Eating a more vegetarian diet is one of the easiest and quickest ways to lower your carbon footprint, reduce pollution, save energy, water and money. Ten billion animals are slaughtered for human consumption each year, and meat production requires staggering amounts of land, water, pesticides and energy, compared to plant foods.
- 75% of all agricultural land is now dedicated to the generation of meat. If the grain consumed by livestock was fed direct to humans we could reduce famine in many parts of the world.
- It takes as much water per 0.5kg of beef production as you would use if you had a bath every day for a year.
- Chemical and animal waste runoff from farms is one of the greatest threats to water quality in our rivers and streams.
- Calories of fossil fuel required to make 1 calorie of protein:
Beef – 54
Wheat – 3
Corn – 3
Soya bean – 2 - Cows are more damaging than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together – they are responsible for approximately 18% of greenhouse gases.
Try eating less meat, there are some great recipes out there (e.g. @vegtimes) and take it from us, they taste great!