<a href="http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/morford">Mark Morford</a> writes <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/01/11/notes011102.DTL" title="Supersizing Your Afterlife Junk food, rampant obesity and the death of Wendy's Dave Thomas, who was apparently very nice">Supersizing Your Afterlife</a> about the death of Wendy's founder, Dave Thomas. <span class="quote"><q>Because isn't it funny in a sad and ironic sort of way how we as a culture wouldn't care much to openly weep over the diligent and hard-working (and long- dead) founders of say, Philip Morris or Dow Chemical, but when it's a gentle old fatherly type who's on TV all the time espousing tasty foodstuffs that just so happen to inflict millions and kill thousands and it's all couched in homespun niceties and pop-culture daintiness, we're all warm and fuzzy and entirely forgiving?</q></span> This might seem overly harsh. Until you consider <a href="http://www.alternet.org">AlterNet</a>'s <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12162" title="So You're an Environmentalist; Why Are You Still Eating Meat?">So You're an Environmentalist</a>, which goes into gory detail about the effects of a meat-heavy diet on the planet. This increase in meat consumption follows the same trend as the increase in fast food consumption. <span class="quote"><q>One reason for the increase in meat consumption is the rise of fast-food restaurants as an American dietary staple. As Eric Schlosser noted in his best-selling book Fast Food Nation, "Americans now spend more money on fast food --- $110 billion a year --- than they do on higher education. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos and recorded music --- combined."</q></span> The numbers outlining the environmental costs are staggering: "20 billion head of livestock ... producing 87,000 pounds [of excrement] per second ... 15.7 billion fowl [on Earth]". The article goes on to discuss the human health toll (obesity, diabetes, etc.), the problems with monocultures (providing an easy medium for spreading diseases like BSE and foot-and-mouth), and the conditions that these animals that are bred for consumption live in. To see how people all over the world are eating, check out this article at <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/">The Smithsonian</a> magazine called <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues02/jan02/dinner.html">What's for Dinner?</a> It shows the groceries for a typical family from seven different countries around the world. Does the U.S. look the most appetizing? (I like Istanbul's spread.)