meat-centered diet because of the 
illusion of cheap grain."
 
	According to information compiled by the United States Department of
Agriculture, over ninety percent of all the grain produced in America is used
for feeding livestock- cows, pigs, lambs, and chickens- that wind up on dinner 
tables.  Yet the process of using grain to produce meat is incrediably wasteful.For example, information from the USDA's Economic Research Service shows that weget back only one pound of beef for every sixteen pounds of grain.
 
	In his book Proteins: Their Chemistry and Politics, Dr. Aaron Altshul 
notes that in terms of calorie units per acre, a diet of grains, vegetables 
and beans will support twenty times more people than a diet of meat.  As it 
stands now, about half the harvested acreage in America is used to feed animals.If the earth's arable lans is used primarily for the production of vegetarina 
foods, the planet could easily support a human population of twenty billion and more.
 
	Facts such as these have led food experts to point out that the world 
hunger problem is largely illusory.  The myth of "overpopulation " should not
be used by the advocates of abortion to justify the killing of more than fifty 
million unborn children( This number may be much higher...anyone there with 
accurate info!) worldwide each year.  Even now we are already producing enough 
food for everyone on the planet, but unfortunately it is been allocated 
inefficiently.  In a report submitteed to United Nations World Food Conference
(Rome 1974), Rene Dumont, an agricultural economist at France's National 
Agriculture Institute, made this judgement: "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."
 
LIVING COWS ARE AN ECONOMIC ASSET:
 
	It is quite clear that a living cow yields society more food than a dead one-in the form of a continuing supply of milk, cheese, butter, yogurt and 
other high protein foods.  In 1971, Stewart Odend'hal of the University of
Missouri conducted a detailed study of cows in Bengal (India) and found that far from depriving humans of food, they ate only inedible remians of harvested 
crops (rice hulls, tops of sugarcane etc.) and grass.  "Basically" he said, "
the cattle converts items of little direct human value into products of 
immediate utility."  This should put to rest the myth that people are starving 
in India because they will not kill their cows.  Intersetingly enough, India 
recently seems to have surmounted its food problems, which have always had more
to do with occasional severe draught or political upheaval than with sacred cows  A panel of experts at the Agency for International Development, in a statementcited in the Congressional Record for December 2, 1980, concluded, " India 
produces enough to feed all its people."
 
	If allowed to live, cows produce high quality, protein rich foods in 
amounts that stagger the imagination.  In America, there is a delibertae attempt to limit dairy production (well known fact); nevertheless, Rrepresentative fromFlorida reported to Congress that the US government was being forced to 
stockpile "mountains of butter,cheese, and nonfat dried milk."  He told his 
coleagues," We currently own about 440 million pounds of butter, 545 million 
pounds of cheese, and about 765 million pounds of nonfat dried milk."  The 
supply grows by about 45 million pounds each week.  In fact, the 10 million cowsin America provide so much milk that the government periodically releases
millions of pounds of dairy products for free distribution to the poor and 
hungry.  It's abundantly clear that cows ( living ones) are one of the mankinds
most valuable food resources.
 
	Movements to save seals, dolphins, and whales from slaughter are 
flourishing- so why shouldn't there be a movement to save the cow? ( To few this may look like some religious dogma!....I am helpless.  Well, I don't mind 
commenting on that either but then this group is not the right one.  Anyone 
interested pls e-mail me.)  From the economic standpoint alone, it would seem to be a sound idea-UNLESS YOU HAPPEN TO BE THE PART OF THE MEAT INDUSTRY OR DEVAUCH MEAT EATER, which is increasingly worried about the growth of vegetarianism.
In June 1977, a major trade magazine, Farm Journal, printed an editorial 
entitled, " Who will defend the good name of Beef?"  The magazine urged the nations beef cattle raisers to chip in $40 million to finance publicity to keep
beef consumption and prices sky high.
 
YOU ARE PAYING MORE THAN YOU THINK FOR MEAT:
 
	The meat industry is a powerful economic and political force, and beside spending millions of its own dollars to promote meat eating, it has also 
managed to grab an unfair share of our tax dollars.  Practically speaking the 
met production process is so wasteful and costly that the industry needs 
subsidies in order to survive.  Most people are unaware of how heavily national
governments support the meat industry by outright grants, favorable loan 
gurantees, and so forth.  In 1977 for example, the USDA bought an extra $100
million of surplus beef for school lunch programs.  That same year, the 
Goverenments of Western Europe spent almost a half billion dollars purchasing 
the farmers overproduction of meat and spent additional millions for cost of 
storing it.
 
