Posts tagged "vegetarian"

As the world’s appetite for meat increases, countries across the globe are bulldozing huge swaths of land to make more room for animals as well as crops to feed them. From tropical rain forests in Brazil to ancient pine forests in China, entire ecosystems are being destroyed. • On 1 acre of land, you can grow 20,000 pounds of potatoes, or you can grow 165 pounds of beef in the same space. • More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to grow crops to feed animals who are raised for meat.

As the world’s appetite for meat increases, 
countries across the globe are bulldozing huge swaths of land 
to make more room for animals as well as crops to feed them. 
From tropical rain forests in Brazil to ancient pine forests in China, 
entire ecosystems are being destroyed. 

• On 1 acre of land, you can grow 20,000 pounds of potatoes, or you can grow 165 pounds of beef in the same space. 
• More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to grow crops to feed animals who are raised for meat.












The meat industry is a major cause of fresh water depletion. According to Ed Ayres, of the World Watch Institute, “Around the world, as more water is diverted to raising pigs and chickens instead of producing crops for direct consumption, millions of wells are going dry. India, China, North Africa and the U.S. are all running freshwater deficits, pumping more from their aquifers than rain can replenish.”  The great Ogallala aquifer, a resource that took a half million years to accumulate, will be depleted in less than 40 years. According to Ayres, “Pass up one hamburger, and you’ll save as much water as you save by taking 40 showers with a low-flow nozzle.”

The meat industry is a major cause of fresh water depletion. According to Ed Ayres, of the World Watch Institute, “Around the world, as more water is diverted to raising pigs and chickens instead of producing crops for direct consumption, millions of wells are going dry. India, China, North Africa and the U.S. are all running freshwater deficits, pumping more from their aquifers than rain can replenish.” 

The great Ogallala aquifer, a resource that took a half million years to accumulate, will be depleted in less than 40 years.

According to Ayres, “Pass up one hamburger, and you’ll save as much water as you save by taking 40 showers with a low-flow nozzle.”


“Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining from flesh? For my part I rather wonder both by what accident and in what state of soul or mind the first man did so, touched his mouth to gore and brought his lips to the flesh of a dead creature, he who set forth tables of dead, stale bodies and ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived. How could his eyes endure the slaughter when throats were slit and hides flayed and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose endure the stench? How was it that the pollution did not turn away his taste, which made contact with the sores of others and sucked juices and serums from mortal wounds?… It is certainly not lions and wolves that we eat out of self-defense; on the contrary, we ignore these and slaughter harmless, tame creatures without stings or teeth to harm us, creatures that, I swear, Nature appears to have produced for the sake of their beauty and grace. But nothing abashed us, not the flower-like tinting of the flesh, not the persuasiveness of the harmonious voice, not the cleanliness of their habits or the unusual intelligence that may be found in the poor wretches. No, for the sake of a little flesh we deprive them of sun, of light, of the duration of life to which they are entitled by birth and being.”

— Plutarch





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