My Five Reasons
For years I had been teetering on the edge of vegetarianism, a strong moral sense pulling me one way and a delicious, savory sense pushing me the other. I finally made the leap this January and after several months of no meat, what still surprises me is that when I tell someone I am a vegetarian, they ask “why?”. So without further ado, I present…
Five good reasons why vegetarians are helping save the planet:
1) Hunger: There is enough food producing land in existence right now to feed every single person in the world and eliminate hunger. But much of the food produced is used to feed livestock, so wealthier people can have meat, while over a billion people in the world are hungry.
2) Economics: Animals are 10%-30% energy efficient. In cattle, for example, it takes around 100 calories of feed to create 10 calories of meat. That extra energy is simply wasted.
3) Global Warming: Every year cows produce thousands of tons of methane, a greenhouse gas that traps 20 times more heat per unit that carbon dioxide.
4) Deforestation: Deforestation in the US and South America has reduced forest size by almost 40% in the last 50 years, and is on pace to reduce forests by the same amount in the coming 50 years, simply for the sake of generating grazing land.
5) Ethics: Factory Farms are cruel. You wouldn’t stick your dog in a carrying case for its entire life, nor would you simply snap off your cats claws. Yet the animals raised for meat in the US are subject to unimaginable forms of torture.
So there you have it. Meat causes big problems, and it’s something that I would like not to be a part of, at least for a while.