ENVIROMENTAL IMPACT OF A FLESH DIET

Does a meat eating diet make sense for our environment? – Source Tony Robins

A. IS IT AN EFFICIENT WAY OF FEEDING THE POPULATION OF THE WORLD AND USING OUR RESOURCES?

1. The livestock population of the U.S. consumes enough grain and soybeans to feed the entire human
population of the U.S. 5 times over.
2. Cycling our grain through Livestock we receive only 10% of the available calories.
3. For every is pounds of grain and soybeans, we get back just one pound of meat.
4. To supply one meat-diet based person for one year requires 3 1/4 acres. To supply one lacto-ovo vegetarian
for one year requires 1/2 acres.To supply one pure vegetarian for one year requires 1/6 acres.
5. If Americans reduced meat consumption just 10%, it would free 12 million tons of grain annually for human
consumption. That 12 million tons would entirely feed the 60 million people who will starve to death on this
planet this year.

B. WHAT'S THE IMPACT OF A MEAT-BASED DIET ON THE RESOURCES OF OUR PLANET?

1. Two hundred years ago America's topsoil was 21 inches deep, now it's only 8.
2. The topsoil, the dark, nutrient rich soil plants grow in, requires 500 years to replace one inch.
3. In 200 years we have destroyed 7500 years of topsoil. 85% directly related to cattle farming.
4. The rate of deforestation in the world is now more than one acre every five seconds,
5. One acre of land can produce 20,000 pounds of potatoes or 165 pounds of beef.

B. HOW DOES WHAT YOU CHOOSE TO EAT FOR DINNER TONIGHT AFFECT WATER SHORTAGES?

1. Over half the water in our country is used to grow feed and fodder for livestock
2. If cattle farmers in California reduced their water use just 6% it would be the equivalent of a 75% reduction
in domestic use.
3. The water required to raise a 1000 pound steer would float a destroyer.
4. If the water needed to produce a pound of beef were not subsidised, the cheapest ham burger meat would
run $35 a pound.
5. In the Pacific Northwest water is diverted for raising cattle, substantially depleting the area's main source of
hydroelectric power.

B. ARE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT POLLUTION, OUR DEPENDENCY ON FOREIGN OIL, AND/OR STARVING CHILDREN?

1. Every 24 hours, the livestock of the U.S. produce twenty billion pounds of waste, or 250.000 pounds of
excrement a second. That's twenty times what the human population of the U.S. produces.·
2. The production of meat, dairy and eggs requires one-third of all raw materials used for all purposes in the
United States.
3. Corn and wheat provide 22 times more protein per calorie of fossil fuel expended than does feedlot beef.
Soybeans 40 times more.
4. In the world, a child dies of starvation every two seconds,

CHICKENS AND SALMONELLA

Today doctors are less quick to blame the flu for cases of stomach cramps, diarrhoea and fever, as there is
growing evidence that a large percentage of those ailments come from things that you ate.
Douglas Archer, a microbiologist at the Food and Drug Administration. figures that a third of the nation's 99
million acute intestinal infections reported each year are caused by food-borne pathogens. The poultry industry
is beginning to feel tremendous scrutiny. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that ABOUT 37% OF
CHICKEN CARCASSES CARRY SALMONELLA, a figure that has been relatively constant for more than a
decade. Four percent of all beef and twelve percent of all pork is also contaminated, but chickens are
copraphagous-a polite way of saying they eat each others' droppings. Thus, salmonella is a common inhabitant
of their tracts and is rarely bothersome.

This is not the case for humans, though: for during slaughtering the birds entrails occasionally tear, allowing the
bacteria to spread. Spraying the carcasses with chlorinated water cuts down but does not eliminate the bacteria.
Moreover, current screening relies heavily on visual signs of infection, yet bacteria, of course, cannot be seen
with the naked eye.

“60 Minutes” did a report on one poultry plant in Missouri where 58% of the chicken carcasses were
contaminated (attempts at disinfecting these animals have failed miserably). According to a recent Newsweek
article, There are simply too many opportunities for food to spoil, as every microbiologist knows since Pasteur."