Hunger... BTDT?

[texican]

I didn't want to stretch out the '20 minute read' Food Insecurity thread, with another offshoot thread.

Several folks mentioned they'd been hungry, recently and in the past... so I thought I'd start a thread about personal hunger experiences.

I've been hungry many times in the past. My first semester in college, my roommate and I ran out of money in the first month (we lived off campus, w/o any kind of 'meal plan'). The last three months we scrounged around on one meal a day... usually a bowl of bare pasta, or some beans... I had a full schedule, and didn't want to work a part time job to make money to enjoy a full belly. Next semester, we got into a dorm, w/food plans... for two years, we feasted. The last two years of school, I was living off campus. Having enjoyed a full belly for so long, I took on part time work. My early hunger was my decision... not society's.

After college, I took jobs in far flung National Forests and National Parks. Some of these locations were hours away from grocery stores. The duty locations inside the Forests/Parks were days away from anything. If I misjudged the food needs, or weather forced me down for an extra week, I went hungry, and tightened the belt. {There's nothing like hearing from Park HQ that the airplane won't be able to pick you up out of the Alaskan Bush for another week... and it's a 180 mile walk back to Nome} It was my fault... I put myself there... society didn't. Walmart didn't. The govt. didn't {they asked if I wanted to go out and risk my life, and I said hail yeah!} Nobody's fault but mine.

After a couple of years of bumming around the West as a Backcountry Ranger, I realized I wouldn't be able to do this my whole life. I wanted food security... I took responsibility for my own troubles. I worked an extra 8 years, saving money to buy land, build a home, plant an orchard, build several large ponds, acquire animals... all debt free.

At any time, I could have simply went where there was plenty of food, and not worried about a thing. My hunger built character. It instilled in me the need to be independent of the govt/corporate industrial food complex. Now, I enjoy food security. I buy lots of stuff from the grocery stores... just because it's so dang cheap and convenient. If the 'system' ever shuts down, I figure I'll have plenty of time on my hands, and I can revert back to growing my own again.

As my grandma would have said... I am Blessed.
.........................
So have you been hungry? Was it your fault? or someone else's? Did you accept the situation? Did you change? Are you hungry now? or food insecure? What do you think the cure for your hunger/insecurity is?
[better stop... starting to sound like a USDA census report]

[JuliaAnn]

To answer the questions first... yes, BTDT. No, not hungry now and have not been for many years. Do not plan to be in the future as I have knowlege, skills, room and responsibility to provide food for myself. Never took government aide, never will. Was it my fault? Partly, thru choices I made that proved to be foolish.

I believe that anyone who believes that it is the gvmt's responsibility to feed them is going to find that the gvmt. is going to sustain them on the most minimal amount possible, especially considering how many millions more are on welfare these days than there have been in the past few decades. I can easily envision food lines like we used to see in the old USSR during the cold war era. Remember all the babushkas queing up for bread and a bar of soap? Remember the documentaries about the soup lines of our country during the great depression?

When you're truly hungry and have been without for days on end, you discover that you can find edibles if you have some land or woods around you. BTDT. So hungry I poached a doe out of season, and discovered that dandelion greens, wild onions, and sassafrass tea are not too bad. Meant to shoot a squirrel but didn't need to with the doe meat. Had folks telling me to go get some emergency food stamps because it would be so easy and quick. I suppose I was not in my normal state of mind because to me that seemed like selling my very soul---literally. The aversion was palpable. So I took care of the situation myself.

Nope, never intend to be hungry again unless I am too old or ill to care for myself, at which time I imagine I would not survive long.

[Ezekiel's Garde]

I feel incredibly blessed to have never been truly hungry, ever, at any point in my life. I may have not been able to eat what I wanted or fixed a gourmet meal, but my belly was full.

That being said, I have a food hoarding problem. I have felt compelled, especially the last year or so, to have enough food on hand that we can go for a month or more without needing to buy any food. This gets worse around harvest time, when the weather cools down. I can, I buy bulk, I freeze, dehydrate, etc. I never ever want my children to know hunger, unless they choose it (one of my children refuses to eat anything that he doesn't like, and he goes hungry).

