Please, let me doubt your expertise on what I think or on what I said once you admit that you haven't read the thread. To me you are just another believer and that gives you no authority on any subject except for yourself.
What I do not understand is what the coffee and banana trade has to do with eating meat of the food shortage. So, according to you if we were eating rabbits instead of bananas there would be less of a food shortage than the one you claim there is.
As for you assumption that I don't like vegetables, is just another of your creeds, not anything related to facts, and another prove that you don't read and base your assumed (by you) expertise in very shallow assumptions.
My expertise is in being a vegetarian. Which as I am, there is no doubt in this matter. I am constantly told the same things by meat eaters, therefore I imagine I can summarise this thread without reading it. If you are an Omnivore, and have been since youth, you are by definition an expert in the mater, no?
There is very little link between the coffee and banana trade and not eating meat. I offered anexplanation for food shortages, as it is plainly clear that had I not you would have picked me up on this. Eating meat is not the sole reason for food shortages, the globalised economy and the desire to export your product all over the world does this, and the Bretton Woods twins have been chief in converting economies to exports.
If we were eating rabbits constantly, yes, this would probably improve the food shortages - but I am not aware of how it compares in terms of land used, feed used, time etc. Certainly the biggy in terms of wastage is meat from a cow, which has gone through a massive amount of resources only to offer a small meal.
So, to summarise, and I'd rather not have to make the point again, there are two major reasons for the current food shortages.
i) Insistance by world bodies on promoting the export of food and the traditional mantra of 'everyone should grow what they are best at and trade' above everybody having easy access to local food (Cuba is the best example of an alternative, as are food co-ops in the UK).
ii) Over-eating of meat, which requires much more resources (such as grain to feed the animals, grazing land) to produce a similar amount to the alternative in vegetables or crop.
There are also other factors - Mexico and their joining of NAFTA threw up an interesting case for example, but I won't go into them. Those of you that are interested should read a book called 'stuffed and starved' by Raj Patel, which is probably the most accesible reasonabley academic review of the world food systems problems currently.
I am quite happy to admit there is an element of guilt behind my decision to be veggie. but when I visit or read about a country like Jamaica ( around 98% food imports) or China (were people have been displaced for new meat production facilities), quite frankly I feel it's damn worth it.