1001 REASONS TO GO VEGETARIAN

PEOPLE

• Every year in the UK we feed our livestock enough food to feed 250,000,000 people while in the world 30,000,000 people die of starvation. 
• 20 vegetarians can live off the land required by one meat eater. 
• Every 3 seconds a child dies of starvation somewhere in the world. 
• 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. 
• In third world countries 1 in 10 babies die before their first birthday. 
• The UK imports £46,000,000 worth of grain from third world countries to feed our livestock. 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 16lbs of high protein soya to produce 1 lb of beef 
• Since 1945 in the UK we have lost 95% of flower meadows, 50% of ancient woodlands, 40% of heathlands, 50% of wet lands & 224,000 km of hedgerows all due to animal farming 
• Pressure on land due to meat farming leads to soil erosion 6billion tons/year in the USA 
• If everyone went vegetarian upto 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 they 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 to produce 1lb of wheat & 2500 gallons to produce 1lb of meat 
• UK farm animals produce 200,000,000 tonnes of slurry (liquid excrement) every year, the majority of which ends up in our rivers 
• Bloody waste water from abattoirs ends up in our rivers 
• 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 
• Meat & dairy farming uses 70 litres of water per day per animal in the UK or 159,250,000,000 litres per year in total 
• 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 water used to produce a 1000 lb beef steer is enough to float a Destroyer battleship 
• 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 1calorie 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 ( thats 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) 
• The EU spends œ100,000,000's to subsidise animal production resulting in lakes of unwanted milk & mountains of unwanted meat & butter. This money could be better spent encouraging organic fruit, vegetable & grain production 
• In the USA in 1979 145,000,000 tons of crops were fed to cattle resulting in only 21million tons of animal bodies - the cost of the wasted crops was $20,000,000,000 
• 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 agonising 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 upto 3 other birds, they are unable to even spread their wings & many can not 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 metre 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 were fed on the ground up remains of other cows & sheep - the result is thought to be BSE (mad cow disease) in the USA cattle are fed partly on recycled plastic pellets 
• 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 upto 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 
• "Animals are those unfortunate slaves & victims of the most brutal part of mankind" - John Stewart Mill (philosopher) 
• 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 organisation 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 upto 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 UK accounting for 50% of deaths) 
• 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 
• Of 2,100,000 deaths in the USA in 1987, 1,500,000 were related to diet (ie. meat & dairy) 

AND I COULD GO ON !

If you've read this far, I hope that you are beginning to see that the Meat & Dairy industry is a major contributor to misery on this planet. It is destroying the health of people in rich countries, starving those in poor countries, it is torturing & killing billions of animals every year and in the meantime it is one of the major factors in the destruction of the environment - so what does the meat & dairy industry have to say in it's defence?
Well their only real point is usually "Meat is tasty" - fair enough a lot of people enjoy the taste of meat - but there are plenty of delicious alternatives (just consider the huge range of vegetarian dishes in Indian cooking - one of the oldest & most sophisticated cuisines in the world) and if you really crave meat & dairy, nowadays there are plenty of healthy non animal alternatives - just look in the supermarket & health food shop. So I hope you will agree it's pretty pathetic to consider all the evidence & then say "well I know you're right about the environment & health & the animals - but I just love my meat"

In: http://www.flex.com/ edited and adapted to be posted by Leopoldo Costa