"James Curts" wrote in message
news:P60Za.102371$uu5.14788@sccrnsc04...
"Michelle Fulton" wrote in message
...
"James Curts" wrote in message
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I'm just tagging along here but the numbers thing interests me. Many
of
the
folks I help support would believe they were hosts of an unlimited
supermarket with much less than even 2000 cal/day.

That's what I was thinking, but I'm definitely not an expert. I'll be
interested to find out where Don got that figure from.

M


His figure is not far off for a large, 6' 1", 180-190 pound, active male
30
years old. A large percentage of the world population is of considerably
smaller stature.

However his numbers are an indication of the world's needs and provide a
realistic base from which to visualize the required land needs to achieve
that particular goal.

When one realizes that if each person in the world had 3500 cal/day
available to him/her the gun runners would be hard pressed to make a go of
it. Hunger, after religion, is the most easily and cruelly wielded tool in
manipulating a populace. North Korea comes to mind.

My doctor has some very pointed remarks for me when I insist that 2150
cal/day is inhumane treatment of a taxpayer and good citizen.

Looking around 2,400 calories a day for a lactating mother and 15 calories
per pound of weight to maintain your body weight were number that came up
often. Extreme hard work can burn 4,500 calories and it is very difficult to
eat that much and work at the same time. Canoe racing and hauling hay on a
short haul with 90 pound bales fall in that range.

In humans as in cattle 10 to 15% under nourishment in energy in adolescence
with all the vitamins and mineral met seem to extend life. The short ration
need to be a long term way of life. So 2,000 calories should provide a
healthier life than the amount most of use eat.

The fact that the US can produce a very great deal more food than we use is
not the answer to hunger in the world. The answer to hunger in the world is
crops that local people can grow in gardens, on roof tops and in the wild
that will get them through the famine caused by drought, civil war or
political incompetence.

Food from the out side has little effect in times of war and political
incompetence or when food is being used as a weapon to starve off the other
side. Never before have we had the resources to improve the local substance
crops that we have now that we can do the work that would have taken years
on in the case of plants progated vegtativly been impossible in three or
four years. Work is almost finished on a sweet potato that is a staple crop
in Africa and ready for release pending the fiddling of politicians that
have been told so many lies by greens and threatened by the EU that they
will not take their products if they let GM foods in. Mean while insects and
fungi destroy up to 90% of the crop when it could be reduced to 10 percent
with the wave of a hand.

Gordon