For me, having moved to the country, having a huge garden, and raising our own animals has helped a lot. I feel like we can have enough to eat, and probably bless others in the event that our food distribution system disintegrates. When we were in the suburbs, this feeling was so much worse, since I couldn't really garden as much as I would've liked to, and we weren't allowed to have any animals. I also didn't have a nice cool basement that stored potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, canned goods, seeds, etc.

With God's help, my family will not go hungry, ever. We may not always have the best food, but there will be at least 2-3 meals a day of filling & nutritious food.

[Danaus29]

The only time I ever went semi-hungry (had a bit of food but not good or in sufficient quatities) was when Mom moved out on her own and took us kids. It wasn't that she couldn't afford food, she made poor food choices. Once I took over meal planning and list writing and meal preparation we fared much better. My grandma taught me how to make cheap meals and how far a dollar could be stretched. Then I learned how to forage for wild edibles and hunt. I'm still learning about wild edibles and their preparation. I also have variety in my garden. I may not be able to afford the kind of food I want but Lord willing I will be able to have a good meal.

[Michael Kawalek]

Like Texican, I too had a natural resource background and worked for the US Forest Service cruising timber. The problem with a Forest Service career is that it's very seasonal, with no work at all during the snowy months when the roads up in the mountains get closed. I can remember being so short of food that I would make yeast-risen buns out of flour and water and steamed them in a electric skillet because no oven was available. Dipped in chili sauce, those steamed buns became dinner. Just had to make do with what I had on the shelves and come up with something edible.

[wyld thang]

go Texican! great post!!
I've never been hungry, but just wanted to say that I respect food and the pleasure it is besides the nourishment. I appreciate good, real food!!! oh yes and am always thankful!

[Callieslamb]

As a kid we had to work. Though never starved, it certainly felt like it. In the summer, we milked until 10, then fed calves and other chores. If we were lucky we could sneak to the house for a bite. Otherwise, we were often dragging in, literally, past 3 pm for a belated breakfast. Then off to more chores and milking again for supper after 10. I appreciate those that have to go hungry- especially kids.

[meanwhile]

As a child we were very poor in money terms. My parents worked very hard but due to their choices, we did not have enough money for food at times. My Mother would call her own Mother (who would play a huge role of helping me become the person I am today) who would send money (we lived 8 hours away - yet another poor choice of my parents). At times my Grandmother would come and bring us food.

I have vivid memories to this day......I am 56 now....of hearing my Mother cry and knowing we did not have money for food or other things. We rationed every bit of food and other things like toilet paper, etc.

Was it my "fault" or my Parents "fault"? Not mine since I was too young but, yes, I would have to say it was due to poor choices and pure selfishness on the part of my parents. The story would be too long, too boring and not relevant here....but it was immaturity and self centered-ness.

When I was age 16 we moved back to live near my Grandmother. Life improved. My Grandmother helped pay for my first two years of College, helped me get a car, and offered me jobs to earn money. Often, my "Pay" would be a bag of food since my Grandparents had a huge garden and canned and froze most of their food. She would sometimes "give" me money for gas or food but mostly she set a good example of very fugal living and how to garden and how to work hard...all the time... and how to save money.

I worked several jobs all through College and later Law School. I saved and I worked some more. I was frugal.

Today I am what would be considered "food insecure" ...probably. I had not thought of it has having any name....or as being a "condition" but ...I suppose it is. I have enough food in the pantry to feed us for a long time... (family of 5) and I have a "back up" emergency food supply that is boring but would keep us fed.

I do not think there is a "cure" for my food insecurity and these days I don't worry about it. My children call our pantry the "If They Drop The Bomb Food Supply" and they just go along with it. They have learned how to estimate how many cans of kidney beans we need and how many cans of tuna.......and they do the shopping and keep the pantry stocked. I have told them the story of my life and they know how it effects (or would that be affects) my life now and how it effects my food history and food relationships now.

