> On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 6:27 AM, shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com>
> wrote:
>> In his chapter on the need to reduce meat consumption, McWilliams
>> (in _Just
>> Food_) says that New Zealanders eat 312 lbs of meat a year,
>> Cyprusians (?)
>> eat 288 lbs, USers eat 273, the Irish eat 233 lbs, the Swedish 167
>> lbs.
>> Europeans, on average, eat 198 lbs.
>
> That is crazy. I wonder if they mean "consume" rather than "eat," so
> it includes other things made from livestock. And/or if they include
> all the parts of the animal that don't actually get eaten?
d'oh! it was early and I didn't think to look at the footnote. It's from http://earthtrends.wri.org/searchable_db/index.php?action=select_countries&theme=8&variable_ID=192
it must mean some kind of global consumption, though I don't know if that means, say, the use of cowhide or something. it doesn't seem likely since it says "meat consumption". it would be misleading to call the creation of a cowhide wallet part of meat consumption. alas, too lazy too look it up.
for the purposes of his argument, of course, it's irrelevant as to whether it's eaten, worn, or shot out. We produce too much livestock (cows, fowl, pigs, etc.) to sustained such production.
shag