(2004-08-02) Manning Oil We Eat

Richard Manning [on](http://www.harpers.org/The Oil We Eat.html) the "OilWeEat". It takes thirty-five calories of fossil fuel (Cheap Oil) to make a calorie of beef this way; sixty-eight to make one calorie of pork. Still, these livestock do something we can't. They convert grain's carbohydrates to high-quality protein. All well and good, except that per capita protein production in the United States is about double what an average adult needs per day. Excess cannot be stored as protein in the human body but is simply converted to fat. This is the end result of a Factory Farm system that appears as a living, continental-scale monument to Rube Goldberg, a black-mass remake of the loaves-and-fishes miracle. Prairie's productivity is lost for grain, grain's productivity is lost in livestock, livestock's protein is lost to human fat - all federally subsidized (Subsidy) for about $15 billion a year, two thirds of which goes directly to only two crops, corn and wheat.