We have a family tradition of being very aware of how many of our neighbors might be in need of food. We make it our business to know who is sick, who has had a hard time, who might be short on cash and who just needs a hot meal or a bag of canned goods. We drop in on elderly neighbors and share food and fresh things from our garden....or baked goods. It helps the hungry little girl still inside of me to offer warm food to others now....and by feeding them, I can somehow reach back in time and feed that scared little girl.

So - there we have it.

[Rick]

I must rejoice in the fact that I have never been hungry for more than an hour or two. If you had seen me before I quit my rat race job and moved to raw acreage in 2006 you would have seen 60 unneeded pounds. I still weigh 205 on a 5`9" frame. but hey we are big boned in our herd.

Many would judge the meals we eat now as extreme and not good enough, but we feel healthy and fit.

[FrontPorch]

I've always said that a person has to hit rock bottom before they can ever be truly happy. Otherwise they will never understand how wonderful the basics (water, food, shelter) are and they will always take them for granted.

Without going into detail, yes I've been hungry. Very hungry. And I've had hungry babies that I didn't know where their next meal was coming from. I've done things I'm not proud of in order to feed them. Was it my fault? Yes and no. I was young and stupid that's for sure. Relied on the wrong people for security and ended up in a bad situation. It's been 20 years and I still have issues with trust. I now have a full pantry plus, yet I still don't feel secure. But I can assure you, I don't take any of it for granted.

[PhilJohnson]

I have been hungry twice in my life. Once when I was laid off of my job, another time out of trying an experiment. My first experience was when I first really moved out of my parent's house and lived on my own. I was about 20 at the time. I moved to a larger city with a friend of mine and a ton of roommates in October. I was working at a creamery full time for about a month prior. The pay was decent enough for a 20 year old kid but out of nowhere I got laid off. I hadn't worked since summer (which was for only three months) and I rebuilt an engine for a project car with the money and spent the rest on a failed attempt at going to a technical college. The money I made from my stint at the creamery went to paying off a car I had bought (and a couple weeks later sold at a profit). After I got laid off I did okay for awhile doing odd jobs and selling stuff, unemployment amounted to 50 bucks a week. I got a call from my old boss from my summer job telling me I could work. But it was minimum wage and about an hour and a half away. I said no and he told me if I tried filling for a check he would report me. So I never bothered collecting anything (even though later I found out I could have refused the work since it was too far away). A few months later after applying for job after job things were getting tight, bought a couple things I didn't need with money I shouldn't have spent. At the time I was trying to lose a little weight and not having any money sort of helped with that. No money no food. I was dizzy a lot and generally felt terrible. Some carrots and peanuts were all I ate for a while. Ditched the diet after I got horrible sick for a week and a half and was able to put my whole fist under my rib cage if I laid down. From the beginning of the year I had lost over 40 pounds. One of the things I had bought with the money I shouldn't have spent was a 75 Econoline van for 300 bucks. Wound up living in the van about three months after my whole hunger ordeal.

The second time was completely by choice. I wanted to see if I could eat off of 10 bucks for the month. So I went out and bought 10 pounds of potatoes ($2.89), 2 pounds of spaghetti ($0.89), three packages of muffin mix ($1.08), Oatmeal ($.89), two pounds of white beans ($2.18), 4 pounds of black beans ($1.20), and a big ole bag of flour tortilla shells ($.75). Plus I had a whole 12 cents left over. This was in the middle of winter so there was nothing to forage.

Man my insides did not them beans. Bloated and passing gas all the time. I liked the taste (still do) but not the side effects. Lost 17 pounds that month. Quickly gained it right back the next month. I find if I don't eat I get headaches all the time, generally impaired, and my speech starts to get slurred along with getting dizzy.

So yes I have experienced hunger but it was avoidable in the first case and the section case I just wanted to see how cheaply one could eat.

[WildernesFamily]

True for real hunger? I can't really say I've ever really BTDT. Oh there was the time when I was a teenager and did the "40 Hour Famine" to raise money for the poor. I know at the time I thought I was absolutely starving, but no, I don't think it really qualifies.

