In the Sunday Papers: Meat and Water

Via: Treehugger

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 01.27.08

Gary Kazanjian

Mark Bittman writes in the New York Times about the relationship among meat, fuel and food crops, and how we will probably be eating less of it. "Grain, meat and even energy are roped together in a way that could have dire results. More meat means a corresponding increase in demand for feed, especially corn and soy, which some experts say will contribute to higher prices....Though some 800 million people on the planet now suffer from hunger or malnutrition, the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens. This despite the inherent inefficiencies: about two to five times more grain is required to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption."

Further north, Canadian writer Silver Donald Cameron does an excellent job of summarizing the problem of bottled water, calling it "a scam, a triumph of brilliant marketing and knavish politics."