10 Environmental Reasons To Go Vegan

Animal agriculture takes a heavy toll on the evironment. Here are some of the consequences.

1. Since 1967, forests have been destroyed at a rate of 1 acre every 5 seconds to create grazing land for beef cattle to ensure a continuous supply of inexpensive meat for our fast-food restaurants.
2. Economists estimate that for every person who switches to a vegan diet, 1 acre of trees is spared each year.
3. Runoff from animal waste is linked to a 7,000-square-mile "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico that no longer supports aquatic life.
4. At the present rate, many rain forests -- a natural resource on which we rely for everything from lifesaving medicines to the very air we breathe -- will be gone in 30 years.
5. Livestock produces 7 trillion tons of manure every year, and it all finds its way into our water system.
6. Sixty percent of all water used in America is used for meat production.
7. It takes 16 pounds of grain and 2,500 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat. Yet 16 people can be fed on the grain it takes to produce that pound of meat. Growing that amount of grain requires only 250 gallons of water.
8. Countries such as Ethiopia and some Central American countries use their farmland to supply the United States with cheap burgers instead of growing healthful grain foods for their own starving people. Every 2 seconds, a child starves to death somewhere in the world.
9. The livestock population of the United States consumes enough grain and soybeans to feed more than 5 times its human population. Ninety percent of all corn grown in the United States goes to livestock. Eighty percent of all grain and beans go to feed these animals.
10. Food grown directly for human consumption occupies 60 million acres. Food grown to feed livestock occupies 1.2 billion acres.

Source: Vegan Planet, Robin Robertson