I've STRETCHED meals many times. When DH (then my BF) and I worked on a Moshav in Israel we would buy one chicken and as many veggies as we could (not very many!) We'd boil everything up and add in as much water as the pot could hold. We'd buy as large a bag of rice as we could afford. The farmer provided each "dorm" with a small loaf of bread each morning.

So at the beginning of the week we would boil up our big pot with the chicken, veggies, salt and water. After it was done we'd remove the bones and add more water and salt to get the pot full again. Then we'd pour off most of the water into a jug and keep it in the 'fridge.

For breakfast we'd have toast, can't remember if we had anything on the toast or not.

For lunch we would take the water from the chicken pot (chicken stock I guess) and heat up a bowl for each of us and eat that with the remainder of the bread.

For dinner we would have the chicken stew over rice.

Lasted us six days and we even shared lunch and dinner every now and then with another gent who shared our dorm. He would buy only rice and eat that... he preferred to spend his money on booze and cigarettes.

There was a time when I had to feed our family of 5 for just over a week on $18.. I can tell you I shopped SUPER frugally that time and DH and I had super small portions! Thankfully I already had the general staples (rice, flour, sugar, etc.) on hand, but our fridge and freezer were empty.

[Peacock]

Never really. When DH and I were first on our own together, we ate a lot of ramen noodles, hot dogs and canned ravioli. That was before I learned how to cook. Eventually I figured out how to make decent meals out of inexpensive food, and then later when I quit my job to stay home with the babies, I got pretty good at making frugal food choices. But no, I've never gone hungry.

Yes, I do think people need to suffer a bit in order to appreciate what they've got.

Texican mentioned hungry college students. As I've posted on CF I am in college now, and I think about this sometimes when I'm on campus overhearing conversations. It's a state college, so a lot of the students are from low-income backgrounds and barely scraping by. I feel sorry for them and I wonder for how many college students this hunger becomes the deciding factor in whether to finish school or give up and get a job. I wish there were something I could do -- if I hear of any specifically who can't afford it, I'd buy 'em lunch at least.

[rowan57]

To give you an idea, here in Kenya, most of the population lives on under <$2 a day. And that is often to feed a family of >5. Now I'm not doubting that some of you have gone hungry in the past, it does happen in the west, but think about the fact that a significant percentage of the population of Africa goes hungry every day for their entire lives, surviving on maize porridge and green leaf veggies.

I get paid the equivalent of about $350 a year. Its enough to keep me comfortable, as a house is provided & all bills paid for. If I had to pay rent, bills & transport costs, I would be surviving on that same diet. As it is I can afford to buy just about anything I want every week, with the exception of alcohol. But coming from a western culture, where I earned the equivalent of a Kenyans monthly wage in a day, it gives me a lot to be grateful for.

[sidepasser]

Originally Posted by edayna

Never really. When DH and I were first on our own together, we ate a lot of ramen noodles, hot dogs and canned ravioli. That was before I learned how to cook. Eventually I figured out how to make decent meals out of inexpensive food, and then later when I quit my job to stay home with the babies, I got pretty good at making frugal food choices. But no, I've never gone hungry.

Yes, I do think people need to suffer a bit in order to appreciate what they've got.

Texican mentioned hungry college students. As I've posted on CF I am in college now, and I think about this sometimes when I'm on campus overhearing conversations. It's a state college, so a lot of the students are from low-income backgrounds and barely scraping by. I feel sorry for them and I wonder for how many college students this hunger becomes the deciding factor in whether to finish school or give up and get a job. I wish there were something I could do -- if I hear of any specifically who can't afford it, I'd buy 'em lunch at least.

My son is in college and I bought him his meal plan - 1500 a year for all the meals he wants to eat in the dining hall, 7 days a week. I also send him 30.00 a week to "help out" with laundry and so forth. He pays for his own gas, maintenance on the car, any "luxuries" he wants.

He will "loan" a kid his meal card and use the 30. a week to feed himself. Says there are many, many students there that don't have meal plans and can't afford to eat much besides Ramen noodles at 10 packs for a buck. He sees the need, goes with the kid to the dining hall, and passes the card over the reader and the kid who is "starving" gets to eat that day.

