Showing posts with label Diet for a Small Planet by Francis Moore Lappe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Diet for a Small Planet by Francis Moore Lappe. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 12, 2025

NINA TEICHOLZ, PhD: A pound of grain provokes obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and provides very little nutrient of any kind of value. A pound of meat provides all the nutrients that you need for life and promotes good health

Why do you think that red meat has been vilified in the public conversation for so long?

Ooh!  That is a complicated one.  So we already talked about the various forces that are acting on nutrition science, and I think these come to all to bear on meat. The belief that meat consumes too many of the Earth's resources that really goes back to the 1960s and 70s.  There was a book called, Diet for a Small Planet by Francis Moore Lappe, 1971, that made the argument, "a pound of meat cost much more in terms of the Earth's resources than a pound of grain."  So what is the flaw in that argument?  A pound of grain provokes obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and provides very little nutrient of any kind of value.  A pound of meat provides all the nutrients that you need for life and promotes good health.