(no subject)
my most recent thesis paper:
Tree hugger, idealist, hippie: you name it, the term "vegetarian" and/or "vegan" always ignites a fire of insults. Anywhere on the internet opinions can be found: "I dont thing the term veganism carries a negative connotation. I just thing vegans are idiots. Do you go thru all this avoidance of consuming animal products so that you dont 'hurt' the animals? Do you kill a roach when it gets in your house, or do you let it go free into the wild?" Much of these misconceptions are due to those practicing vegeratianism. They ride their high horses and wave their beliefs around, making a point of sticking out at restaurants or making sure all the "meat-eaters" know how pristine their bodies are. It can be perceived as a very selfish or downright obnoxious system of dos and don'ts. Fortunately, there is a lot more to a plant-based diet than saving the cute fuzzy animals.
With organic, animal-friendly supermarkets like Whole Foods in the Fortune 500, it is safe to say that most Americans in this day and age know how vegetarianism could benefits their bodies. According to the American Dietetic Association's website, "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, fiber, magnesium, potassium, folate, and antioxidants such as vitamins C and E and phytochemicals." Vegetarianism is known to lower levels of cholesterol, blood pressure, lower chances of heart disease, hypertension, some kinds of cancer, type 2 diabetes, e. coli and numerous other diseases and disorders related to diet. We see the reason PETA sells bumper stickers that say "BEEF: It's what's rotting in your colon", when the American Cancer Society's website warns "People (involved in a long-term study of nearly 149,000 adults between the ages of 50 and 74) who ate the most processed meats were 50% more likely to develop colon cancer and 20% more likely to develop rectal cancer compared to those who ate the least." All this known, there is still more to vegetarianism that makes it not a selfish nor an elitist life decision. Vegetarianism benefits more than the human body, it benefits society and the environment in which we live.
So how does eating lower on the food chain change the environment on a global scale? It is a vicious cycle: most of the natural resources on the planet are non-renewable or renew at a very slow rate. In turn, life needs land, food, water, and energy to survive. Raising animals that are intended for human consumption rapes the world of these precious natural resources. According to studies done at the Smithsonian Institute, the equivalent of seven football fields of land in the rainforest is bulldozed every minute in order to make more room for farmed animals (Science Daily Online). It is no secret to us how valuable the rain forest is, but what about American land? Of all the agricultural land in the United States, almost 80 percent is used in some way to raise animals, which is roughly half of the total land mass of the United States. Furthermore, over 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to grow grain to feed farmed animals (The Bay Weekly). From the Amazon to Asia, cattle farmers and sheep herders are tearing down more and more land to make room for animals raised specifically to be killed again. This land could easily be used to grow crops to feed human beings.
Many young Americans (or more accurately, their parents) spend thousands of dollars on a college education in hopes that the degree they earn will get them a job that will pay and re-pay for the cost of their education. So how does raising animals for food relate to this? Approximately 70 percent of grain grown in America goes to feed farmed animals. It takes approximately 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat. That simply does not compute. If we apply the way we think about college educations to the meat industry, we would not be throwing away thousands of pounds of grain for a few pounds of meat. "The world's cattle alone consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people-more than the entire human population on Earth" (Gold and Porritt, 22).
Along with food, water comes in to play in the animal-raising game in may ways: watering the crops used for food, drinking water for the animals themselves, and cleaning factory farms, trucks, and slaughterhouses. While we use this water for farm raising animals, organizations like The Global Partners for Development, The African Medical and Research Foundation, and the African Well Fund are fighting to give African villages a few gallons of drinkable water. Africa is not the only place in the battle for clean water; Turkey, Egypt, India and China are among the many other nations in need. The BBC news website reports of a world water crisis, saying "The world's supply of fresh water is running out. Already one person in five has no access to safe drinking water."
So if 80 percent of American farm land is used in some way to raise farmed animals, 70 percent of grain grown in America is used to feed farmed animals, and nearly half the water in the America goes to raising animals for food, guess where one third of all fossil fuels in America go? According to the Environmental magazine E, in the year 2002, that fuel went to the animal farming business. This would make sense being that energy is needed to do everything from clearing the land, to growing the crops needed to feed the animals, to transportation of crops and animals, slaughtering, processing, and refrigeration. All of the aforementioned stages of meat consumption equal the use of a whole lot of energy, non-renewable fuel, and pollution. So why do we insulate our houses or buy fuel efficient cars? We all know energy is a costly business. On the week of November 27, 2006 the average retail price of gasoline on the east coast was $2.227 per gallon (United States Energy Information Administration). That leaves some people paying up to $50 to fill their tanks for the week. Why waste this costly commodity for a side of chicken fries at Burger King?
Chicken is not all America is getting. Between all the cows, sheep, pigs, goats, and various other animals raised for food consumption, we are getting a "shitload" of excrement. This may not seem like a problem, until one thinks about where the two trillion pounds of excrement nationally produced (Scorecard Pollution Information), has to go: the air and the water. The bacteria, hormones, parasites, and other various forms of contaminants found in animal waste runs off into streams, rivers, lakes, the ocean, and so on. There is only so much water on the planet in it's various forms. We drink that water. Organisms live in that water. The excrement produced by large farms can wipe out entire ecosystems or contaminate the drinking water of an entire community. Unlike human waste in the United States, there are no laws or guidelines for how factories or farms treat and decontaminate water or of how they dispose of waste. Also, the digestion and release of animal excrement releases greenhouse gasses, mostly methane, into the atmosphere further depleting the ozone layer.
So whatever reason a person has, their choice of a greener life obviously benefits the world in many ways. Vegetarianism could be about fuzzy bunnies, a family tradition, a person's health, how they feel about Africa, or whatever. Vegetarianism is clearly a multifaceted way of living which benefits everything from the animals, to the individual, to the environment and humanity. It is a widely misunderstood and diverse way of life that deserves a second look before being slapped with a stereotype.
Ayres, Ed. "Visions of the 21st Century." Time. Time Magazine. Nov. 2006.
"Eating Lots of Red Meat Linked to Colon Cancer." American Cancer Society. 1 Nov. 2005. Nov. 2006.
Energy Information Administration. U.S. Governement. Nov. 2006.
Gold, Mark, and Jonathon Porritt. "The Global Benefits of Eating Less Meat." Compassion in World Farming Trust. 2004. Nov. 2006.
"Meat and the Environment." Go Veg. PETA. Nov. 2006.
Motavalli, Jim. "The Case Against Meat." E Magazine. Nov. 2006.
Nierenberg, Danielle. "Happier Meals: Rethinking the Global Meat Industry." Worldwatch Institute. Sept. 2005. 15 Nov. 2006.
"Pollution Rankings." Scorecard Pollution Information. Nov. 2006.
"Smithsonian Researchers Show Amazonian Deforestation Accelerating." Science Daily. 15 Jan. 2002. Smithsonian Institution. Nov. 2006.
"The Environmental Beef with Meat." The Chesapeake's Newspaper Online. Jan. 2003. Nov. 2006.
Vesterby, Marlow, and Kenneth S. Krupa. "Major Uses of the Land in the United States." USDA Statistical Bulletin. 1997. U S Department of Agriculture. Nov. 2006.