Many children who get to college has literally no support system from home. It's a "you want it, you take care of it" thing from the parents, which really ----es me off, because there are so many expenses that parents don't realize - like laundry..it costs 3.50 per LOAD to do laundry on campus. Don't go hollering that they can walk to the laundry mat off campus because most campuses are close to a laundry mat..they are located usually in another section of town..so a kid that needs to do four loads of laundry has just spent 28.00. 3.50 to wash, 3.50 to dry. School fees/activity fees are mandatory, and ours just went up a 100.00. My kid doesn't do sports..but we have to pay a 30. sports fee (just in case he changes his mind). A parking permit is 50.00. Many kids don't have cars which further limits where they can go and get things cheaper.

Sending a kid off to college with no home resources is putting that child at a huge disadvantage especially if that child cannot find a job off campus. And most places off campus are NOT hiring, even seasonal workers. Where my son goes to college..there are 13,000 students, about half of them are competing for what few seasonal jobs there are..and oh, yeah..the dorms close during the holiday season so the child must find other living arrangements for a 5 week period.

There are so many kids that don't eat anything more than ramen twice a day because they are not allowed to cook in their rooms (unless they have a microwave and many poor students don't). All the food at the campus stores are extremely expensive and marked up (gallon of milk - 5.00 on campus, off campus - 3.59). But you need a ride. IF you are poor, you can't afford to take a bus so have to walk. Hard to walk five - six miles carrying laundry or groceries.

Just sayin..I hate it when parents tell kids "well you want to go to college, go but we aren't helping). I wonder how many of those parents know their child is going hungry to keep books paid for, fees paid for, working a part time job and hoping it's a restaurant so they can eat on the days they work? I just wonder if the parents know and don't care or the kids just don't tell them? My son says 1 in 5 students he dorms with have no support from home and most are hungry at least four days out of seven. They can't afford the meal plans if they pay for tuition, dorm fees, other fees and books.

So they eat ramen once a day and call it a meal. In this economy, kids are having it harder than I did when I went to college, food is more expensive, rules about hot plates, etc. are more pervasive due to fire codes, etc.

If a child goes to school and doesn't have a microwave or a small apartment refrigerator, then it is doubly hard to have any type of groceries to cook from. But yeah, I get the "well if the child wants to go to college, they can pay for it:..sure..they can but they just don't eat very well.

Sorry personal rant, I took my son's roommate and his GF out to eat when we moved my son into the dorm..those kids ate like they hadn't seen food in a week and took every leftover home to eat later. My son said they both work part time to pay for school, both have student loans, and neither gets help from home.

Sure they can work full time and go to school part time and take six years to do a four year load..and in that time, the cost of school rises dramatically. Better to get it out of the way quick before the costs rise!

[PhilJohnson]

Originally Posted by sidepasser

Many children who get to college has literally no support system from home. It's a "you want it, you take care of it" thing from the parents, which really ----es me off, because there are so many expenses that parents don't realize - like laundry..it costs 3.50 per LOAD to do laundry on campus. Don't go hollering that they can walk to the laundry mat off campus because most campuses are close to a laundry mat..they are located usually in another section of town..so a kid that needs to do four loads of laundry has just spent 28.00. 3.50 to wash, 3.50 to dry. School fees/activity fees are mandatory, and ours just went up a 100.00. My kid doesn't do sports..but we have to pay a 30. sports fee (just in case he changes his mind). A parking permit is 50.00. Many kids don't have cars which further limits where they can go and get things cheaper.

Sending a kid off to college with no home resources is putting that child at a huge disadvantage especially if that child cannot find a job off campus. And most places off campus are NOT hiring, even seasonal workers. Where my son goes to college..there are 13,000 students, about half of them are competing for what few seasonal jobs there are..and oh, yeah..the dorms close during the holiday season so the child must find other living arrangements for a 5 week period.

