To the Editor:
I read Grace Householder’s review of Michael Grenwald’s presentation on his book “Eating the Earth”. This book is very typical of the eisegesis of the climate change crowd (no, I’m not a climate denier, but I do prefer considering all the facts). The author leads you down a path demonizing cattle in favor of chickens and swine because of the demand for soybean production resulting in the loss of rain forest. In fact 48% of soy meal is consumed by chickens, 26% by swine, and 12% by beef cattle.
The blatantly overlooked fact is that cattle, sheep, and other ruminants convert poor quality carbohydrates, like cellulose, and poor quality protein into complete proteins in beef and milk. These feedstuffs are not usable to swine and chickens.
The author maintains that we need to minimize land usage to feed ourselves. Consider 1 acre of corn. For cattle that acre is turned into silage utilizing the entire plant, this acre will yield 15,000 mKal of energy and 1800 pounds of protein. Whereas chickens and swine only consume the corn seed, yielding 9500 mKal of energy and 750 pounds of protein from that same acre.
As for cattle destroying the environment, the U.S. has the fewest number of cattle since 1950. While this herd provides high quality protein in the form of beef and milk to a population 2 1/4 times larger than it was in 1950. The present cattle herd is 30% smaller than it was in 1970, when the “experts” were predicting a coming ice age. Certainly, there has to be a source of climate change more impactful than cattle.
Ruminants, cattle and sheep, are a gift from God to turn poor quality forage-unusable to man- into high quality, enjoyable, meat and milk for us. So Mr. Griswald, instead of excluding beef, reduce consumption of chicken and pork to reduce the demand for soybean production which would mean less deforestation.
Dr. Richard Carmien
Albion
