Returning home after a long trip with a totally different cuisine has been an interesting experience. I didn’t get sick once while traveling and I ate some bizzare stuff. No fried spiders though – thankyouverymuch. The first thing I did upon my return, before even getting to my parent’s house, was to get a double cheeseburger from Mustard’s Last Stand in Evanston. On the trip I only once ate at McDonalds and it was to make things less complicated rather than to splinter the group I was traveling with. Mike ordered a burger in Krabi – I’ve never seen a patty so small! So one of my cravings was a Mustard’s double-cheese. Not more than an hour after I ate it – it was WWIII in my stomach. Apparently the burger didn’t get along with the Korean food from the flights nor the ~4 weeks of Thai/Vietnamese/Cambodian I had been eating! In fact, my system hasn’t been digging the food I have been putting into it since I’ve gotten back. Then my Mom sends me this NYT article… its quite fascinating, actually. I had never thought about the full impact that our “meat factories” have on the environment…
Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests.
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To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms… if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan to the ultra-efficient Prius. Similarly, a study last year… estimated that 2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days.
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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
New York Times
Read the article, its something that we should all be aware of!
Sorry about the lack of updates. I’ve been about as lazy as one can be upon my return. I guess after 4 weeks of non-stop activity, slowing down and resting a bit isn’t such a bad thing. I’ve now got a Sunday deadline to sort through my pictures as my parents, Greg and Mila will be coming over for a slideshow. They should be uploaded soon after!
