Compare this to a system where animal production is extensive (using grasslands and marginal lands) and less arable is used for "intensifying" inputs like maize and soy. There'd be a lot less pollution, and better-quality products. There'd also be a lot less in terms of quantity, and the price would be higher. Personally, that's the way I think things should go. Eating less, but better-quality and more expensive, animal products is fine by me, it's what I do.

However, the mass marketing of "cheap" factory-farm products has an appeal that (though it is easy to argue against) is hard to persuade against. In almost all human cultures, eating meat has a festive aspect, and when people can get meat cheaply they go for it. Eating vegetables and cereals appears humdrum by comparison and above all confers no prestige: you're "eating spaghetti" (or rice, or bread, or potatoes) meaning you're too poor to do better. Having meat on the table daily means you're doing well. The mythology is more important than the reality (of the nutritional quality of the intake, of the environmental problems caused).

So there's rising demand for meat in emerging economies where urban populations are seeing average incomes rise. And, to accompany this, the growth of environment-unconscious factory farming. And who are we in the developed world, who invented the intensive production techniques used and have had more than our fair share of glutting on meat, to stop them?

We might at least change our own consumption and production to show that things can be done differently, but we're still a long way from that. Intensivist-productivist methods are in fact gaining ground, with the introduction of GM crops in particular -- backed by the argument that we have to "feed the world". (Read: feed intensive animal production).

What may seem obvious to us doesn't appear so to the vast majority, and the commercial forces are formidable. Things don't look too hopeful.

So, I buy one piece of meat (or fish) at the market, most weeks.

But...
-at the company cantine, you can't find any decent vegetarian dish most days. I almost invariably have it when there is, but it's rare. And just eating the side vegetables is not very appealing, they are not cooked in order to be on their own. I think it's a shame that it's not more frequent.
-you pretty much cannot be invited and not have meat.

As a result, I still eat more meat than I would if it were culturally more common. And that even though I aim to have rarer but better meat products... So there's a long way to go before it's a general thing.

While waiting for that, I'll try to make do with things that don't really require an extra animal -parts that don't sell all that much. For example, "boudin noir", made with blood, well, I'm sure in most cases there is more available than can be sold, so it does not really involve extra breeding.

But there remains the problem of milk. There really is no easy way out of that. But there is a lot of room for improvement. To start with, a lot of the food is simply thrown away in our countries. That surely can be helped. As can over-consumption.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi

He cited a stat that somethng like 30% of the US corn crop was being diverted to biofuels, and also that the majority of south american arable land had been given over to soybean production for raising livestock.

Meat is murder. Well, meat in excess anyway. I don't think one needs more than a serving or two of it a week for good health even if you are an athlete.

But so too is biofuel production.

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill

Eating "mostly plants" is a lot easier when they taste good. I just started to eat more vegetables, and Mark Bittman's new cookbook helps me do that.

Even tofu.

People here in the US have long forgotten that "a chicken in every pot" meant at least a chicken suitable for stew, and once a week, not meat every day.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.