- 20 vegetarians can live off the land required by one meat eater
- If Americans reduced their meat consumption by 10% it would free 12,000,000 tons of grain - enough to feed 60,000,000 people (the population of Great Britain)
- If all Americans became vegetarian, it would free enough grain to feed 600,000,000 people (the population of India)
- Intensification in animal farming has displaced 1,000,000's of people from their traditional lands - eg. indigenous people in south & central america, native americans in north america & crofters in Great Britain - this is continuing today
- People displaced from their lands into cities succumb to dietary deficiency, diseases, parasites & opportunistic diseases
- Due to overgrazing 850,000,000 people live on land threatened by desertification & over 230,000,000 already live on land so severely desertified that they are unable to sustain their existence & face imminent starvation
- 1,000,000,000 people in the west gorging on meat & dairy leave 1,000,000,000 to waste away & 3,500,000,000 teeter on the brink
Land
- If they continue to clear American forests to raise cattle at the present rate, in 50 years there will be none left
- 1 acre yields 165 lbs of beef or 20,000 lbs of potatoes
- 8/10 of cultivated land in the UK is used to grow food for animals (14,732,000 hectares)
- It takes 16 lbs of high protein soya to produce 1 lb of beef
- Pressure on land due to meat farming leads to soil erosion 6 billion tons/year in the USA
- If everyone went vegetarian up to 90% of land used for animal farming could be taken out of production & used to replant woodlands, leisure activities etc.
- 25% of Central America's forests have been destroyed for cattle grazing since 1960
- Between 1966-1983, 38% of the Amazon rain forest was destroyed for cattle grazing
- 90% of cattle ranches established on cleared forest land go bankrupt in less than 8 years as the land becomes barren due to nutrient loss & overgrazing
- Overgrazing by cattle is destroying the land & increasing desertification, nearly 430 million acres in the USA alone has suffered a 25-50% reduction in yield since first grazed
- An inch of topsoil takes 200-1000 years to develop—yet in the USA we have lost around 1/3 of their prime topsoil in 200 years (around 7 inches) due to animal farming
- Land will be lost due to rises in sea level due to global warming due to animal farming
Air
- The destruction of the rainforest by cattle farmers is destroying the lungs of the planet & reducing the worlds capacity to replenish our oxygen supply
- The 1,300,000,000 cattle in the world emit 60,000,000 tons of methane per year (methane is a greenhouse gas & leads to global warming)
- Burning of forests, grasslands & agricultural waste associated with animal farming releases 50-100,000,000 tons of methane per year
- Combining these figures, 25% of methane emissions are due to animal farming (not including the billions of sheep, pigs & poultry so the real figure is much higher)
- Fertilizer used to grow crops to feed to animals releases nitrous oxide - thought to account for 6% of the greenhouse effect
- Fertilizer, weedkiller & pesticides sprayed on crops enter the atmosphere creating a noxious carcinogenic cocktail
- CFCs are released into the air from refrigeration units used to store decomposing flesh (meat), milk & butter - CFCs are destroy the ozone layer
- Ammonia from animal urine also pollutes the atmosphere
- CO2 is released by burning oil & petrol in lorries, ships, abattoirs, dairies, factories etc. associated with meat & dairy production
- Emissions from large chemical plants which produce fertilizer, weedkiller & other agricultural chemicals are also poisoning our air
Water
- 25 gallons of water are required to produce 1 lb of wheat & 2,500 gallons to produce 1lb of meat
- In the USA every second humans produce 12,000 lbs of effluent while farmed animals produce 250,000 lbs
- Nitrates & pesticides used on crops grown to feed livestock end up in our rivers
- The water used to produce 10 lbs of steak is equivalent to the average consumption of water for an entire household for an entire year
- Depletion of groundwater reserves to grow crops for animals & to supply abattoirs will lead to greater water shortages
- Aquafers (stores of underground water) in the San Joaquin valley in the USA are being drained at the rate of 500,000,000,000 gallons/year to produce meat
- 18% of all agricultural land in the world is irrigated & as global warming increases (partly due to animal farming) it will cost $200,000,000 to keep these systems going
- The liquid waste from the various parts of the meat & dairy industry flow into the rivers & from there into the seas polluting them & encouraging huge algal blooms to grow
Efficiency
- To produce 1 calorie of energy from meat takes 60 calories of petrol, whereas growing grains & legumes to directly feed people produces 20 calories for each calorie of fuel used (that's 1200 times more efficient)
- Meat & dairy farming uses billions of gallons of oil to run tractors, fuel ships & lorries (to move animal feed & animals), pump billions of gallons of water to irrigate fields & run slaughterhouses, power refrigeration units to prevent the corpses from decomposing & to power sewage plants to clean up some of the pollution produced
- Cattle convert only 6% of their energy intake (mainly grains & soya) into flesh, the remaining 94% is wasted as heat, movement (which is why they keep many animals in very close confinement), hair, bones, faeces etc
- 1lb of beef takes 1 gallon of petrol to produce
- A family of four eating beef for a year uses enough petrol to run a car for 6 months (obviously depending on how far you drive!)
