>In the Northwestern study, more than 4,000 people from the United
>States, Great Britain, Japan, and China wrote in a food diary everything
>they had eaten during two 24-hour periods.

I'm not a scientist, but I've read enough about statistics to notice a few
problems here:

  - The study is based on people keeping their own diaries, so the
reliability is questionable.  How careful were they all being to write down
the details of every meal and snack?

  - Two days is not very long.  When people are taking part in a survey,
they may eat differently because they know they're being watched, or simply
because keeping the diary makes them pay more attention.

  - Poor people eat less meat; but they also eat less, period.  As someone
else pointed out, the comparison is not valid unless they were all eating
the same number of calories per day.

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