Green Living: The Environmental Benefits Of A Vegetarian Diet

When I was in college, I read Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe and my way of looking at world resources was forever changed. I soon became a vegetarian. My personal reasons for becoming a vegetarian included a love of animals and a desire not to eat them, but I was also strongly influenced by Lappe’s arguments about the effective use of planetary resources.

The statistic that startled me into recognizing the consequences of being a meat eater was this one: producing 1 pound of beef consumes 7 pounds of grain. Why is this significant? 1 in 7 people in the world do not get enough to eat to enable them to be healthy and live an active life, according to the UN’s World Food Programme. Yet the wealthier a nation becomes, the more meat its citizens demand. More land is cleared to plant more grain which is consumed by livestock used to satisfy the increased demand for meat, instead of the grain being used to feed the world’s poorest citizens.

Meat Based Diets Require Vast Natural Resources

Food scarcity is not the only consequence of meat based diets, however. What we humans choose to eat has a dramatic impact on the environment. Livestock production consumes triple the natural resources that producing a vegetarian diet does.
Thirty percent of the world’s land is used for agricultural production; 70% of that amount is devoted to livestock production.

When it comes to growing food, a vegetarian diet requires only half the farmland that a meat rich diet requires. And, the production of a vegetarian diet likewise consumes far less water than a meat diet. The growth of livestock is responsible for 8% of the world’s water consumption and is classified as the single most water intensive human activity. According to the Vegetarian Society of the UK, it takes from 13,000 to 100,000 kilos of water to produce a single kilo of beef. Growing wheat requires only 1,000 to 2,000 kilos of water.

Livestock Farming Is a Key Contributor to Global Warming

The major greenhouse gases that cause global warming are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone and chlorofluorocarbons. Livestock production is a major contributor to two of these greenhouse gases, methane and nitrous oxide.

Farm animals are responsible for 18% of methane emissions, according to the Vegetarian Society.
The major human directed cause of nitrous oxide emissions, 65%, is the keeping of livestock.

Livestock Farming Means More Acid Rain

Livestock are also a major producer of ammonia, the culprit behind acid rain. 65% of atmospheric ammonia stems from livestock farming, according to the Vegetarian Society of the UK.

Livestock Farming Contaminates Water

Not only does the livestock industry consume excess water, it contaminates the water supply; animal manure increases the nitrogen level in water, leading to oxygen deprived dead zones.

Becoming a vegetarian or reducing meat consumption is one green living choice that can make a substantial impact.