Vegetarianism & meat-eating

[mattemuse]

@Grey Acumen

Wasn’t there a huge e.coli scare on spinach a while back?

Yeah, caused by contamination from a beef cattle ranch that was leasing it’s fields to spinach growers.

Also it’s comically ignorant to imply that vegetable production doesn’t occur “on the same scale” as meat production.

[DansonDelta40]

From only one of dozens of vegetarian websites around the web:

One fourth of the world’s population uses as much as 86% of the non-renewable resources, while consuming one-half of the food.

Animals raised for food require extensive use of fossil fuels (transportation, heating, etc.) – eight times what is needed for grain production. In addition, large amounts of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers are used to grow the feed for these animals. This not only pollutes the land, but humans as well. Approximately 90% of the cropland in the United States alone is losing topsoil at thirteen times the sustainable rate under pressure to produce crops to feed animals.

Animal agriculture results in enormous amounts of water pollution, with some of them producing as much animal waste as an entire city. This results in emissions of methane gas (one of the “greenhouse gases”), which is a major contributor to global warming – a fact almost everyone in authority denies is happening. Methane gas traps 25 times as much heat as the carbon monoxide produced by cars – and 20% of that methane is produced by cattle. Ruminant animals release about 80 million tons of gas each year, just from natural expulsions, while animals in feedlots and farms emit another 35 million tons. Livestock alone accounts for 15-20% of global methane emissions.

In Brazil, grazing cattle are destroying rain forests at an alarming rate in order to meet the lucrative demand of meateaters.

Pesticides have rendered valuable land useless over time and are now lodged in the tissues of people living in every remote part of the world. As a result of environmental contamination, the concentrations of certain pesticides in human breast milk has exceeded the level legally permitted by the EPA. Cancer risk is greater for children as their bodies are much smaller and have a reduced capacity for handling all toxins that enter. One study revealed that American children receive 35% of their entire lifetime alottment of carcinogenic pesticides by the age of 5.

Disposing of waste has become a global concern, but it is seen most dramatically in countries that have a small area but a highly developed farming system, like Holland. There, farms produce 94 million tonnes of manure every year, but their land can absorb only 50 million tonnes. The waste is therefore illegally dumped, producing clouds of ammonia which poison trees and plants, while at the same time encouraging the growth of such unusable plants as nettles and brambles. Ammonia is another primary source of acid rain.

It takes 78 calories of fossil fuel to produce 1 calorie of protein from beef.

One acre of land (2½ acres equals 1 hectare):
a) Can produce enough feed for about 50 pounds of animal protein with only 15% of that available for human consumption.
b) Can feed 20 vegans or 1 meat eater.
c) Can produce enough soybeans to yield about 500 pounds of protein.
d) Can produce enough wheat to meet the protein requirements for one person for 877 days, whereas soybeans would produce enough protein for 2,224 days.
e) Can produce enough food to feed 4 vegans.
f) Can produce (in pounds): potatoes (40,000), onions (40,000), carrots (30,000), tomatoes (50,000), celery (60,000), beef (250).
g) Requires (in gallons of water): tomatoes (23), lettuce (23), potatoes (24), wheat (25), carrots (33), apples (49), eggs (544), chickens (815), pork (1630), beef (5214).

It requires substantially less water and land to produce the protein required by a vegetarian than it does for the meat eater.

It takes less water to produce the food required by a vegan for one year than to produce the food that a meat-eater needs for one month. For the vegetarian, 300 gallons of water per day will meet his needs, while the meat eater requires 2500 gallons of water per day.

On average it takes four pounds (approx. 2 kg.) of grain to produce one pound of beef. Feedlots require more – as much as eight to ten pounds more grain to produce that one edible pound of food.

Six pounds of feed will produce one pound of turkey meat.

For every 100 grams of plant food, only seven grams ends up as meat protein.

[danielsangeo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmK0bZl4ILM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1nxaQhsaaw

[mattemuse]

I predict a massive shitstorm of people calling you an asshole for pointing out facts, Danson. Of course nobody will claim the facts are wrong, just that you’re a douchebag for implying that they should be more socially conscious.

[DansonDelta40]

Well, I didn’t write that. These facts were found out by economists and ecologists, in short: scientists around the world.

