Decline in U.S. Meat Consumption

After 70 years of steady incline, American meat consumption is on the decline. Considering we account for less than one twentieth of the world population yet have been responsible for one sixth of the world meat consumption (and therefore accompanying environmental implications), I think it is safe to say this is pretty good news.

Last week, Mark Bittman wrote a great piece about the swirl of discussions aiming to pinpoint reasons for the decline including: Growing exports making less meat available to Americans, ethanol and the rising cost of feed, federal government "waging war" on meat consumption, and the most optimistic reason (that I'm rooting for) conscious consumer decisions.

This week, Brent Kim put together an incredibly informative and thoughtful blog post about the USDA estimates that says everything I would say and more so I highly recommend reading heading over to the Center for a Livable Future blog and spending some time with his post (find it here).

Win a Copy of The Food Matters Cookbook

Grub Street is giving away a copy of The Food Matters Cookbook by one of our fave foodies: Mark Bittman. Enter to win by emailing 200 (creative and articulate) words or less about which dish or favorite food matters the most to you by 5:00 P.M. on October 11th, 2010. Official rules here.

Updates

Hello readers.

Lots of important things have happened while yours truly has been trying to master some techniques for deciphering rye from barley from oats from... lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Here are a few updates:

• Congratulations to Sarah Backhouse and Planet 100 on their 200th episode milestone! To celebrate we've added the automatic Planet 100 feed to JustSaying. Find it over on the right. Yay!!
• A new book about food localisation came out. MEAT: A Benign Extravagance by Simon Fairlie. Read Permaculture's take here and some other discussions here. 
• Nicholas Kristof wrote a strong column on the egg recall.
• Mark Bittman posted about the new study linking obesity and school lunches.
• Chez Panisse celebrated 39 years.

Salad Season

Check out 101 awesome summer salad recipes by Mark Bittman for the New York Times. I'm really digging 10, 11, 18, 32, 38, 41... who am I kidding? They all sound wonderfully delicious and simple. Well, at least until the meat comes in at #70.