|
Food for thought?
“To be or not to be - Vegetarian ?
Below are some figures showing how much impact eating meat has on the environment (not to mention the suffering caused to the animals themselves which we also respect is a personal and subjective opinion):
- More than 25 billion animals are killed each year for food in the United States alone. That statistic is staggering considering the fact that there are only 6 billion human beings in the entire world. Eating meat takes an environmental toll that generations to come will be forced to pay.
- Raising animals for food causes more water pollution in the U.S. than any other industry - because animals raised for food create 130 times the excrement of the entire human population - 87,000 pounds per second! Much of the waste from factory farms and slaughterhouses flows into streams and rivers, contaminating water sources.
- More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to grow crops to feed animals raised for meat, and another acre of trees disappears every eight seconds. The tropical rain forests are also being destroyed to create grazing land for cattle. Fifty-five square feet of rain forest may be razed to produce just one quarter-pound burger.
- More than half the water consumed in the U.S. is used to raise animals for food. It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat, but only 25 gallons to produce a pound of wheat. A totally vegetarian diet requires 300 gallons of water per day, while a meat-eating diet requires more than 4,000 gallons of water per day. If we each cut down to 50% or even just 30% of the amount we each eat this would have a significant positive impact.
You can learn more about the global impact of what we eat and how to have a balanced diet without meat.
Information source:
John Robbins' The Food Revolution: How Diet Can Help Save Your Life And Our World.
Hanna is also an Ambassador for Nourish the Children, feeding malnourished children in third world countries. see www.katz.my-ntc.com
|
