Earlier this week, more than a hundred thousand South Koreans demonstrated
against newly elected president Lee Myung-bak, as his entire cabinet offered to
resign. At the root of this massive protest was not a declaration of war against
North Korea, a boycott of the Chinese summer Olympics, or even escalating oil
prices. It was a treaty allowing U.S. beef imports.
Beef production
accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than automobiles. Its insatiable
demand for feed grains has raised world food prices to levels beyond the reach
of the world's hungry and the relief agencies that support them. Creation of
beef pastures is the key cause of worldwide deforestation, including the
destruction of the Amazon rainforest. A beef-based diet requires more than 20
times as much land and water as a plant-based diet with equivalent amounts of
calories and protein.
Nutritionally, beef offers protein, iron, and some
B vitamins, but no fiber, carbohydrates, nor most vitamins and minerals. On the
other hand, it is replete with saturated fat, cholesterol, pesticides, and
pathogens, including occasionally, the prions of "Mad Cow" disease.
We
should have a hundred thousand demonstrators marching on Washington to protest
taxpayer subsidies to the U.S. beef industry. In the meantime, each one of us
can demonstrate our own outrage with beef production on our next trip to the
supermarket by selecting from the rich variety of soy-and-plant-based meat
alternatives in the frozen foods and produce
sections.
Sincerely,
Marcus Armand
Milwaukee
Letters0
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