Now more than ever a vegetarian diet is an option worth considering for those wanting to substantially reduce their carbon footprint. Many people who adopt a vegetarian diet are motivated by a desire to live with greater respect and feelings of protection for the animals and the Earth’s resources.
How a vegetarian lifestyle supports the environment:
- Worthwhile use of food: a steer that provides 200 kg of meat enables the preparation of about 1500 meals; with the cereal it ate, about 18000 meals could have been made.
- Worthwhile use of water: 1 kilo of meat requires at least 15000 – 30000 litres; 1 kilo of wheat requires at least 1000 litres.
- Worthwhile use of soil: a field of land can produce 6000 kg carrots, or 4000 kg apples, or 1000 kg cherries, or only 50 kg beef.
- Preventing deforestation: about 70% of arable land on earth is used for cattle-raising and growing cereals to feed them; enough land to feed the whole world population many times vegetarian; but even now, every minute, man destroys an area of forest equivalent to 5 football fields.
- Preventing air and water pollution: about 50% of water pollution in Europe is due to intensive animal farming; the pollution comes from slurry, manure and chemical fertilizers; every day, 2 million tons of this waste pollutes the Earth’s water.
By adopting a vegetarian lifestyle, more land, more water, and more food is available and less nature is destroyed or polluted. Sources:
“Livestock’s Long Shadow (2006) – FAO, For the environment Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases (1990) – W.H.O.
"Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances of survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." Albert Einstein