People have always been called assholes for saying the truth and stating the obvious. I’ll survive that.

@danielsangeo: I agree that from the plants’ point of view, vegetarians are murderers. It’s not about ethical treatment of animals only - vegetarianism is more about not shitting in your neighbor’s backyard. It is not only more ecological (the word “logic” is in there for a reason), but also more economical.

[danielsangeo]

@DansonDelta40

Well, I didn’t write that. These facts were found out by economists and ecologists, in short: scientists around the world.

People have always been called assholes for saying the truth and stating the obvious. I’ll survive that.

Might be facts and the truth, but it’s one-sided and doesn’t tell the whole story. Modernity and the ballooning human population is the cause of it, not the eating of meat itself.

Remember: The monitor that you’re reading these words on contains dangerous amounts of mercury and other metals hazardous to human health.

[sersoft]

If eating meat made me feel sick I would surely become a vegetarian, I’m glad it doesn’t though.

[DansonDelta40]

Modernity and the ballooning human population is the cause of it, not the eating of meat itself.

Cause of what?

[danielsangeo]

@DansonDelta40

Cause of what?

Um, of the very things you and mattemuse are talking about?

[DansonDelta40]

Vegetarianism?

(Seriously, have you even been paying attention?)

[sersoft]

Vegetarianism and the cruel conditions for animals.

[danielsangeo]

@DansonDelta40

Vegetarianism?

(Seriously, have you even been paying attention?)

:facepalm:

No, of the conditions for animals and the raping of the land for them.

[DansonDelta40]

An increasing human population on earth is a good reason for vegetarianism, I’ll agree with that. The more people turn vegetarian, the easier it will be to feed an increasing amount of humans.

The raping of land and the cruel conditions for animals are needless and will, in the long run, only lead to environmental destruction, which will leave the human population starving to death and warring over fertile land, just as we did in the middle ages.

Ecological farming is so far the best alternative to that. In the EU, industrialized farming has proven to be unneccessary. A large amount of products cannot be exported or sold on the inner market, so it has to be bought by the state and put to waste, because otherwise industrialized farmers could not survive economically. The whole of Germany, however, as far as I know, could be fed perfectly if every acre that is now used by industrialized farmers would instead be used by ecological farmers. And nothing would have to be put to waste. Nor would there be such serious implications for our environment and fresh water supply.

Just an example.

[sersoft]

Come on, everyone turn vegetarian! Save the animals! (more meat for me )

[mattemuse]

@danielsangeo

Um, of the very things you and mattemuse are talking about?

I say this with all due respect, you haven’t been paying attention. Nobody has said anything about “the cruel conditions for animals” and “Modernity and the balooning of the human population” is 100% irrelevant to the fact DansonDelta posted: “One acre of land can feed 20 vegans or 1 meat eater.” Irrelevant except for the fact that a ballooning population makes it more important to feed more people, I guess.

[Schizophriend]

This song while I’m sitting here ON NOM NOM NOM NOMMING on bacon and steak.

[sersoft]

Someone already touched this subject but you do know if everyone turned vegetarian tomorrow an insane amount of people would be out of a job and the economy would be in trouble again.

All the people who are “senselessly killing innocent animals” are just supplying resources to meet demand.

[DansonDelta40]

@sersoft

Come on, everyone turn vegetarian! Save the animals! (more meat for me )

It wouldn’t be necessary for everybody to turn vegetarian in a society mainly fed by ecological farming, where cattle is used to refertilize land that has to recover from farming for a year.

However, eco-meat would be more rare and more expensive to produce, making it much more expensive (and healthy) to consume.

Average persons would be consuming meat and fish maybe twice a week, no more. Of course, this would immensely benefit their overall health…

@sersoft

Someone already touched this subject but you do know if everyone turned vegetarian tomorrow an insane amount of people would be out of a job and the economy would be in trouble again.

Good thing, then, that this does happen so slowly, huh? So the economy has time to gradually restructure itself to meet the new demands. What was your point again?

[waqwarrior]

I hate it when vegetarians try to convince you to be one of them dammit…

[DansonDelta40]

I am not trying to convince anybody here. I am just defending my way of life. You know - like the Christians and Muslims in the other threads are allowed to, as well.