Coincidental Health and Global Harming

Spent the weekend in Rotana Al Ain. Nothing extraordinarily interesting about the hotel or the place. But something about the menu struck me. Maybe I haven't noticed before, but, this was the first time any menu in any star hotel had notes on the state of the food as well. In addition to the standard V for vegetarian, it also had H for healthy (hotels usually qualify by saying low-calorie or something to this effect).

On quick count, around half of the V marked dishes were also marked H, while, not one of the Non-vegetarian dishes was marked H, and with the menu being nearly 90% non-vegetarian, ninety percent of the dishes served by this hotel were not considered healthy by its own admission. This should be the first instance of a business enterprise denouncing its own products.

Of course, coincidentally, and with Copenhagen in the news, livestock account for 15-20% of global methane emissions--about 3 percent of global warming from all gases. Every second, one football field of rainforest is destroyed to produce 257 hamburgers, while each burger consumes only from 600-1,300 gallons of water to reach your tray; the same serving of rice takes a mighty 35 gallons.

I don't know if there is any clumsy connection in this whole post.