Also, as Americans became aware of world poverty and population pressures, red meat came to be seen as wasteful. The landmark 1971 book Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappé made the case that the livestock raised to satisfy Americans’ lust for meat represented a monumental waste of protein that could instead be feeding malnourished people in poor countries. Beef eating was particularly inefficient, she wrote, since cattle consumed 21 pounds of vegetables to produce one pound of meat.