Let's not eat animals for five years

This would be a problem for those of us on a ketogenic diet! :)

Besides, it is excess sugar and carbs that are causing the problems for metabolic disorder and diabetes.

Yeh, I hear you Rick, but I am not a fan of Keto. It's good for weight loss, but not sustainability. Brains run on carbos, we just need to eat the right kinds. In my work, both private cooking and corporate education, the issue with eaters is consuming the wrong type of carbos. Whole grains and veggies are the good carbos we don't eat enough of. It's the junk food and processed food diet that makes one feel the need to go to the opposite solution, i.e. keto /no or few carbos. Eat a balanced diet of whole foods and most eaters can avoid keto, unless used for short stints. Keto can teach us new and useful habits, but it's a short term diet. Eat More Veggies!

What's really going to happen is that the less well off will suffer. Less meat will not mean "nothing to buy", it means limited variety and higher prices.

If your budget is already stretched, this wont drive you to fresh veg, but to rice and beans.

If your budget is not stretched you'll just buy what is there. Because of all of the restaurant closures, that's probably expensive steaks.

"Meat" flies, skitters and runs through my yard at all hours of the day and night.
There's plenty of "Meat" around, you just have to do a bit more work than driving to Safeway to enjoy it..

That's often the argument, "the less well off will suffer." Please take this in context. My perspective is the less-well-off got it over the rich folks when it comes to food. Poor folk at least know how to make rice and beans taste good. The rich folk often need MORE food education, because they have used meat as the seasoning for everything, and lack additional knowledge on how to make food taste "good" without it. Rich or poor, most people lack food education. So they end up cooking what those in their own household have cooked for years. It's not about $$$, it's about exposure.

A TV news story on possible meat shortages showed a grocery shelf with the reporter saying that in the future your meat selections might be limited. But the product on the shelf was Beyond Meat sausage.

From this chart red meat consumption per capita has decreased since 1960, chicken increased. Web Link With the growth of fast food since 1960 would have expected red meat consumption to grow too.

This also shows decrease in Beef consumption over past 50 years Web Link

With that said, I think a balanced diverse diet is the way to go.

Posted by MP Resident, a resident of Menlo Park: Downtown,

>> If your budget is already stretched, this wont drive you to fresh veg, but to rice and beans.

Rice, beans, and vegetables can be the foundation for a very healthy diet. Red meat won't disappear, but, it will continue to be displaced by chicken. Red meat is very water intensive, and, water is the limiting factor in agriculture. As water becomes more valuable, red meat will become more expensive. It is simple economics, but, fans of red meat don't want to hear it. Since I don't eat red meat any more, that matters very little to me (but, some people do need to make sure that they don't develop anemia).

Oh, and, not that I pay attention to the guy, but, I did see that even Arnold Schwarzenegger says you don't need red meat(!). (Anybody else remember the song "Junk Food Junkie"?)

Rick from Adobe-Meadow - A ketogenic diet does not require meat, only the absence of most carbs. I'm vegan and have been on a ketogenic diet for 2 years. Lots of nuts, avocados, olive oil, and leafy greens and cabbage. A much healthier way to keto that is better for the planet and healthier for your body. For more info, check out the work of Dr. Valter Longo and the Longevity Diet.

Do children count as meat? We're running out of recipe ideas and this shutdown is killing us.

WELL DONE, Laura Stec! I'd like to also add, the closure of factory farms is a GOOD THING, just like less cars on the road and the oil and gas industry "tanking..." It's time to support small local grass-fed organic meat farming, regenerative agriculture, solar and wind power, and green chemistry.

This nightmarish time of fear, grief, and disease is forcing us to finally look at HEALTHY ways to sustain our bodies and our planet.

Very much appreciate your advocating reducing meat consumption or eliminating altogether. From the headline I was sure you'd truly be lamenting loss of some meat options. Thank you.

The nice thing about meat is all the different flavors and places to find it.
Yes, you can buy it, but you can also get it yourself, which is far more satisfying. We raise and slaughter our own goats, rabbits and fowl...best tasting ever!

@Meat and Greet:

That's all fine and well but for many of Laura's readers, it's not a reality.

I live in a 650 sq. ft. condominium. I'm not going to be raising fowl to slaughter. It's against the CC&Rs.

Call be crazy, but I'm not so sure we're going to "Run out of meat"
Lets grab the popcorn and jerky then sit back and see who's right.

Report from yesterday's shopping trip shows plenty of sausages, turkey, beef, lamb, ooo some bison and some duck(nice!) They were short on chicken pieces but were stocking as I was there. Near the checkout there were large jerky displays, turkey, salmon, beef, pork. The frozen sections were packed with meat meals, burgers, burritos, taquitos, pork dumplings, chicken enchiladas and enldesss choices of meat pizzas.
Shortages in our stores are due mostly to stocking, not lack of supply. A talk with the manager confirmed this.

Anyway, lets all keep an eye out for that day that we run out of meat.
(Just have some pasta some days if they actually are out of boneless skinless chicken parts.

Anybody see Bill Maher's piece on the similarities between wet market & factory farms? Interesting piece. Web Link

We gave so many food inspectors the heave-ho that our food supply is no longer top notch with regards to safety.
How many times did we not have lettuce or other produce because of lysteria or E. coli over the past 5 years?

In my kitchen I fear what is in/on my veggies more than worrying about what's in meat since I don't eat raw meat, ut it's really our entire food supply line that needs oversight and inspection/enforcement.