There are so many kids that don't eat anything more than ramen twice a day because they are not allowed to cook in their rooms (unless they have a microwave and many poor students don't). All the food at the campus stores are extremely expensive and marked up (gallon of milk - 5.00 on campus, off campus - 3.59). But you need a ride. IF you are poor, you can't afford to take a bus so have to walk. Hard to walk five - six miles carrying laundry or groceries.

Just sayin..I hate it when parents tell kids "well you want to go to college, go but we aren't helping). I wonder how many of those parents know their child is going hungry to keep books paid for, fees paid for, working a part time job and hoping it's a restaurant so they can eat on the days they work? I just wonder if the parents know and don't care or the kids just don't tell them? My son says 1 in 5 students he dorms with have no support from home and most are hungry at least four days out of seven. They can't afford the meal plans if they pay for tuition, dorm fees, other fees and books.

So they eat ramen once a day and call it a meal. In this economy, kids are having it harder than I did when I went to college, food is more expensive, rules about hot plates, etc. are more pervasive due to fire codes, etc.

If a child goes to school and doesn't have a microwave or a small apartment refrigerator, then it is doubly hard to have any type of groceries to cook from. But yeah, I get the "well if the child wants to go to college, they can pay for it:..sure..they can but they just don't eat very well.

Not to hi-jack Texican's thread here but I went to a technical college with very little parental support and had to drop out for finacial reasons. I had and still have no problem with my parent's non-support of my higher educational goals.

Few observations I made, a lot of kids get shoved into college as soon as possible and are so immature that they constantly partied all the time. The worst offenders usually where those who on their parents dime and really didn't care because they didn't have to work for the privilege of going to college. While not as much a problem with technical college level I hung around my friend a bit who was going to a conventional university.

There are a lot of college kids who come from poor backgrounds that have little brothers and sisters still at home whose parents are just scrapping by. My friend was one of those who had poor parents, he had zero support while going to school, but his dad made 15 bucks an hour with 5 kids at home at the time and his mother couldn't work because child care would be more than what she could make. They did and still do the whole homesteading thing with growing a lot of their own food and raising their own meat. One shouldn't be so quick to rake others over the coals when they have no idea what that person's circumstances are.

There is no law that says one must go to college as soon as they graduate high school. This mindset I think does nothing but hurt students especially poor ones. The maturity level for a lot of kids just isn't there to take education seriously. I seen it first hand how many college kids dropped out because they had to live it up by smoking a ton of pot or drinking. Why can't someone wait a couple of years to go to school and save up their own money? Seriously what employer out there is really going to care that one person is two years older than the other.

Also the college system set's kids up for financial problems right off the bat because those who are under a certain age unless they live near by are forced to live in dorms. Why do that? There is no reason other than it is a way for colleges to make more money. Students should be free to live where ever they want and find a living situation that best fit's their budget instead of the universities' forced money making scheme. Also most campuses I visited to allowed alcohol in the dorms even though most of the students are underage. Why?

I don't buy the whole college experience thing, which is what most university staff tell students that they can only get from being crammed in dorms with strangers. The whole environment is an entirely unnatural one and does nothing to really prepare students for the real world.

I think too many parent's just give their kids everything instead of seeing to it that they earn their way. I guess that is why I don't really seem to click well with people who were raised with all that self-esteem bs and then go off to college and look down their noses at others who weren't as lucky to have parent's who could afford to support them and have to work regular jobs. No one should be surprised then when it seems that there are a lot of folks who think someone "owes" them. Somewhere along the line being self-made quit being something to strive for.

[geo in mi]

