Word: mayer
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...What I'm basically concerned with is making more grain available," Mayer says. "You feed 20 calories worth of grain to a steer to get five calories back in the form of meat. In America, we use over 2000 pounds of cereal per person per year, only 150 of which are consumed as cereal--the rest is converted into animal products. In China, they use 400 pounds of cereal per person, 350 of which are consumed as cereal. This means that the average American consumes over five times as much cereal as the average Chinese--and to no great good...
...Mayer's original proposal included a provision for channeling the savings from meatless days into a program for world food relief. But the Food Services staff is skeptical about the amount of money that would be saved, citing the rising cost of fish and meat substitutes. "We would still have to provide a menu acceptable to our customers, the students," says Benjamin H. Walcott '63, assistant to the director of the Food Services. "And it might cost more to keep customer satisfaction...
...Mayer answers that the Food Services would inevitably save some money by cutting down on meat, but he adds that the problem is not money. "The real problem is bringing about a change in the patterns of consumption," he says. "That is the only way large amounts of grain can be freed and the only way we can knock down the amount of fat and cholesterol in the American diet...
...Mayer emphasizes that the impetus for such a change in consumption patterns at Harvard must come from students themselves, noting that "no college administrator in 1974 would be so demented as to impose a change in diet." President Bok, who has asked his staff to research the possibility of instituting meatless days, has said that "you cannot impose that kind of morality" on students...
Proponents of the meatless-days plan emphasize the importance of educating students about nutrition. Mayer cautions against rushing into anything, saying that "it is much more important for people to understand why they should not eat meat." And Frank J. Weissbecker, director of the Food Services, points out that if the plan is simply imposed on students who have no real understanding of the purposes behind it, "it'll be too bad if they just run off to McDonald's and swell that 15-billion figure...