egan Resources
Vegan: A vegan diet excludes all animal products such as meat, fish, poultry, eggs, dairy products, honey, and any foods containing by-products of these ingredients.
Main Reasons to Go Veggie:
- According to the UN report “Livestock’s Long Shadow” and World Watch Institute's report "Livestock and Climate Change," livestock production is the greatest contributor to global warming.
- Animal waste and feed cropland dump more pollutants into our waterways than all other human activities combined.
- Meat-based diets require 10-20 times as much land as plant-based diets – nearly half of the world's grains & soybeans are fed to animals.
 Proportion of GHG emissions from different parts of livestock production LIVESTOCK EMISSION: 32.6 BILLION TONS OF CARBON DIOXIDE PER YEAR?  A report by the World Watch Institute, released in October of 2009, calculated that livestock emissions account for over 51% of the world'd total greenhouse gases, emitting over 32.6 billion tons emission in carbon dioxide equivalence. This is more than the total global transportation emissions: 13.5%, and all the fossil fuel stations combined. The contributing gases include:
Source: FAO, 2006 (1) |
- Leads to the emission of greenhouse gases with a warming potential equivalent to 36.4 kg of CO2 .
- Releases fertilising compounds equivalent to 340 g. of sulphur dioxide and 59 g. of phosphate.
- Consumes 169 megajoules of energy .
- 1 kg of beef is responsible for the equivalent of the amount of CO2 emitted by the average European car every 250 km, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for 20 days.
- Over two-thirds of the energy goes towards producing and transporting the animals' feed.
 Deforestation playing a major role in climate change. More than 300 experts stated, “If we lose the forests, we lose the fight against climate change.” But Amazon deforestation increases 69 percent due to demand for meat during Aug 2007 and Aug 2008 .
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Rising food prices have plunged an additional 75 million people below the hunger threshold, bringing the estimated number of undernourished people worldwide to 923 million in 2007.(1) But are we really short of food?
1/3 of the world’s cereal harvest and over 90% of soya is used for animal feed, despite inherent inefficiencies. Grain currently fed to livestock is enough to feed ２ billion people.
It takes 10 kg of animal feed to produce 1 kg of beef
4 to 5.5 kg of grain to produce 1 kg of pork
2.1 to 3 kg of grain to produce 1 kg of poultry meat
Source: FAO, 2006; CAST 1999; B. Parmentier, 2007
We are seeing severe drought with cracking lands, followed by massive flooding and destruction of agricultural products and other properties in an unprecedented scale.and every day, 30,000 children in the world die from diseases linked to water. (1) 70% of all water goes to producing food(3) and livestock is among the largest sectoral source of water pollution and responsible for 64% of ammonia emissions, which contribute to acid rain.
One factory farm creates more water pollution than the city of Houston, Texas.(4)
4664 liters of water to produce 1serving of beef but entire vegan meal need only 371 liters water.(5) Scientists have calculated that we would actually save more water by forgoing one pound of beef, or four hamburgers, than by not showering for at least six months (6)
The World is Running Out of Water - 70% of all water goes to producing food:
In the book Ecological Integrity: Integrating Environment, Conservation and Health, David Pimentel calculated the amount of water required to produce one pound of food
- 1 POUND OF POTATOES: 60 gallons of water
- 1 POUND OF WHEAT: 108 gallons of water
- 1 POUND OF CORN: 168 gallons of water
- 1 POUND OF RICE: 229 gallons of water
- 1 POUND OF SOYBEANS: 240 gallons of water
- 1 POUND OF BEEF: 12,009 gallons of water
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