We never really think about how much of the planet’s resources we use to consume a piece of meat. People are simply not aware of the facts about meat production and even if they are, not enough to change their priorities about food, or they are just too lazy to change the diet because being vegetarian is the whole art: you need to know the recipes, you need to be creative and also be positive about your decision to be veggie. But it doesn’t matter much when you realise how much negative impact meat production has on environment. For me personally, I can’t have a flesh of meat in my mouth even when I’m really hungry because I choose to care, to make the planet a better and a cleaner place. So now I will give you some simple facts about meat produstion.

There were about 6.5 billion people living on earth in 2008, and population is expected to rise up to 9 billion by 2050, and as this number continues to grow, our requirement for food will also grow. We use about 30% of the total soil for production which causes a very big damage to earth through soil erosion, deforestation, desertification and others. People consume a lot of meat and seafood, and that is why the demand for these two ingredients rise dramatically. As the demand rises, people have to breed more and more animals as cheaply as possible. Of course the animals have to be feeded properly in order to become a good source of protein on people’s plates. I understand this demand for meat as I was enjoying meat for 20 years of my life before I began to feel compassionate about animals and environment.

Gathering all the information on this issue I came across a lot of controversies. The thing is, all the meat-eaters (and it’s a major part of the world’s population) are proving the importance of meat in our food intake. They give facts about people’s needs for animal protein and other minerals that we can’t be substituted by any plant on earth.
However, many great world leaders, brilliant scientists have also proven that vegetarian lifestyle would make a huge positive difference in the world.

Would you ever open your fridge, pull out twenty plates of pasta and chuck them into the bin, and then, eat only one plate of food? How about leveling fifty-five square feet of rainforest for one lunch or dumping two-thousand-five-hundred gallons of water down the drain? Of course you wouldn’t. However, just eating half a kilo of meat will cause this.

This is the extract from the article written by Hui-Ming Toh, Auckland, New Zealand, a sister of Supreme Master Ching Hai – a spiritual leader, a proponent of a vegan diet.

I don’t want to convince someone to be vegetarian, but I really do know the facts about how much they suffer from people’s cruelty and how much damage by this people make to themselves:

- To produce 1 pound of beef we have to use 4.8 pounds of grain, while this grain could be used to feed people who suffer from hunger, which is 1 billion people

- Producing the same 1 pound of beef requires 2500 gallons of water while it requires only 139 gallons to produce 1 pound of wheat. Huge amounts of water are used to feed meat-eaters and think about how valuable this water is for African kids. Notice also that it is a non-renewable natural resource.

- For the last forty years emissions of the three main greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) has increased by 70% (!!!). Agriculture emissions have grown by 27%. But the most shocking fact is this: Worldwide, farmed animals produce more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transport system. It is also known that cows and sheeps are responsible for 37% of the total methane generated by human activity.

- Aquaculture – fish farming; it is also responsible for pollution

- The vast amounts of land used to raise animals cause environmental issues such as habitat destruction and deforestation. Going vegetarian will halve the land-use of your diet.

The big issue that the planet face is that there is a growing number of people that get hungry every day as well as the level of pollution and toxins emitted into the air. These two problems go against each other, because we need to increase food production while reversing the damage that has already been done to the planet. We cannot solve it by continuing producing meat in amounts we do today. Moreover, meat production requires huge amounts of energy.

The average fossil fuel energy input for all the animal protein production is around 25 kilocalories (kcal) fossil energy input per 1 kilocalorie of protein produced, more than 11 times greater than that for grain protein production.

~ Pimental, D., and Pimental, M. 2003. Sustainability of meat-based and plant-based diets and the environment. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 78: 660S – 663S.

About the damage that meat brings to people’s health know almost everyone. It is obvious that even a little amount of meat in people’s diet increase the level of toxins and the risk of heart deceases. It has been scientifically proven that vegetables give us all the necessary vitamins and minerals we need. What is also very important to know is that animal like a cow is not any worse than your pet, would it be a dog or a cat. You don’t slaughter them, right? You will never murder your pet to fulfill your hungry stomach. So why would you kill another animal to stay alive? Do you think it’s right to be fair to some animals and be completely cruel to others just because of your habit to eat them? Think about it.

Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.  ~Albert Einstein