NY TIMES OP-ED: BYE BYE, CHEAP MEAT

Interesting piece in Sunday's Times. Bittman ticks off the liabilities of the meat industry in the West and sees it as inevitable that the public will eventually figure out how extreme these liabilities are, and react.

Perhaps the best hope for change lies in consumers’ becoming aware of the true costs of industrial meat production. “When you look at environmental problems in the U.S.,” says Professor Eshel, “nearly all of them have their source in food production and in particular meat production. And factory farming is ‘optimal’ only as long as degrading waterways is free. If dumping this stuff becomes costly — even if it simply carries a non-zero price tag — the entire structure of food production will change dramatically.”

Well, a guy can hope, can't he?

Anyway, the last sentence of Bittman's bio "shirttail" is especially interesting - in that I wonder if this same piece would have run if they couldn't say that.