3 Reasons to Eat Less Meat--Part 2

Yesterday, I subjected you to the horrors of factory farming. Hopefully, it got you thinking seriously about reducing your meat consumption. But if animal cruelty and the absence of respect for farm animals isn’t enough to get you taking action and cutting back, maybe an environmental issue can help move you in that direction.

Factory farming is terrible for the environment. The amount of product is disproportionate to the resources required to produce it. You could say that the cost is too high for such a small product.

I’ll get right down and dirty and give you the facts:

· Half of all water used in the United States goes toward animal agriculture, either through watering the animals, watering the grain for the feed, or being used in the farms and slaughterhouses.
· 70% of all grain produced in the U.S. is used for animal agriculture. Scientists at Cornell estimate that the grain used for the meat industry each year could feed 800 million people for that year.
· To produce that one pound of ground beef for your Hamburger Helper, it cost 2,400 gallons of water (the rough equivalent of running your shower for 25 hours—do the math and see how many showers you can take in 25 hours) and 7 pounds of grain. Add into that the average American consumption of 97 pounds of beef annually, and one person alone requires 232,800 gallons of water and 679 pounds of grain just to eat beef. This doesn’t include the 176 pounds of white meat consumed each year by the average American.
· Each day, more and more forests are being cleared in order to make room for factory farms or to produce grain to support these farms. This leads to soil erosion, habitat loss, and endangerment and even extinction of species.
· Farm animals create 130 times more excrement than the human population. In areas around factory farms, the soil and water sources are poisoned by the excrement. Millions of fish are killed by this poisoning each year and the soil will likely not be able to support vegetation for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years.
· Gasses given off by the animals and their excrement include hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, as well as two major gasses involved in global warming: methane and nitrous oxide.
· Producing one pound of chicken produces the same amount of carbon dioxide as the average daily output of 250,000 American drivers. If a family of four forgoes one chicken dinner, it is the same carbon dioxide savings as taking 375,000-500,000 cars off of the road for a day.

Just to let you know, I used the most conservative statistics out there. For example, the amount of water necessary to produce a pound of beef varied between 2,400 and 8,000 depending on the source. A five-minute shower uses between 4 and 8 gallons of water, so I calculated the time using the larger amount. All of my information here is the low end of the spectrum.

I also find it interesting to note that when conducting biosphere experiments, the scientists involved did not raise livestock. Since they would have to use water and space to grow the food to feed themselves and the animals, then use more water and space to raise the animals, it was determined that they were better off simply using water to grow the food for themselves. The added bonus was that they didn’t have to find ways to dispose of excrement and counteract gasses produced by the excrement and the animals themselves. So, a group of scientists whose entire purpose was to create a sustainable environment chose a vegetarian diet for purely environmental reasons. I think that says a lot.

Agriculturists and scientists all agree that grazing animals in a pasture is better for the environment. I’m sure the animals would agree. But as long as we keep the demand high, factory farming will remain big business.

Here are some good sites if you want to know more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_vegetarianism
http://www.organicconsumers.org/Toxic/factoryfarm.cfm
http://www.goveg.com/environment.asp