ENVIRONMENT:
- 260 million acres of US forests are cleared for cropland to produce meat-centered diets
-Each Vegetarian saves one acre of trees every year
-One acre of land used for cattle can produce less than 1 percent of the food produced in one acre used for growing vegetables
-Gallons to produce a pound of wheat: 25
-Gallons to produce a pound of meat: 2,500
-Years the world''s known oil reserves would last if every human ate a meat-centered diet: 13
-Years they would last if human beings no longer ate meat: 260.
-Percentage of raw materials consumed by U.S. to produce present meat-centered diet: 33
-Pesticide contamination of breast milk from meat-eating mothers vs. non-meat eating: 35 times higher
-Amount of water used in production of the average steer: sufficient to float a destroyer.
-Every day animals raised for food in the U.S. produce more than 20 billion pounds of waste-thats 250,000 pounds per second!Much of this flows into streams, and rivers.
-Its estimated that one farm owning 2,500 pigs will produce 125 million gallons of waste per year!
-Its also estimated that one farm with 25,000 chickens produces 150 TONS of litter per year!
ETHICAL:
- 500,000 animals are killed for meat every hour in the US alone
- Cost to render animal unconsious with "captive bolt pistal" before slaughter: 1 cent
-Reason given by meat industry for not using "captive bolt pistal": too expensive
-Pigs are kept in small cages with barely any room to move, and may never see day light until they are sent to be slaughtered
-The rails on the floors of metal cages chickens are cramed in cause there claws to become mangled
-According to PETA, the average meat eater is responsible for the suffering and deaths of more than 2,400 animals in a lifetime.
WORLD HUNGER:
- 60 million people will die from starvation this year
- 60 million people could be fed with the grain saved if Americans reduced their intake of meat by 10%
- Every 2 seconds a child starves to death
- 20,000 lbs of potatoes can be grown in 1 acre
- 165 lbs of beef can be produced in 1 acre
- It takes 16 lbs of grain and soybeans to make 1 lb of beef, when that protien could be fed to the person directly
21 REASONS for being VEGETERIAN