When the Homily is about Immunology

Food Science

Once again I was dragged - spur of the moment - into a discussion about some grand social issue over which I was expected to give some insane ultra-conservative republican answer. The cost to produce beef. The questioner rallied off some quote about the amount of grain it takes to raise an incomparable amount of beef.

I responded, "Yeah, so what's the problem? Beef tastes better than grain."H
Now of course I knew the "problem", this grain could be used to feed the starving masses of the world. having been duly informed I said, "Yeah well if we all rented one less movie a moth we could likely feed the entire world...I'd rather have the beef."

So let's stop and think for just a moment. Do we suffer from a food shortage or a money shortage? (Neither, I suspect) So, we put the beef rancher out of business by not buying beef (yes, from now on you must BBQ wheat on 4th of July). Then the grain farmers are going to find themselves sitting on TONS of grain, which, much to the amazement of Ron Sider does not magically transport itself to Africa. Yes, grain farmers are looking to make money...you know...that stuff that forces us to show up at work everyday? If Africa or charitable American's don't pay for it, I'm guessing the farmer isn't going to pay for the fuel involved in a cross-Atlantic C5 galaxy drop shipment of his free grain.

Now look, I don't think the grain farmer cares to whom he sells his grain. So buy it. Here's the money/movie rental layout. Let us guess that 1% of US residents rent movies once a month. If they were to rent one less movie a month and buy some grain for starving people we would see about 12.5 million dollars a MONTH worth of grain. Let's assume USAID will use your tax dollars to ship it overseas...or perhaps Greenpeace's "Rainbow Warrior" could find time to haul it for us, then 150 million dollars worth of grain a year. How about the world's immoral movie renting...let's say 1/2 of 1% of people can ever rent a monthly movie and opt not to in order to buy grain from Nazi American farmers. This would be 167 million a MONTH or over 2 billion dollars worth of grain a year. Keep in mind, this is above and beyond normal charitable giving. That might make a dent on world hunger.

So I say fooey on the PETA lobby trying to say we should stop eating animals because we are causing people to starve. It's movie rentals that are doing it. And if not, then the bottle water industry...good night, talk about a waste of money! Or for al love, how about one less Latte a week? With that we could feed the world and harvest water from mars...not to mention activate the "Noah plan" to go to a different planet to escape global warming.

One of the issues my wife and I looked at is the notion of Pasture raised animals. In other words, you do your very best to feed your livestock with food that grows naturally on your land or food you grow yourself. Now, Sue and I cannot do this perfectly on only 2.54 acres, but we are certainly intending to do as much as we can. Beef raised in such a fashion will cost you more, because the ranchers cannot pop the cows out in assembly line fashion...but its worth it for numerous reasons.

However, if you want to feed the world, I think the answer is a lot more obvious. There's no food shortage because beef cattle eat it all, rather there is a money shortage and people LOVE movies, bottled water, and lattes.

Remember.

Or as my kids are saying now: "Beef...its what's for Pascha."