-
Chinese people (living mainly on a vegetarian diet) consume 20% more calories than Americans and yet Americans are 20% fatter
-
Period: to
Our health;
-
Of 2,100,000 deaths in the USA in 1987, 1,500,000 were related to diet (ie. meat & dairy)
-
80% of food poisoning is due to infected meat, most of the rest is due to salmonella in eggs.
-
Farmed animals contain up to 50% saturated fat in their bodies.
-
Fish contain heavy metals & other pollutants -many of which originated on farms.
-
Meat is full of traces of antibiotics, hormones, toxins produced by stress & pesticide residues that become concentrated from all the crops they have eaten.
-
In the UK animals are killed by first being stunned with electricity or a captive bolt gun (ie. a bolt is fired into their heads) before having their throats slit & being plunged into boiling water – all this happens on a production line with the animals
-
Period: to
Our Animals;
-
Cows naturally produce 5 litres of milk per day for their calves – under the intensified systems of modern farming they produce 25-40 litres per day – resulting in swollen & inflamed udders – at this rate they are soon worn out
-
Cows were fed on the ground up remains of other cows & sheep – the result is thought to be BSE (mad cow disease) in the USA cattle are fed partly on recycled plastic pellets.
-
4000 animals die spurting their blood out every minute in a British slaughterhouse
-
Chicks are debeaked without anaesthetic to prevent them injuring each other in the unnaturally confined conditions they are kept in – this is equivalent to having your fingernails pulled out without anaesthetic.
-
Fishermen’s nets kill 10 times as many other animals as the fish they are hoping to catch.
-
70% of all grain are fed to animals
Between 1950 & 1985 grain production in Europe & the USA increased massively but 2/3 was fed to animals. That's alot less for us humans, don't cha think? -
Period: to
Our Efficiency;
-
In the USA in 1979 145,000,000 tons of crops were fed to cattle resulting in only 21million tons of animal bodies – the cost of the wasted crops was $20,000,000,000
-
Meat & dairy farming uses billions of gallons of oil to run tractors, fuel ships & lorries (to move animal feed & animals), pump billions of gallons of water to irrigate fields & run slaughterhouses, power refrigeration units to prevent the corpses from d
-
If the full ecological cost of meat was passed onto the consumer – the price would be quadrupled (at least)
-
The EC spends $100,000,000’s to subsidise animal production, resulting in lakes of unwanted milk & mountains of unwanted meat & butter. This money could be better spent encouraging organic fruit, vegetable & grain production.
-
To produce 1 calorie of energy from meat it takes 60 calories of petrol, whereas growing grains & legumes to directly feed people produces 20 calories for each calorie of fuel used
-
The liquid waste from the various parts of the meat & dairy industry flow into the rivers & from there into the seas polluting them & encouraging huge algal blooms to grow
-
Period: to
Our Water;
-
18% of all agricultural land in the world is irrigated & as global warming increases (partly due to animal farming) it will cost $200,000,000 to keep these systems going.
The water used to produce a 1000 lb beef steer is enough to float a Destroyer battleship - that's insane. -
Aquafers (stores of underground water) in the San Joaquin valley in the USA are being drained at the rate of 500,000,000,000 gallons/year to produce meat
And depletion of groundwater reserves to grow crops for animals & to supply abattoirs will lead to greater water shortages. -
The water used to produce 10 lbs of steak is equivalent to the average consumption of water for an entire household for an entire year.
-
In the USA every second humans produce 12,000 lbs of effluent while farmed animals produce 250,000 lbs
Bloody waste water from abattoirs ends up in our rivers. Nitrates & pesticides used on crops grown to feed livestock also end up in our rivers. -
It takes 25 gallons of water to produce 1lb of wheat, while it takes 2500 gallons to produce 1lb of meat.
-
CO2 is released by burning oil & petrol in lorries, ships, abattoirs, dairies, factories etc. associated with meat & dairy production.
And emissions from large chemical plants which produce fertilizer, weedkiller & other agricultural chemicals are also poisoning our air. -
Period: to
Our Air;
-
25% of methane emissions are due to animal farming (not including the billions of sheep, pigs & poultry so the real figure is much higher)
-
The 1,300,000,000 cattle in the world emit 60,000,000 tons of methane per year (methane is a greenhouse gas & leads to global warming)
-
The destruction of the rainforest by cattle farmers is destroying the lungs of the planet & reducing the worlds capacity to replenish our oxygen supply.
-
Burning of forests, grasslands & agricultural waste associated with animal farming releases 50-100,000,000 tons of methane per year.
-
Ammonia from animal urine pollutes the atmosphere.
-
If they continue to clear American forests to raise cattle at the present rate, in 50 years there will be none left.
-
Period: to
Our Land;
-
8/10 of cultivated land in the UK is used to grow food for animals (14,732,000 hectares)
-
Since 1945 in the UK we have lost 95% of flower meadows, 50% of ancient woodlands, 40% of heathlands, 50% of wet lands & 224,000 km of hedgerows all due to animal farming.
-
Pressure on land due to meat farming leads to soil erosion 6billion tons/year in the USA
If everyone went vegetarian up to 90% of land used for animal farming could be taken out of production & used to replant woodlands, leisure activities etc. -
Between 1966-1983 38% of the Amazon rain forest was destroyed for cattle grazing...
And 25% of Central america’s forests have been destroyed for cattle grazing since 1960, also. -
90% of cattle ranches established on cleared forest land go bankrupt in less than 8 years as the land becomes barren due to nutrient loss & overgrazing.
An inch of topsoil takes 200-1000 years to develop – yet in the USA they have lost around 1/3 of their prime topsoil in 200 years (around 7 inches) due to animal farming -
Due to overgrazing, 850,000,000 people live on land threatened by desertification & over 230,000,000 already live on land so severely desertified that they are unable to sustain their existence & face imminent starvation.
-
Period: to
Our People;
-
The UK imports $46,000,000 worth of grain from third world countries to feed our livestock...
In third world countries like this, every 1 in 10 babies die before their first birthday. -
Intensification in animal farming has displaced 1,000,000’s of people from their traditional lands – eg. indigenous people in south & central America, native Americans in north America & crofters in Great Britain – this is continuing today
People displaced from their lands into cities succumb to dietary deficiency, diseases, parasites & opportunistic diseases. -
Every 3 seconds a child dies of starvation somewhere in the world.
20 vegetarians can live off the land required by one meat eater. -
Every year in the UK we feed our livestock enough food to feed 250,000,000 people while in the world 30,000,000 people die of starvation.
-
1,000,000,000 people in the west gorging on meat & dairy leave 1,000,000,000 to waste away & 3,500,000,000 teeter on the brink.
