Hope's Edge_ The Next Diet for a Small Planet - Frances Moore Lappe [159]
(c) To estimate what percent of edible meat is due to the grain and soy consumed, multiply that 40 percent (weight gain due to grain and soy) times the edible meat produced at slaughter, or 432 pounds: .4 X 432 = 172.8 pounds of edible portion contributed by grain and soy. (Those who state a 7:1 ratio use the entire 432 pounds edible meat in their computation.)
(d) To determine how many pounds of grain and soy it took to get this 172.8 pounds of edible meat, divide total grain and soy consumed, 2850 pounds, by 172.8 pounds of edible meat; 2850 + 172.8 = 16–17 pounds. (I have taken the lower figure, since the amount of grain being fed may be going down a small amount.) These estimates are based on several consultations with the USDA Economic Research Service and the USDA Agricultural Research Service, Northeastern Division, plus current newspaper reports of actual grain and soy currently being fed.
14. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service and Agricultural Research Service, Northeastern Division, consultations with staff economists.
15. In 1975 I calculated this average ratio and the return to us in meat from Livestock-Feed Relationships, National and State Statistical Bulletin #530, June 1974, pp. 175–77. In 1980 I approached it differently and came out with the same answer. I took the total grain and soy fed to livestock (excluding dairy) from Agricultural Statistics, 1980. The total was about 145 million tons in 1979. I then took the meat and poultry and eggs consumed that year from Food Consumption, Prices, and Expenditures, USDA-ESS, Statistical Bulletin 656. (I included only the portion of total beef consumed that was put on by grain feeding, about 40 percent, and reduced the total poultry consumed to its edible portion, i.e., minus bones.) The total consumption was about 183.5 pounds per person, or 20 million tons for the whole country. I then divided the 145 million tons of grain and soy fed by the 20 million tons of meat, poultry, and eggs produced by this feeding and came up with the ratio of 7 to 1. (Imports of meat are not large enough to affect this calculation appreciably.)
16. Calculated as follows: 124 million tons of grain “lost” annually in the United States X 2,000 pounds of grain in a ton = 248 billion pounds “lost” divided by 4.4 billion people = 56 pounds per capita divided by 365 days equals .153 pound per capita per day X 16 ounces in a pound—2.5 ounces per capita per day—1/3 cup of dry grain, or 1 cup cooked volume.
17. R. F. Brokken, James K. Whittaker, and Ludwig M. Eisgruber, “Past, Present and Future Resource Allocation to Livestock Production,” in Animals, Feed, Food and People, An Analysis of the Role of Animals in Food Production, R. L. Baldwin, ed., An American Association for the Advancement of Science Selected Symposium (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1980), pp. 99–100.
18. J. Rod Martin, “Beef,” in Another Revolution in U.S. Farming, by Lyle Schertz and others, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., 1979, p. 93.
19. D. E. Brady, “Consumer Preference,” Journal of Animal Science, vol. 16, p. 233, cited in H. A. Turner and R. J. Raleigh, “Production of Slaughter Steers from Forages in the Arid West,” Journal of Animal Science, vol. 44, no. 5, 1977, pp. 901 ff.
20. Des Moines Register, December 8, 1974.
21. Cattle Feeding in the United States, op. cit., pp. 78–79.
22. “Past, Present and Future Resource Allocation to Livestock Production,” op. cit., p. 97.
23. Ibid. p. 91.
24. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economics and Statistics Service, Status of the Family Farm, Second Annual Report to the Congress, Agricultural Economic Report No. 434, p. 48.
25. Quantities of each fuel used from Energy and U.S. Agriculture: 1974 and 197S, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic and Statistics Service, April 1980. Conversions to BTUs used Cervinka, “Fuel and Energy Efficiency,” in David Pimentel,