We Are What We Eat:

The New York Times today editorialized on the subject of food or, more precisely, the effect that our eating habits, now that we are more than 6 billion strong here on the blue planet, have. This time the subject is not about how fat we are, but the devestating effects our love of meat has on the planet.

The issue is not new. Over thirty-five years ago, the voices in the wilderness were telling us we were misusing the planet's resources by feeding vast amounts of protein to our cats and dogs while poor people around the world suffered from malnutrition. We've long known that eating rabbit and American bison made much more sense both from a nutritional standpoint and an environmental one than eating chicken, pork, and beef.

Now the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations has published a report that's available all over the web, entitled, Livestock's Long Shadow, that addresses the issue in detail. It appears that currently there are about 1.5 billion cattle and buffalo and about 1.7 billion sheep and goats, and those figures don't even touch on how many poultry and pigs there are. According to the report, some 18 percent of global warming is directly attributable to our love affair with eating as much meat as possible. In addition, most of the rain forest deforestation occurs as a result of the effort to raise these animals.

At one point, we believed over population could be defined in terms of not having enough to eat. Perhaps we'll eat ourselves to death before that becomes an issue.