If temporary hunger counts, then yes, every day about four o‘clock. Especially as a growing teenage boy that seemed to devour everything on the table. Long-term, no, not even overnight, thanks to my mother who worked her fingers to the bone to keep the wolf away from the door. We had fresh milk, eggs, green beans, chicken, corn, tomatoes, pork, beef, fried rabbit, homemade noodles, jelly, all sorts of cakes and pies, black walnut fudge, hand-cranked ice cream, to mention just a few of the many, many things, straight from her hands to our hungry mouths, thanks to her. And she passed along the skills and work ethic for me to keep it that way as I got out on my own. But, because of our own particular situation--we were on the edge of a cliff all the time on that 80 acre farm in Indiana, and watching her work so hard to feed us, I have always been super sensitive about the wolf LURKING out there in the woods--even when I had a good job in a large industrial corporation (that recently went bankrupt)….. That has been what has driven me; I hate surprises, hate to be caught off guard--and I don‘t know what I would do if I ever really had to go hungry. So, when I had that good job, I forsook the stock plans(huh, now worthless), the fancy cars, the golf clubs, the good clothes, and instead, chose this place I’m on now--it has the space I need, and I have the skills and tools, should the wolf ever try to sneak up on me. This place was my 401k, and I’m so thankful it turned out the way it did. So Thursday, I should say a prayer of special thanks for Mom, huh?

[VERN in IL]

I am a vegetarian because I understand how destructive/wasteful to our environment raising meat is. The majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds animals, not humans. More grain — two to six times as much — is needed to produce the same amount of calories from livestock (meat) as from the grain itself. Make that as much as 10 times more when it comes to U.S. grain-fed beef.

We definitely take up more environmental space when we eat meat, just disturbing.

[PhilJohnson]

Originally Posted by VERN in IL

I am a vegetarian because I understand how destructive/wasteful to our environment raising meat is. The majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds animals, not humans. More grain — two to six times as much — is needed to produce the same amount of calories from livestock (meat) as from the grain itself. Make that as much as 10 times more when it comes to U.S. grain-fed beef.

We definitely take up more environmental space when we eat meat, just disturbing.

You must have never been to the arid west. Growing crops is not feasible or very environmental friendly with all that irrigation one would have to do. It is entirely possible not to feed cattle any corn at all (hence the whole grass fed beef movement). The only sort of agriculture one can do is cattle.

I don't disagree that people could get away with eating less meat but I think the current trend of developers turning good farmland into subdivisions is much more wasteful to the environment than growing corn for animal consumption. At least those who grow corn and grow other things at a later date, your not going to be able to easily plow over all those new subdivisions and grow food.

There are always two ways of doing things, the good way or the bad way. Meat can be raised environmentally friendly manner.

Also from the current observation of both how much food get's wasted in this country along with the rising amount of obesity in this nation I don't think raising meat has anything to do with anyone being hungry in this nation.

[texican]

Originally Posted by VERN in IL

I am a vegetarian because I understand how destructive/wasteful to our environment raising meat is. The majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds animals, not humans. More grain — two to six times as much — is needed to produce the same amount of calories from livestock (meat) as from the grain itself. Make that as much as 10 times more when it comes to U.S. grain-fed beef.

We definitely take up more environmental space when we eat meat, just disturbing.

The Amazon rainforest is being deforested not for cattle, but for the insatiable demand of vegetarians for soybeans.

An amazing number of people are still under the impression that calves are born in feedlots and spend their life there. Wrong. Most, nay, ALL calves, are born outside of feedlots, are raised on grass, and fattened for the last few months of their lives on grain byproducts.

Soybeans are evil... cattle ranches have nothing on the destruction imposed on the rainforest by soybean conglomerates. If you want to save the planet, stop eating any soy products, and buy a rangy grass fed cow (or basically Any cow sold through any of ten thousand sale/auction barns throughout the country... they're all grass fed). You'll get your protein, and land that is not fit for growing crops will be economically utilized. Right now, the local cows are scouring the woods for acorns... and getting fat. Reckon they aren't technically 'grass fed' though, if they're getting acorns...

edited to add:
Didn't know you actually were supposed to pay for laundry while in school... I can't remember doing laundry more than a couple dozen times... that's what once monthly trips home were for!

When I decided to go to college, my parents couldn't afford (or so they said) to send me. After the starvation semester, I got on a meal plan. I learned how to work, and how to get financial aid, and grants. If my parents had paid for everything, I s'pose I would never have got a job... probably exactly what they were thinking.

In my case, hardship built character... and made me appreciate a good work ethic... if I wanted to party, I had to toil in the salt mines (and by that reasoning, I didn't party very much...)