From: Barbara Lamar (altamiratexas@earthlink.net)
Date: Mon Jun 11 2001 - 09:58:57 MDT
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-extropians@extropy.org
[mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On Behalf Of Mike Lorrey
Samantha Atkins wrote:
> Part of that other subject is that I've seen figures claiming
> there are some billions of head of cattle being raised for
> slaughter, milk and so on. It takes a large part of the farmed
> land to feed these cattle. Arguably many more people could be
> fed healthy diets for a fraction of the land used if the people
> were vegetarian. This has large impact on the ecological
> balance of earth and on the hunger rate.
Mike Lorrey replied:
<The organized agriculture, which is primarily focused on
production of plant matter for human consumption, not livestock consumption,
is
THE greatest negative impact upon the ecology.>
I agree with Mike's statement and would like to add that much of the land
used for raising food animals is land that's not appropriate for growing
plant food crops. Adding animal foods to the human diet increases available
calories overall, especially if the species of food animals are chosen
wisely. Cattle and hogs are certainly not always the best choice.
Samantha's statement is correct only to the extent cattle are fed grains.
It's true that grain fed cattle produce more tender meat, because they don't
have to walk around much; in fact, they're often confined in small areas.
But pastured beef is quite edible and possibly more nutritious than grain
fattened beef.
Barbara
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