Going back to ancestors' food

Trisha Chons makes some interesting points (Food and ozone layers, Dec. 3, 1994). Concerned ecologists have remarked upon the close links between the consumption of red meat and the increased emission of methane from the guts of the creatures who give us our daily hamburgers. Consider the situation: there the cattle stand in fields and prairies all over the planet, munching away on grass the whole day through and frequently "letting rip." This then floats up to the protective ozone layer and, rips it asunder.

"Why," the discerning reader may ask, "is this source of methane increasing?" The simple answer is this: the consumption of red meat has increased with affluence. Research shows that most red meat consumed in the major cities of the world is taken in the form of hamburger meat. The more lucrative the market for hamburgers the greater the number of cattle and hence the greater the quantity of methane produced by our friends in the bovine kingdom. The result is that there are more and more cattle to satisfy modern man's insatiable craving for this poor form of food. By 'this form of food' I am referring specifically to cheeseburgers and chips. I have spoken to dietitians on the subject who say that "it's an incomplete meal." So the question I'd like to ask is this: why are we filling the skies with methane to produce a poor food stuff? I'll tell you the answer: because it's trendy.

The big hamburgers suppliers are not just trendy in Indonesia as economist Sri Edi Swasono seems to think (Indonesians dazzled by anything Western, The Jakarta Post, Dec. 7, 1994). We suffer from the same onslaughts of consumerism culture all over the world. It's not just Indonesian culture that is being swamped by mono-culture. The whole world is moving towards the same cultural stew of shopping malls, traffic jams, satellite TV piped right into your living room (carrying mainly rubbish) and fast food outlets serving red meat, especially cheeseburgers. Remember the enormous queues for 'the stuff that makes you grunt' in Moscow when a famous burger chain opened doors for business? Frankly it's the same in the West--where there were once jellied eels stalls in London the kids now have to put up with cheeseburgers.

I'd like to echo the words of Trisha Chons in suggesting that in the shadow of the methane threat we reconsider our diets. Further, I'd like to back up Mr. D. Ripper's suggestion that we return to the foods of our ancestors who ate real foods because they had a bit more sense than to be dazzled by fast food fads.

I.S. NORTH

Jakarta