- If the full ecological cost of meat was passed onto the consumer—the price would be quadrupled (at least)
- Between 1950 & 1985 grain production in Europe & the USA increased massively but 2/3 was fed to animals
- 70% of all grain is fed to animals
- Eating vast quantities of animal flesh, eggs, milk & butter is a luxury that most of the planet can not afford
Animals
- Fishing with drift (and other modern) nets weakens & destroys ecosystems by indiscriminately killing billions of sea creatures & disrupting the sea bed
- Fishermen's nets kill 10 times as many other animals as the fish they are hoping to catch
- Fish caught in nets die an agonizing slow death of suffocation
- Each year 15,000,000,000 land animals are slaughtered for food & an unknown but much larger number of sea creatures (including 1000's of dolphins caught accidentally)
- Chickens are crammed into battery cages with up to 3 other birds, they are unable to even spread their wings & many cannot even stand up
- Unwanted male chicks (because they can't lay eggs) are gassed or pulped while their sisters go to the battery sheds
- Chicks are debeaked without anaesthetic to prevent them injuring each other in the unnaturally confined conditions they are kept in - this is equivalent to having your fingernails pulled out without anaesthetic
- Modern farming methods using growth hormones & artificial lighting mean that many chickens out grow their bones, resulting in fractured & broken legs
- Sows are kept tethered in stalls 1.3 x 1 meter on concrete or slatted floors—they can not even turn around
- Poultry raised for meat are kept in windowless broiler sheds, with around 20-30,000 in each shed, they live in an area of 10-20 cm square—fighting due to overcrowding is common & like battery hens they commonly suffer from supperating bed sores
- Broilersheds are artificially lit 23 hours a day to produce rapid growth
- Animals travel between farms & to slaughter in overcrowded transporters with no food or water—resulting in stress, injuries & deaths—legal requirements are widely ignored
- 95% of poultry suffer injuries before being killed & 30% suffer broken bones
- Problems with stunning practices mean that many animals have their throats slit while still conscious (around 6% of cattle or 200,000 per year) & are then dipped in tanks of scalding water (to loosen feathers, bristles etc.) again while fully conscious
- 4000 animals die spurting their blood out every minute in a British slaughterhouse
- Calf leather comes from animals killed at just 2 weeks old
- Cows only give milk for 10 months after they have a calf—so they are routinely artificially inseminated (ie. mechanically raped) to keep them pregnant & milking—their calves are taken away (usually at 12 hours old) for meat or export to veal crates
- Cows would naturally live up to 20 years but are slaughtered after 5-7 years when their milk production begins to fall
- In the UK animals are killed by first being stunned with electricity or a captive bolt gun (ie. a bolt is fired into their heads) before having their throats slit & being plunged into boiling water—all this happens on a production line with the animals being hung upside down from a moving conveyor belt—this is factory farming
- Veal calves are confined in stalls in the dark, unable to move & are fed on pigs blood , chocolate & dried milk (we are drinking the rich fresh milk of their mothers)
- Cows naturally produce 5 litres of milk per day for their calves—under the intensified systems of modern farming they produce 25-40 litres per day—resulting in swollen & inflamed udders—at this rate they are soon worn out
- Large areas of land are under monoculture to grow crops to feed to animals—these areas are wildlife deserts supporting fewer & fewer species.
Health
- Vegetarians have a 20% lower rate of mortality from all causes (ie. they live longer & don't get sick as often)
- Meat is full of traces of antibiotics, hormones, toxins produced by stress & pesticide residues that become concentrated from all the crops they have eaten
- Fish contain heavy metals & other pollutants—many of which originated on farms
- The world health organization recommends a diet low in saturated fat, sugar, salt & with plenty of fibre—exactly what you get on a vegan/vegetarian diet
- Farmed animals contain up to 50% saturated fat in their bodies
- Vegetarians have 24% reduced risk of getting heart disease & vegans a 57% reduction (heart disease is the biggest killer in the US)
- Obesity is rare in vegetarians, obesity is related to many diseases
- Vegans & vegetarians have lower blood pressure & cholesterol levels—high levels are associated with heart disease, strokes & kidney failure
- Vegetarians have a 50% reduced risk of dying of diabetes
- Vegetarians have a 40% reduced level of cancer than the general population thought to be because they have a higher intake of vitamins A,C & E
- Vegetarians have a reduced risk of developing gall & kidney stones
- 80% of food poisoning is due to infected meat (faeces, bacteria etc.) after all meat is decomposing flesh—most of the rest is due to salmonella in eggs
- Osteoporosis due to calcium loss from bones is mainly due to the sulphur content in meat & casein protein in milk that cause calcium to be lost in the urine—the countries with the highest meat & dairy consumption are those with the highest levels of brittle bones
- 50% of people do not have the enzyme to digest milk properly & milk allergy is related to asthma & eczema
- Meat eaters have double the rate of Alzheimers disease as Vegans & Vegetarians—some people also think that Parkinsons disease is also linked to meat eating
- Egg yolk is a dense concentration of saturated fat & the white is high in albumin protein associated with leaching calcium into your urine. Butter is 80% saturated fat, cream is 40% saturated fat & cheese is 25-40% saturated fat
- Meat eaters are two and a half times more likely to get bowel cancer than vegetarians
- The cling film used to wrap meat in supermarkets & butchers contains chemicals linked to falling sperm counts in men
- Chinese people (living mainly on a vegetarian diet) consume 20% more calories than Americans but Americans are 20% fatter
