Meat is inefficient

We live in a world where the population is rising rapidly, and at the same time is getting wealthier. Both of these trends lead to rises in consumption of food, and especially in foods that are more expensive such a meat. However meat is unsustainable as a food source for humanity. Most livestock are not are not pasture fed but are fed grain and soya. A pound of beef takes 7 pounds of feed to produce. For pork, the ratio is 1 to 3; and for chicken, 1 to 2.[[Moises Velasquez-Manoff, Diet for a more crowded planet: Plants, Christian Science Monitor, 18th July 2008, http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/217/46216.html%5D%5D None of these ratios are sustainable for a planet where we need to feed more people, and where we need to reduce CO2 emissions so can’t keep chopping down rainforests to convert to pastures for grazing. The amount of nutrients one would acquire by eating the grain and soya directly is far greater than that achieved by feeding it to livestock. Indeed if everyone ate the same amount of meat as Americans do our current harvests would only sustain a global population of 2.5billion people whereas we have a population of 6.5 billion people. In short we need to eat vegetables not meat. The warning about meat and the environment isn't coming from crazed hippies. It's coming from people like the head of the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who has openly identified eating less meat as an important step in combatting climate change. Why? Because cows are more damaging than cars. Livestock production requires enormous amounts of energy. We put far more energy into animals per unit of food than we do for any plant crop. The main reason is that cattle consume 16 times as much grain as they produce as meat, so right there we have 16 times as much energy just to grow those crops, just so we can waste them on livestock. But the energy use doesn't end there. The livestock themselves take energy to process beyond the energy that goes into their feed. And then there's refrigeration, including during transport, necessary for meat but not for grains and beans. And then there's the transportation itself. Wasting energy isn't problematic just because there's less and less of it to go around. (We've already used more than half the oil that exists on the planet.) It's also a problem because burning fossil fuels contributes to global warming. And raising animals for food is the driving force. As the U.K.'s Independent put it: "Livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together." That figure comes from no less authority than the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. WATER Meat production requires so much water it's hard to comprehend. , a pound of potatoes takes 99.6% less water to produce than a pound of beef, and 97% less than a ound of chicken. If you gave up showering, you'd save less water than what's required to make a single pound of beef. Not beef for a whole year, just one miserable pound. A whole year's worth of showers takes about 5,200 gallons, but it takes 5,214 gallons to produce a single pound of beef. you gave up beef, you'd save over 300,000 gallons a year. A whole lot more than you could save by never showering. When land is used to raise animals instead of crops, precious water and soil are lost, trees are cut down to make land for grazing or factory-farm sheds, and untreated animal waste pollutes rivers and streams. In fact, it has such a devastating effect on all aspects of our environment that the Union of Concerned Scientists lists meat-eating as the second-biggest environmental hazard facing the Earth. (Number one is fossil-fuel vehicles). No wonder, when you consider facts like these: * Cows must consume 16 pounds of vegetation in order to convert them into 1 pound of flesh. Raising animals for food consumes more than half of all water used in the U.S. It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat, but only 25 gallons to produce a pound of wheat. A totally vegetarian diet equires 300 gallons of water per day, while a meat-eating diet requires more than 4,000 gallons of water per day. * Producing just one hamburger uses enough fossil fuel to drive a small car 20 miles. Of all raw materials and fossil fuels used in the U.S., more than one-third are used to raise animals for food. * A typical pig factory generates the same amount of raw waste as a city of 12,000 people. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, raising animals for food is the number one source of water pollution. * Of all agricultural land in the U.S., 87 percent is used to raise animals for food. That’s 45 percent of the total land mass in the U.S. About 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to create cropland to produce feed for animals raised for food. The meat industry is directly responsible for 85 percent of all soil erosion in the U.S. * More than 80 percent of the corn we grow and more than 95 percent of the oats are fed to livestock. 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. According to the Worldwatch Institute, "Roughly 2 of every 5 tons of grain produced in the world is fed to livestock, poultry, or fish; decreasing consumption of these products, especially of beef, could free up massive quantities of grain and reduce pressure on land." To produce 1 lb. of feedlot beef requires 7 lbs. of feed grain, which takes 7,000 lbs. of water to grow." Note that he equates 7,000 pounds of water to raising just one pound of beef to maturity. Considering many feedlot cows can end up weighing well over 1,000 pounds, it's not hard to see how much water is used to simply fatten up cows for slaughter. Some people don't know that methane is also a large contributor to global warming. The Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook cites John Robbins's arguments that cattle on the planet "produce nearly 100 million tons of methane." The first is that land (such as rainforest) is cleared to grow grain to feed cattle; the second is that land is also cleared to raise cattle. They mention that one "third of the world’s land suitable for growing crops is used to produce feed for farmed animals." It is "inefficient" to use land to feed animals that become food for human beings when using the land to directly feed people would result in more food and less land use.