Greg Burns’ article (“Animal planet,” May 21) regarding soaring worldwide meat consumption was lamentable. This means more land will be monopolized by ranchers and meat moguls, thereby displacing wildlife and disrupting biodiversity. Air and water pollution will invariably get worse. Millions of sentient creatures are incessantly being inhumanely and unnecessarily slaughtered.
The harshest reality to ponder is that the countless tons of nutritious grains, soy and other healthy foods fed to mistreated “food animals” could be dispatched to feed hungry people and end human starvation. Beef barons, poultry profiteers and animal exploiters are flourishing at the expense of the poor and the needy.
BRIEN COMERFORD / Glenview
YOUR ARTICLE quotes a Harvard professor as saying, “As poor people move up the income curve, they shift their diets from grain to protein.” Yes, and become far less healthy in the process.
Dr. T. Colin Campbell’s book “The China Study,” among many others, documents study after study demonstrating that as populations adopt a more Westernized diet they also adopt our high rate of heart disease, obesity, diabetes and other ills-all caused primarily by unhealthy, meat-based diets.
PAULINE YEARWOOD / Chicago
Dry humor
I really enjoyed Leah Eskin’s Home on the Range column, “Under the influence” (April 30). I laughed out loud at her description of Winston Churchill “glaring at the vermouth bottle” to make the perfect martini. Now that’s DRY!
JACK L. BRADLEY / Chillicothe, Ill.
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