On Sat, 23 Sep 2000 22:51:50 -0700, Ingrid Bauer/J-C Catry
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Why do peoples who have the technological means to eat as much as they
>want, do so ?
>_ mostly because the quality of foods that this technology allow to produce
>in quantity is so low that there is no other way to survive that to
>overeat.

signed.

And because technology only allows to produce so much so cheap.

I wrote:
> > I've also my own ideas what to do with land that could be freed if more
> > people switched to more plants in the diet.

On Mon, 25 Sep 2000 15:21:38 -0500, Ray Audette <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>If it were only that simple.  Over 65% of the worlds arible land is
>unsuitable for growing plant crops.  If this land could support plants the
>farmers would grow them as they are far more profitable than raising meat.

I think you can bet: Farmers do exactely that, which is most
profitable.

>Feed lot cattle are fed almost exclusively grain that has been deemed unfit
>for human consumption because of contamination by aflatoxins, other molds
>and rusts, rat feces, insects, etc.  Because of factors inherent in
>production and distrubution, these affect a large part of these crops.

Aflatoxin, rusts, rat feces are not inherent in production and
distribution
of plants. They are inherent to least cost production of grains as
they are
fed to cattle.

>Because of the market for this grain as animal feed, meat eaters actually
>subsidise grain producers.  If more people ate less meat, the price of all
>food would increase dramatically worldwide resulting in the deaths of
>millions if not billions of people.

I can't get this. The farmes who produce the cheap and low quality
grain
(which is fed to cattle) become "subsidised"?
Because if you buy a steak, you buy 10-fold the amount in grain?

And so they become rich, and the grain price drops?
I thought we live in a society of markets?
The rule is: the higher the demand, the higher is the price. point.

You told:
>Over 65% of the worlds arible land is unsuitable for growing plant crops.
Ok, the rest is used to grow plant crops. And the worlds buyable
animals
rely to 9x% on these plant crops.

I understand that eating this agro-tech meat is what helped you to
combat
your severe diseases, your athritis and your diabetes.
This is your success and i understand that you therefore favour meat
in many
ways.

But I can't accept to declare everything which is "cattle" and which
is not
"grain" automatically to be "paleolithic".
Paleolithic humans had no wheat fields to fatten cattle.

Amadeus Schmidt