Plant Diet

Young woman on the marketWhy Live Plant Based Diet?

Seven kilograms of grain are required to produce 1 kilogram of beef; the conversion is 4-to-1 for pork and 2-to-1 for poultry. Each kilogram of meat represents several kilograms of grain that could be consumed directly by humans, not to mention the water and farmland required to grow the grain. To put this in uncomplicated terms, the beef in a Big Mac represents enough wheat to produce five loaves of bread.

Huge amounts of food – not to mention the water and farmland required to grow the food – can be freed up by modest reduction in meat production. For example, if the 670 million tons of the world’s grain that is fed to livestock were reduced by 10 percent, the resulting grain could feed 225 million people, or to keep up with growth in the human population over the next three years.

If each American reduced his or her meat consumption by just 5 percent, roughly equivalent to eating one less dish of meat each week, enough grain would be saved to feed 25 million people – the number estimated to go hungry in the United States each day.

The massive waste produced by livestock threatens waterways worldwide. In the United States, where 130 times more animal manure is produced than human waste – 5 tons for every U.S. citizen – animal waste is the principal source of water pollution. And livestock farms are getting larger throughout the world. Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin’s recent bill to reform livestock waste management estimates that one 50,000-acre hog farm under construction in Utah will produce more waste than the city of Los Angeles.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the world’s livestock herds are the largest source of human-induced emissions of methane – a potent greenhouse gas contributing to climate change.