Adopting a vegan diet to address climate change
Posted April 30th, 2008 by Anonymous
A meat eater riding a bike leaves bigger carbon footprint than a vegan driving a Hummer.
to find out more go to http://www.coolyourdiet.org/ or google meat and global warming.
Please consider the great connection the meat & dairy industry have to global warming and that adopting a vegan diet is probably the best action one can take to address climate change and reduce one's carbon footprint.
Some facts
* To produce 1 lb of meat, an average of 40 lbs of vegetation is used.
* 12 lbs of wheat produce 12 loaves of bread and only 1hamburger.
* It takes 3.25 acres of land to produce food for a meat eater on a continuing basis, while it takes 1/3 of an acre for someone eating a diet of plants and dairy and 1/6 of an acre for a person eating totally plant based diet (vegan).
* A University of California Study shows that to produce 1 lb of meat it takes an average of 2,500 gallons of water, it takes 966 gallons of water to produce one gallon of cow’s milk and on the other hand plant foods such as wheat, corn, apples etc. take 20 to 50 gallons of water to produce one pound of food.
* Eating food crops first hand produces a tremendous energy savings. To produce one pound of protein derived from beef requires 20 times as much fossil fuel energy as the same one pound of protein derived from corn or wheat. Protein from beef requires 40 times more fossil fuel energy than the same amount of protein derived from soybeans.
* The waste released in the atmosphere by the U.S. Meat and Dairy Industry is 230,000 pounds per second, thus polluting earth, air and water systems.
* It is estimated that it takes 75,000 trees to print a Sunday edition of The New York Times for the readers.
These staggering numbers are a wake up-call for us to make a difference now.
Human Welfare
* Twenty vegetarians can be fed on the amount of land needed to feed one person consuming a meat-based diet.
* If America reduced their intake of meat by 10 percent, 60 million people can be adequately fed by grain saved.
* A cow has to eat 7 lbs of grain and soy bean protein to produce 1 lb of meat protein. If the same land were to produce food for humans directly, 7 times more people could eat.
* More than half of all the water used in the United States is used in live stock production that can be used where there is water shortage.
When we become aware of these facts and change our lifestyle and go vegan (or at least vegetarian) we can increase the amount of grain available to feed people elsewhere, reduce pollution, save water and energy, cease contributing to the clearing of forests and the most important we can save thousands of sentient beings from torture and pain.
Today the dairy cows have become milking machines for human beings. The cows are kept pregnant every year for a consecutive 9-10 year period by artificial insemination. As soon as the cows stop yielding milk, they are dragged to the slaughter house for beef meat. Poor calves are forcefully dragged away from their mothers, depriving them of their mother’s milk that is rightfully theirs. If the calves are female they are raised as dairy cows and are exploited as their mothers and at the end face the same fate as them. If the calves are male they are fattened by hormone injections and kept in dark sheds away from sunlight in oppressed conditions, preparing them for veal meat. This ultimately ends the lives of the cows and calves prematurely and cruelly.
Misinformation
Both the original post and the follow up comment by ”Idontgetyoulot” contain misinformation that needs correcting. For anyone interested in the links between diet and climate change/environmental damage, one of the more reliable sources of information is the UN’s livestock’s long shadow report. Below is a summary of the reports findings:
"The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity."
“Idontgetyoulot” comes to this thread to counter what he perceives to be incorrect information with even more incorrect information. The most outrageous being these two zingers:
“vegan diets are not healthy for a human being.”
&
“Secondly - Vegans are one of the most unhealthy people around. They are low in essential vitamins, like iron and zinc which you cannot get from nuts and vegetables. You are more susceptable to diseases, and viruses - like the common cold.”
The American & Canadian Dietetic associations position paper on vegetarian diets:
“Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life-cycle including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence. Vegetarian diets offer a number of nutritional benefits including lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein as well as higher levels of carbohydrates, fibre, magnesium, potassium, folate, antioxidants such as vitamins C and E, and phytochemicals.”
For the record, iron and zinc are minerals, not vitamins, and most certainly are available from nuts, vegetables, legumes and grains.
As to dairy cows: They are impregnated every year, either by artificial insemination or by an actual bull. Calves are fed a partial milk replacement, and are removed from their mothers shortly after birth and all the males and some of the females will be killed for veal. As far as I know hormones aren’t used for cows/bulls in Australia, I’m not sure on the legal status of RGBH.
Your ancestors were meat eaters - so whats your problem with it?
Our ancestors (broadly speaking) fought wars, used slaves, treated women, people of colour and the lower classes as lesser human beings and brought us to where we are today. Tradition doesn’t justify anything, it has to be judged on its own merits.
Position paper on vegetarian diets:
http://www.dietitians.ca/news/downloads/vegetarian_position_paper_2003.pdf
livestock's long shadow UN report:
http://www.virtualcentre.org/en/library/key_pub/longshad/A0701E00.htm
Wake up to yourselves.
Ok, I had to register to comment on this thread. One, to argue against some of what has been said and two point out why vegan diets are not healthy for a human being.
On the first note - to argue against some of these things that were said. "A meat eater riding bike leaves a bigger carbon footprint than a vegan driving a hummer" - what drugs are you on? One person does not account for the whole industry - thats just being a hypocrit with that statement. I do not disagree that it takes more to produce meat products, but how does that contribute to clearing of forests? We have the land we need already to farm, forests are logged to create paper and other products similar to this. And the whole thing about dairy cows? Wow, have you never been in that industry. Cows are not kept pregnant every year - once a year they will produce a calf, and for a minimum of 3 months before that, the cow is dried off (stop her producing milk) and she gets put out to pasture for a period,and is put with a real bull - which can be much worse than AI. Which is used mostly for very expensive bulls or ones that are deceased and have a very good pedigree. And as for the calves being taken away from their mothers and "Depriving" them of milk - yes they are taken away, but they still get milk. A full grown Fresian produces between 3-7 litres of milk EACH TIME SHES MILKED - which is far too much for a calf. As for hormone injections for the males, very few people do this. grain is a far cheaper option than hormones will ever be.
Secondly - Vegans are one of the most unhealthy people around. They are low in essential vitamins, like iron and zinc which you cannot get from nuts and vegetables. You are more susceptable to diseases, and viruses - like the common cold.
Your ancestors were meat eaters - so whats your problem with it?
thanks for your thoughts
thanks for your thoughts.
i think peoples' bodies have different needs. i know some vegans and they are a lot (a lot, a lot ;-) healthier than me! One of my friends recently was diagnosed with a long-term illness and her GP actually recommended a vegan straight edge diet!
the first post provoked a response - it probably would for a lot of people - maybe parts of it were even wrong. (it looks like it's from the U.S., not Australia). it didn't acknowledge that peoples' bodies are different and have different needs, the availability of food and impact of eating meat in other areas (like eating kangaroo or other animals in the central desert, for example) and also peoples' rights to practice their culture (which sometimes involves eating meat).
the point of it for me is - Australians are the highest per capita emitters of greenhouse gases in the world. And that's before counting emissions from our coal exports! We live, consume and pollute well beyond our means. Our agricultural system is really greenhouse intensive - particularly dairy farming and beef production. Solutions to climate change don't just look at how to prevent runaway climate change - but how to so in a way that is fair and just. We should be identifying what an equitable distribution of the atmosphere would be, and aim to dramatically bring down Australia's emissions - and our personal emissions. For many people, particularly those living no the east coast, this could mean eating a lot less meat, locally grown food that is in season (and not getting oranges from California!)