All kidding aside, some people give do up eating meat because they love animals. Others do it for health reasons. There are many health benefits to a vegetarian diet, but did you know that there are also benefits for the environment? The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations formed the Livestock, Environment and Development (LEAD) to study the impact of the livestock industry on the environment. The report released by LEAD was startling.
One way that cattle production impacts the environment is in the availability of fresh drinking water. It takes up to 1000 pounds of water to produce one pound of beef. This is forty to fifty times the amount of water needed to produce a pound of vegetable protein! As the human population of the planet continues to rise, the water supply remains finite. Fresh drinking water available for human consumption will become more and more scarce. Additionally, as the planet continues to heat up, weather patterns are shifting, making it harder and harder to find fresh water sources. The less water we can use in feeding ourselves, the more water will be available for other uses.
Carnivorous eating habits also contribute to the loss of woodlands and rain forests worldwide. Americans who eat meat are responsible for 1.5 more tons of carbon dioxide per year than those who don’t, according to a 2007 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Deforestation for the purpose of creating pastureland for grazing cattle plays a large part in this figure. Fewer trees mean more carbon dioxide.
The use of energy from fossil fuel power plants is also a major factor in beef production. The beef industry uses this energy to produce fertilizers used to grow grain for cattle, to pump water for the cattle, and to run slaughterhouses and processing plants. According to the FAO report, the beef industry is responsible for around 18% of greenhouse gas emissions. This is more greenhouse emission than caused by all other transportation put together. Researchers Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martinat the University of Chicago concluded that when weighing all the factors of the FAO report, the average meat-eating American produces 1.5 tons more of carbon dioxide than the average vegetarian American. Reducing our meat consumption can clearly cut down on greenhouse gases.
"It doesn't have to be all the way to the extreme end of vegan," says Dr. Eshel. "If you simply cut down from two burgers a week to one, you've already made a substantial difference."
You may read the LEAD report in its entirety here.
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