Global diet

"Do you eat meat?' asks Jo�o Meirelles Filho, a Brazilian conservationist ... 'Yes,' I reply, ... Filho surprises me with the venom of his next remark. 'Then you are responsible for the destruction of the Amazon,' he says, 'because 95 per cent of deforestation is caused by cattle ranching. I would love it if every one of your readers boycotted Brazilian beef.'"
The rest of the article is about a new fruit which could help the situation in Amazonia.

One of the company's best-selling fruit smoothies contains a small amount of pulped açai (ass-eye-ee), a berry that grows only within 25 yards of the Amazon's banks. To harvest it, the palm on which it grows does not have to be cut down; better still, it thrives in the shade of other rainforest trees such as rubber, Brazil nut, cabbage palm and miriti palm, encouraging growers to mimic nature rather than plant açai in endless regimented rows - the kind of monoculture that destroys biodiversity.

Can the discovery of new fruit used in smoothies save the rainforest? | Food monthly | The Observer: