Unavoidable facts to support your peace loving diet

[freelee]

I just love how a raw vegan lifestyle supports the animals, our health and the planet!

HUNGER:
-The Number of people worldwide who will die as a result of malnutrition this year: 20 million
-Number of people who could be adequately fed using land freed if Americans reduced their intake of meat by 10%: 100 million
-Percentage of corn grown in the U.S. eaten by people: 20
-Percentage of corn grown in the U.S. eaten by livestock: 80
-Percentage of oats grown in the U.S. eaten by livestock: 95
-Percentage of protein wasted by cycling grain through livestock: 90
-How frequently a child dies as a result of malnutrition: every 2.3 seconds
-Pounds of beef produced on an acre: 250
-Percentage of U.S. farmland devoted to beef production: 56

Some SAD statistics here :( there's more....

ENVIRONMENTAL:
-Cause of global warming: greenhouse effect.
-Primary cause of greenhouse effect: carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels
-Fossil fuels needed to produce meat-centered diet vs. a meat-free diet: 3 times more
-Percentage of U.S. topsoil lost to date: 75
-Percentage of U.S. topsoil loss directly related to livestock raising: 85
-Number of acres of U.S. forest cleared for cropland to produce meat-centered diet: 260 million
-Amount of meat imported to U.S. annually from Central and South America: 300,000,000 pounds
-Percentage of Central American children under the age of five who are undernourished: 75
-Area of tropical rainforest consumed in every quarter-pound of rainforest beef: 55 square feet
-Current rate of species extinction due to destruction of tropical rainforests for meat grazing and other uses: 1,000 per year

CANCER:
-Increased risk of breast cancer for women who eat meat daily compared to less than once a week: 3.8 times
-For women who eat eggs daily compared to once a week: 2.8 times
-For women who eat butter and cheese 2-4 times a week: 3.25 times
-Increased risk of fatal ovarian cancer for women who eat eggs 3 or more times a week vs. less than once a week: 3 times
-Increased risk of fatal prostate cancer for men who consume meat, cheese, eggs and milk daily vs. sparingly or not at all: 3.6 times.

CHOLESTEROL:
-Number of U.S. medical schools: 125
-Number requiring a course in nutrition: 30
-Nutrition training received by average U.S. physician during four years in medical school: 2.5hrs
-Most common cause of death in the U.S.: Heart Attack
-How frequently a heart attack kills in the U.S.: every 45 seconds
-Average U.S. man's risk of death from heart attack: 50 percent
-Risk of average U.S. man who eats no meat: 15 percent
-Risk of average U.S. man who eats no meat, dairy or eggs: 4 percent
-Amount you reduce risk of heart attack if you reduce consumption of meat, dairy and eggs by 10 percent: 9 percent
-Amount you reduce risk of heart attack if you reduce consumption by 50 percent: 45 percent
-Amount you reduce risk if you eliminate meat, dairy and eggs from your diet: 90 percent
-Average cholesterol level of people eating meat-centered-diet: 210 mg/dl
-Chance of dying from heart disease if you are male and your blood cholesterol level is 210 mg/dl: greater than 50 percent

NATURAL RESOURCES:
-User of more than half of all water used for all purposes in the U.S.: livestock production
-Amount of water used in production of the average cow: sufficient to float a destroyer
-Gallons of water needed to produce a pound of wheat: 25
-Gallons of water needed to produce a pound of California beef: 5,000
-Years the world's known oil reserves would last if every human ate a meat-centered diet: 13
-Years they would last if human beings no longer ate meat: 260
-Calories of fossil fuel expended to get 1 calorie of protein from beef: 78
-To get 1 calorie of protein from soybeans: 2
-Percentage of all raw materials (base products of farming, forestry and mining, including fossil fuels) consumed by U.S. that is devoted to the production of livestock: 33
-Percentage of all raw materials consumed by the U.S. needed to produce a complete vegetarian diet: 2

ANTIBIOTICS:
-Percentage of U.S. antibiotics fed to livestock: 55
-Percentage of staphylococci infections resistant to penicillin in 1960: 13
-Percentage resistant in 1988: 91
-Response of European Economic Community to routine feeding of antibiotics to livestock: ban
-Response of U.S. meat and pharmaceutical industries to routine feeding of antibiotics to livestock: full and complete support

PESTICIDE:
-Common belief: U.S. Department of Agriculture protects our health through meat inspection
Reality: fewer than 1 out of every 250,000 slaughtered animals is tested for toxic chemical residues
-Percentage of U.S. mother's milk containing significant levels of DDT: 99
-Percentage of U.S. vegetarian mother's milk containing significant levels of DDT: 8
-Contamination of breast milk, due to chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides in animal products, found in meat-eating mothers vs. non-meat eating mothers: 35 times higher
-Amount of Dieldrin ingested by the average breast-fed American infant: 9 times the permissible level

ETHICAL:
-Number of animals killed for meat per hour in the U.S.: 660,000
-Occupation with highest turnover rate in U.S.: slaughterhouse worker
-Occupation with highest rate of on-the-job-injury in U.S.: slaughterhouse worker
-Athlete to win Ironman Triathlon more than twice: Dave Scott (6 time winner)
-Food choice of Dave Scott: Vegetarian
-Largest meat eater that ever lived:
- Tyrannosaurus Rex (Where is he today?)

Article Source - "Diet For A New America" by John Robbins

[freelee]

I just added some more stats, read above...I feel its important for this info to be shared...

[spicyfull]

Thanks for Sharing.

[Tsurugi_Oni]

I think some of the stats are a little misleading, but it's definately somethin everyone needs to look at.

[Revvell]

I don't think so.


I think some of the stats are a little misleading, but it's definately somethin everyone needs to look at.

[Aleesha Sattva]

I think some of the stats are a little misleading, but it's definately somethin everyone needs to look at.

well the book was written many years ago...

[OnMyJourney]

I think some of the stats are a little misleading, but it's definately somethin everyone needs to look at.

This point is understood for me in regard to the stats about cancer. Only because my guess was these were likely numbers based on people (which I guess is the "average" American) who buy meat from the chain grocery stores versus buying organic, grass fed beef, etc. NOT that I'm condoning the eating of any meat, just that I wonder if the numbers would be different if these factors were studied in people who ate organic meat vs the meat we know is injected with antibiotics, from animals that were fed GMO grains/food and suffer from all sorts of internal abnormalities that I dare not even try to think of. Maybe they'd be the same, I don't know...but I was curious.



CANCER:
-Increased risk of breast cancer for women who eat meat daily compared to less than once a week: 3.8 times
-For women who eat eggs daily compared to once a week: 2.8 times
-For women who eat butter and cheese 2-4 times a week: 3.25 times
-Increased risk of fatal ovarian cancer for women who eat eggs 3 or more times a week vs. less than once a week: 3 times
-Increased risk of fatal prostate cancer for men who consume meat, cheese, eggs and milk daily vs. sparingly or not at all: 3.6 times.



The list overall, CERTAINLY makes you stop and reflect for sure. Thank you for sharing. I will be sharing!

[Tsurugi_Oni]

Lets take "-Amount of water used in production of the average cow: sufficient to float a destroyer "

What does this mean? Does this include the grain used to feed the cow? Does this include the water used in refinement of fossil fuels to run farm equipment to manage cows? What size destroyer are we talking about? What depth of water?

"Gallons of water needed to produce a pound of California beef: 5,000 "

Same questions I ask before. Plus are we talking about grain-fed, or grass-fed? We could also say that we only feed California cows the tips of alfalfa sprouts, so ti takes 20,000 gallons of water to feed em. are they talking about water included in processing the meat too?

Or the ethical section about the triathalon winner and the dinosaur. What an incredibly stupid argument. As a article posing as generally scientific in nature, it fails in a lot of areas.

Great point "OnMyJourney"!! The same thing applies towards any study concerning food and nutrition, and IMO is another way results mislead people. Or "What kind of eggs, free-range or grain-fed?"

I have no problems with the Cholesterol, Pesticides, or Antibiotics section. I really have no "problem" with any section. But usually when statistics deal with environmentalism (water usage, carbon footprint bs, miles traveled for food) they use wording that distorts its true implications. (What I'm about to say is almost a gross generalization) These types of "WOW" statistics tend to inspire stupid people to take even more stupid action. It's like in Law or USDA Regulations where they have EXTREMELY specific definitions for words, and trick you based on that. Thats how I see some of these statistics.

Really meat eating doesn't hurt the planet, its industrialization and exploitation (which the meat industry is only one small part of the problem). Grossly expanding the population on a veggie diet and still exploiting the land will lead to the same problem, it's still based on the principle of unmitigated expansion. The enemy aint meat. We need a more hollistic approach towards viewing our world systems.