The National Public Radio show "Marketplace", Tuesday, June 17, includes a commentary headed,
"Food crisis solution: Go vegan

We grow enough food for everyone, but livestock are devouring our food supply. Commentator and bioethicist Peter Singer says unless we change, the dinner plate of the future will look far different."

Singer's commentary notes that biofuels are contributing to a food crisis, however, he tells us:
"But most corn isn't eaten by humans; it's eaten by animals and that's the biggest part of the problem. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 756 million tons of grain plus most of the world's soybean crop are fed to animals.... When we use animals to convert grain and soy into food we can eat, they use most of the feed to keep warm and develop bones and other parts we can't eat. So we're wasting most of the food value of the crops we feed them. In the case of cattle, at least nine-tenths of the grain they eat is squandered."

You can both listen to and read the commentary on line at
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/06/17/future_of_food/
or at this Tiny URL: http://tinyurl.com/674eyc

Please check it out whether or not you will read the whole thing (it is short) as Marketplace notes which stories get the most on line clicks. And the show asks that listeners "Send us your thoughts." There is a place for comments right under the story, and some listener comments are read out on the next day's show. So why not note your support?

Yours and the animals',
Karen Dawn

(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts if you do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line. If somebody forwards DawnWatch alerts to you, which you enjoy, please help the list grow by signing up. It is free.)

Please go to www.ThankingtheMonkey.com to read reviews of Karen Dawn's new book, "Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals" and watch the fun celebrity studded promo video.