My mom once told me a story about my great grandmother. My great grandmother always contended that those creatures on earth whose backs faced the sky were meant to be eaten by those of use whose backs do not.

Food prices are soaring, a wealthier Asia is demanding better food and farmers cannot keep up. In short, the world faces a food crisis and in some places it is already boiling over. ... Drought, a declining dollar, a shift of investment money into commodities and use of farm land to grow biofuel crops have all contributed to food woes. But population growth and the growing wealth of China and other emerging countries are likely to be more enduring factors.

"China's population is proportionately much larger than the countries that industrialized in earlier periods and is almost double that of the current G-7 nations combined," the central bank [of Australia] said.

The emergence of China's middle class is adding hugely to demand not just for basic commodities like corn, soybeans and wheat, but also for meat, milk and other high-protein foods.

The Chinese, whose rise began in earnest in 2001, ate just 20 kilograms, or 44 pounds, of meat per capita in 1985. They now eat 50 kilograms a year.

Each pound of beef takes about seven pounds of grain to produce, which means land that could be used to grow food for humans is being diverted to growing animal feed.

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However, the Chinese aren't picky. If there wasn't enough food to go around, I think you might start to look pretty delicious regardless of where your back faced.

The amount of energy and resources used to raise animals for eating is one of the big reasons for going vegan. Instead of using that land and those resources to raise animals, we could be growing food for people. How many people could you feed if you traded seven pounds of vegetables and grains for every pound of cattle raised?

The article also mentions the usage of land for growing crops to be used as biofuel instead of food has contributed to the problem as well. Farmers can make more money selling palm oil for biofuel than for cooking. Money they need to buy food and other essentials for living. But in the meantime, the people are starving because all the land they used to grow food on has been commandeered for more biofuel crops. And round and round it goes.