(Roughly) Daily

Research makes it increasingly clear that it’s dangerous to the health of both our bodies and our planet to eat too high on the food chain…. even as observations like the one that titles this post remind us that old habits are hard to change.  At the very least, we can consider the facts of the case…

The Friends of the Earth Europe (FOEE) have released a sixty-six page report on meat consumption around the globe, the Meat Atlas.

The report presents a global perspective on the impacts of industrial meat and dairy production, and illustrates its increasingly devastating impact on society and the environment. The way we produce and consume meat and dairy needs a radical rethink.

The full report (with larger graphics) is available to read/download here.  Meantime, our friends at tmBBQ have provided a helpful precis:

The narrative within the report has a definite anti-ag lean to it, and coming from Europe it’s all in metric, but the facts and statistics within are rich and varied. If you’re interested in the way we grow and process animals for human consumption, then please read the entire report, but below is an executive summary of sorts with some of the most powerful and intriguing facts about the meat we eat.

Page 10: “In the USA, the number of pig raisers fell by 70 percent between 1992 and 2009, while the pig population remained the same.”

Page 11:
Top 5 Beef Producers – USA, Brazil, European Union, China, India

Top 5 Pork Producers – China, European Union, USA, Brazil, Russia

Top 5 Poultry Producers – USA, China, Brazil, European Union, Russia

…

More fun food facts at “Meat Atlas.”

* John Cleese

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As we deliberate on our diets, we might volunteer to docent in memory of Elias Ashmole, the English antiquarian, collector, politician, and student of astrology and alchemy; the first university museum– the Ashmolean– opened to the public in Oxford on this date in 1683, thus becoming the first public museum in Britain, and (probably) the world.

“The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology,” as it was officially known, showcased Ashmole’s “Cabinet of Curiosities”– including the stuffed body of the last dodo ever seen in Europe… though owing to voracious moths and to the underdeveloped state of taxidermy at the time, it had rotted away to its head and a single claw by the time of “the unpleasantness with the American colonies,” under a hundred years later.

The desiccated head of Ashmole’s dodo; with its foot, all that remains

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