The world produces enough food to feed itself twice over, yet malnutrition is a leading cause of disease and death.  Did malnutrition have anything to do with swine flu?

Let’s look at some facts:

  1. So far no one in America has died from swine flu.
  2. More children died of the regular flu in 2003 -’04 (153).
  3. 83 children died during the ‘07-’08 flu season.
  4. The common flu kills an average of 36,000 U.S. citizens a year.

To be sure, the flu of 1918 was terrible.  So was the Black Plague.  The fact is however, for most people those are events in a history book, not recent memory.  What happens with the swine flu may turn out that bad.  Or it may be like the avian flu, petering out before killing all of us.  Which brings me to our media.

To spread, or attempt to spread, fear the way the media has been doing over the past few days is completely irresponsible, and even criminal.

That no one has died in America of swine flu does not mean we should not be cautious.  But it brings up the symptom mentioned in the title of this post; self-absorption.

If the swine flu was only contained in Mexico, like the avian flu was contained in Asia, Americans, for the most part, wouldn’t care.  Why?  Because it doesn’t directly affect us.  Let’s look at some other numbers to prove my point:

  1. Malnutrition is the biggest killer in children, the cause of at least 50% of all child deaths worldwide.
  2. Every second, a person dies from hunger - 4000 every hour – 100 000 each day – 36 million each year – 58 % of all deaths (2001-2004 estimates).
  3. Every 5 seconds, a child dies of hunger – 700 every hour – 16 000 each day – 6 million each year – 60% of all child deaths (2002-2008 estimates)
  4. The world produces enough food to feed DOUBLE our current world population according to the WHO.

So, think about all the food that we throw out of our refrigerators a week.  Think about how much food a restaurant throws away nightly.  Multiply by how many restaurants in America.  As a whole, we don’t give starving people any consideration when we leave a half-eaten meal, usually containing beef, on the restaurant table.  Well, we might box it up and take it home, but it took over 4 grain calories to make just 1 beef calorie.

Or put another way as John Robbins says in his book, Diet for a New America:

We feed [U.S. livestock] over 80% of the corn we grow, and over 95% of the oats.

It is hard to grasp how immensely wasteful is a meat-oriented diet-style.  By cycling our grain through livestock, we end up with only 10% as many calories available to feed human mouths as would be available if we ate the grain directly.

Less than half the harvested agricultural acreage in the United States is used to grow food for people.  Most of it is used to grow livestock feed…

…For every 16 pounds of grain and soybeans fed to beef cattle, we get back only one pound as meat on our plates.  The other 15 are…turned into manure.
The developing nations are copying us.  They associate meat-eating with economic status of the developed nations, and strive to emulate it.  The tiny minority who can afford meat in those countries eats it, even while many of their people go to bed hungry at night, and mothers watch their children starve.

If we used our grains to make sure everyone on the planet had an adequate diet, then maybe places like Mexico City and other developing countries wouldn’t be such a breeding ground for things like swine and avian flu.

Like it or not, we are all in this together and America’s self-absorption will be its downfall.

-mike