Passage Summary: Some people say making fuel out of food is a shocking new problem, but the author points out we already give food to cows instead of people, so it's not actually that different.

Conclusion: Using food crops for fuel production does not represent a radical departure from traditional agricultural practices.

Reasoning: Society already accepts the practice of diverting human food crops to feed livestock, which is fundamentally similar to diverting them for fuel.

Analysis: The author employs a method of reasoning centered on a counter-analogy to undermine a claim of 'unprecedented' change. By identifying an existing, widely accepted practice that shares the same controversial feature as the new practice, the author suggests the new practice is just more of the same. To identify this method, focus on how the argument compares two situations to show that the critic's 'radical' label is inaccurate. The structure relies on showing that if we accept the old behavior, we have little ground to call the new behavior a 'radical break.'