Explain the significance of direct and indirect consumption of grains

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: Many domesticated animals eat grass, foliage, and other plant material that humans cannot digest. Some grains, however, called feed grains, are fed to livestock. Eventually, either the livestock or their products are consumed by humans, so we say that humans consume feed grains indirectly. Over one-third of the world's total grain harvest is fed to livestock. This percentage is higher in richer countries. As a country develops economically, the population consumes a greater amount of grain, but an increasing percentage of that grain is consumed indirectly as meat and dairy products. Meat is the center of a people's diet only in the richest countries, and some nutritionists argue that the consumption of so much meat and dairy products leads to increases in debilitating diseases such as heart disease. Nevertheless, most people want and enjoy meat and dairy products. Therefore, rising incomes in some countries multiply the populations' appetites for grain consumed indirectly as meat.