“Americans do not eat meat in moderation, and never have. Since the 1960s, the per-capita intake has doubled. The average man eats more than his own weight in meat every year (even as that weight has increased by 30 pounds since 1960). Americans eat meat in quantities that are double the global average.”

— Why Eating Meat Is Unhealthy (The Atlantic)

The September 30 issue of New Yorker Magazine includes the best article I’ve read on this topic. Staff writer Tad Friend spent six months reporting the piece which runs 12,000+ words (about 35 pages). I don’t know many with the attention span to read something of that length so here are a few excerpts I found interesting.

The piece focuses on Pat Brown, “a sixty-five-year-old emeritus professor of biochemistry at Stanford University and the founder and C.E.O. of Impossible Foods. By developing plant-based beef, chicken, pork, lamb, dairy, and fish, he intends to wipe out all animal agriculture and deep-sea fishing by 2035.”

• Agriculture consumes more freshwater than any other human activity, and nearly a third of that water is devoted to raising livestock. One-third of the world’s arable land is used to grow feed for livestock, which are responsible for 14.5 per cent of global greenhouse-gas emissions.
• Because methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, some twenty-five times more heat-trapping than carbon dioxide, cattle are responsible for two-thirds of the livestock sector’s G.H.G. emissions. Every four pounds of beef you eat contributes to as much global warming as flying from New York to London—and the average American eats that much each month.
• the Impossible Burger requires eighty-seven per cent less water and ninety-six per cent less land than a cowburger, and its production generates eighty-nine per cent less G.H.G. emissions. They made it nutritionally equal to or superior to beef.
• Ninety-five per cent of those who buy the Impossible Burger are meat-eaters.
• The three largest meatpacking companies in America have combined annual revenues of more than two hundred billion dollars.
• Researchers at the University of Minnesota found fecal matter in sixty-nine per cent of pork and ninety-two per cent of poultry; Consumer Reports found it in a hundred per cent of ground beef.
• Cooked beef contains at least four thousand different molecules, of which about a hundred contribute to its aroma and flavor and two dozen contribute to its appearance and texture.
• at least ninety-five per cent of American beef cattle spend their last four to six months being fattened on grain at feedlots.
• American broilers, chickens raised for meat, are bred and confined in ways that make them more than four times larger than broilers were in the nineteen-sixties; as a result, they often collapse from their own weight.

Insect bites are a real problem for me. A tick bite can plague me for a week or two. Chiggers are too horrible to even mention. I do my best to stay on the concrete but occasionally I forget and wander into the wilderness. A year ago, while walking on the prairie, I stumbled into a swarm/hive/nest of Oak Mites.

After feeding and reproducing, the mite then exits the leaf in the fall looking to find a protected location to overwinter. It is at this time millions of microscopic mites are blown in the wind, falling or landing on us. That is when they bite, resulting in the itchy rashes that are painful. Mites that don’t land on us spend the winter protected, waiting to emerge the following season to potentially start their reign of terror over.

I had never heard of Oak Mites until the Urgent Care physician identified the bites. There’s really not much you can do but treat the bites with anti-itch creams. And friends, there is no itch like an Oak Mite itch. Okay, maybe Poison Ivy or Poison Oak, but it’s close. And it takes at least three weeks to subside and feel remotely human again.

Three weeks ago — one year almost to the day — I managed to drive the Land Rover through some tall grass and again encounter Oak Mites. Even worse this time. The bites were so concentrated I had bites on top of bites. So thick you could not see the individual bites. Too horrible to share photos.

Because these fuckers are wind blown, there’s apparently no way to completely avoid them. But no more walking in tall grass for this boy.

Had a little surgical procedure six weeks ago and met with my urologist, Dr. Katie Murray, today for follow-up. Since nobody wants to hear about old guy surgery, I’m telling folks I had a couple of inches added. Life has gotten a whole lot better. Beer on the deck tonight at sunset.

Have not had a White Castle “slider” in… 25 years? Remember them as greasy little things best consumed after a night of drinking.

Stopped in today to try their Impossible (Foods) Slider. One of the few places in mid-Missouri the Impossible Foods burger is available. It was NOT greasy and I’m not sure I could tell difference from a beef patty (although I haven’t tasted one of those in 6 years). Lady behind me had her first as well and agreed it was very tasty.

According to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition… neither.

White meat could carry the same heart health risks as red meat according to scientists who studied how beef and chicken affect cholesterol levels. The authors of a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded plant-based proteins seem to be the best option for those looking to control their blood cholesterol levels.

Stopped eating beef, pork and poultry six years ago today. No milk but I do eat eggs and fish. Hasn’t been all that hard really. I am looking forward to trying one of the new Impossible Burgers.