	More tax dollars go down the drain in the form of the millions of 
dollars the US government spends every year to maintain a nationwide network
of inspectors to monitor the little-publicized problem of animal diseases.  Whendiseased animals are destroyed, the government pays the owners an indemnity.  
For instance, in 1978 the American Government paid out $50 million of its 
citizens' tax money in indemnities for the control of brucellosis, a flulike 
disease that afflicts cattle and other animals.  Under another program, the US
government gurantees loans upto $350,000 for meat producers.  Other farmers 
receive gurantuees only upto $20,000.  A New York Times editorial called this 
subsidy bill "outrageous.", characterizing it as a "scandalous steal out of the public treasury."  Also, despite much evidence from government health agencies
showing the link between meat-eating and cancer and heart disease, the USDA 
continues to spend million promoting meat consumption through its publications 
and school lunch programs.
 
ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE:
 
	Another price we pay for meat-eating is degradation of the environment.
The US Agricultural Research Service calls the heavily contaminated runoff and
sewage from America's thousands of slaughterhouses and feedlots a major source 
of pollution of the nations rivers and streams.  It is fast becoming apparant
that the fresh water resources of this planet are not only becoming polluted butalso depleted, and the meat-industry is particularly wasteful.  In their book
Population, Resources, and Environment, Paul and Anne Ehrlich found that to 
grow  one pound of wheat requires only 60 pounds of water, whereas production 
of a pound of meat requires anywhere from 2500 to 6000 pounds of water.  And 
in 1973 The New York Post uncovered this shocking misuse of a valuable national resorce-one large chicken slaughtering plant in America was found to be using 
100 million gallons of water daily!  The same volume would supply a city of 
25,000 people.

SOCIAL CONFLICT:
 
	The wasteful process of meat-production which requires far larger 
acreages of land than vegetable agriculture, has been a source of economic 
conflict in human society for thousands of years.  A study published in 
"Plant foods for Human Nutrition" reveals than an acre of grains produces 
five times more protein than an acre of pasture set aside for meat production.
An acre of beans or peas produces ten times more and an acre of spinach 28 timesmore proteins.  Economic facts like these were known to the ancient Greeks.  In Plato's "Republic" the great Greek philosopher Socrates recommended a vegetarian diet because it would allow a country to make a most intelligent use of its 
agriculture resources.  He warned that if people bagan eating animals, there 
would be need for more pasturing land.  " And the country which was enough to 
support the original inhabitants will be too small now, and not enough?"  He 
asked of Glaucon replied ," Most certainly".  
 
	It is interesting to note that meat-eating played a role in many of the
wars during the age of European colonial expansions.  The spice trade with Indiaand other countries of the East was an object of great contention.  Europeans
subsisted on a diet of meat preserved with salt.  In order to disguise and vary the monotonus and unpleassant taste of their food, they eagerly purchased vast 
quantities of spices.  So huge were the fortunes to be made in the spice trade 
that govenments and merchants did not hesitate to use arms to secure sources.  
 
	In the present era there is still the possibility of mass conflict 
based on food.  Back in August 1974, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 
published  a report warning that in the near future there may not be enough foodfor the world's population " unless the affluent nations make a quick and 
drastic cut in their consumption of grain fed animals."  
 
SAVING MONEY WITH THE VEGETARIAN DIET:
 
	But now let's turn from the world of Geopolitical situation and get 
right down to our own pocketbooks.  Allthough not widely known, grains, beans
and milk products are an excellent source of high quality protein.  Pound for 
pound many vegetarian foods are better sources of this essential nutrients than meat.  A hundred gram portion of meat contains only 20 grams of protein. 
( Another fact to consider : meat is more than fifty percent water by weight.)
In comparison, 100-grams portion of cheese or lentils yields 25 grams of proteins while 100 grams of soyabeans yiels 34 grams of proteins.  But although meat 
provides less proteins, it costs much more.  A spot check of supermarket in LA
in August 1983 showed that sirloin steak costing $3.89 a pound, while staple 
ingredients for delicious vegetarian meals averaged less than fifty cents a 
pound. An 8 ounce container of cottage cheese costing 59 cents provides 60% of 
the minimum daily requirement of protein.  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 America's 
consumers as a whole would amount to billions of dollars annually.  Considering all this, it is hard to see how anyone could afford to become a vegetarian.