<p>Organic-Vegan foods: Do a little googling to find nearest food coop/farmers's market nearest to your school. I sympathize. Pay the farmer more money and you'll get as much organic food as you want. </p>
<p>Hopkinslax: the world is awash in food. The world has so much of it that fat is a major health issue. As for e.coli, you don't use the toilet? Humans have e.coli, you just don't get sick from it because you system is used to that particular strain.</p>
<p>As a past small acreage farmer, we used to use chemicals on our crops because we had to be efficient in our labor and money. With the ultimate goal of making money so that we can do it all over again the next year. We liked to be organic but the food we grew, did not lend itself to be organic grown. We also did not believe that people would pay a lot more money for wormy product that did not keep, and looked unappetizing.</p>
<p>On our personal garden, we use as little chemical as possible, of course we personally don't care about the unseen worm, and the short shelf life.</p>
<p>"it would only support 2/3 of the worlds population... Would you volunteer to die???"</p>
<p>If you care so much about feeding the world, you would become a vegan. Do you realize how much food is used to feed animals that just end up dead. Meat eaters use more than twice as much food as vegans. The grains used to feed cattle and livestock could be feeding you and the third world. Infact the amount used to feed one cow feeds LOTS of people. So you're the selfish one, just because you want a greasy burger, you're prioritizing feeding a cow over starving people.</p>
<p>Anyone who has studied ecology and energy transfers must know that as energy moves up the food chain, a lot of it is lost. That is why it is rare to see fourth-level consumers and organisms higher up in the chain. If I remember correctly, less than one percent of the energy captured by plants is received by tertiary consumers because energy is lost as heat at each level.</p>
<p>Yemaya, I don't know. Sorry. If it's a vegetarian/vegan house, then it may be a house connected by lifestyle but without its own dining room. Smith consolidated some of its dining facilities last year, i.e., some houses lost theres. I don't know Tenney and the fact that I don't know it makes it probable that it's one of the smaller houses.</p>
<p>Christian Science Monitor:
"A greater share of people eat better although hunger persists. Now we face a 50% increase in population before it levels off at 9 billion in 2050. In the 1700s, Europe fed its population by expanding agriculture, especially in the colonies. Now under cultivation is a third of the land surface, further expansion looks environmentally suspect. Organic agriculture can't produce enough food and biotechnology is running into skepticism. Some observers forecast that the world could conquer malnutrition this century. The problem lies with the fertilizers and pesticides that foul drinking water, increase insects' resistance. Nearly 4 million acres lost each year due to salinization and more than 40% of agricultural land has degraded soils. Irrigation takes 70% of the fresh water and will lead to competition between farmers and urban dwellers. Between 1950 and 1960, US grain yields increased 45%, by 1990 only 10%. Organic farming has quadrupled since 1992, but is a tiny share. Organic agriculture can't feed today's world, much less the nearly 3 billion extra people expected by 2050. If the US, wanted to go totally organic, it would have to increase its cattle herd ninefold to create enough manure. We wouldn't have space for crops or National Parks. Biotechnology, which has run into opposition and the European Union moratoriums on biotech crops could determine how quickly the technology spreads. Last year, biotech acreage rose 12%. Will agriculture move to make biology the first line of action? Consider the South's fight against cotton pests. In the late 1980s, Southeastern states began using new technology and old-fashioned chemicals that proved controversial but the weevil's disappearance has allowed farmers to cut back on other pesticides. February 20, 2003 Christian Science Monitor "
Is that proof enough???</p>
<p>Actually, it isn't proof enough. The entire article is based on a few horrendous assumptions and even more inaccuracies. Less than 1% of the land in the US is used for farming. It takes about 16 pounds of feed to produce a single pound of beef. The article assumes that we would make the feed organic as well, instead of farming human food instead of cattle food. </p>
<p>Um... that thing about creating enough manure via extra cattle? Complete b.s. No other way to put it. You don't need cattle manure for fertilizer, and there is nothing to show that organic crops would need almost ten times as much fertilizer as regular crops. It's probably based on some nonsense about extrapolating the amount of fertilizer produced by cows to some increased number of crops - which would increase the number of cows to produce manure, and they need to be fed, which takes fertlized crops. Circular, yes. Correct, no.</p>
