Is it for real? Here's the scoop: you can produce approximately ten times as much usable protein on a plot of land by raising crops like soybeans rather than cattle. And that's just for starters: superfoods like spirulina can produce even more protein per acre (if sufficient water supplies are available, that is). Supergrains like quinoa offer outstanding yields and provide a complete, high-quality protein at a fraction of the cost of producing beef, pork or chicken. So, if you just look at the usage of land, it's easy to see that you can feed ten times as many people on these high-protein crops compared with meat.
Then, there's the environmental impact of raising so many animals for food in the first place. Thousands of acres of rainforest continue to be cleared in South America in order to convert jungle to grazing land for cattle. That alone is alarming, and yet that's only the beginning. Cows, chickens and pigs produce waste on a massive scale, and that waste is often drained directly into rivers or -- this is true -- fed back to other animals. For example, the FDA stands firmly behind the practice of feeding chicken litter to cows. In the Southern state of the U.S., this practice is commonplace. Yes, you heard it right: cows' are fed chicken droppings. And the FDA completely supports the practice for one simple reason: there's no other way to get rid of all that chicken shit! Then, there's the use of water. Animals drink enormous quantities of water while they grow. As water becomes increasingly scarce in decades to come, this will become an issue of great contention.
So, it seems that from an environmental point of view, responsible citizens should greatly curb their consumption of animal protein. The same holds true from a nutritional point of view as well: animal sources of food have no fiber, no phytochemicals, are high in saturated fat, are seriously deficient in many vitamins, and are calorie dense. Low-carb dieters take note: there are other ways to get your protein than eating a cow every month. Quinoa, spirulina, whey protein and soy are all excellent alternatives to eating animals.
Finally, there's the ethics of eating meat. One of the reasons I don't eat red meat in particular is because red meat comes from intelligent mammals: cows and pigs. These beings have social structures, they communicate with each other, and they most definitely feel pain. To raise an intelligent animal for no purpose other than to slaughter it and sell its flesh is, in my opinion, evil. The further you go down the scale of intelligence, the less evil this becomes. Killing a chicken and eating it is not so evil, since chickens don't have the intelligence of cows and pigs. Consuming bacteria (in yogurt, for example) is not at all evil, since bacteria are not capable of feeling pain, it seems. But pigs? Pigs are as intelligent as dogs. Would you slaughter your pet dog and eat it? If not, then why would you support the slaughter of animals with similar intelligence? And remember: every time you buy bacon or sausage, you are indirectly slaughtering another pig, another intelligent being. It isn't just the slaughter, either: it's the conditions in which these animals are raised. Conditions are atrocious and inhumane. Animals suffer greatly, and death is their only escape from commercial meat ranches where nothing -- especially not ethics -- stands in the way of profits.
What do you think? Do you believe mammals have souls? Do you think cows and pigs are capable of feeling and understanding pain? Does your pet dog understand pain? Can the planet sustain a population that consumes large quantities of animal protein? How could societies shift to plant sources of protein? Give it some thought.