Meat is an inefficient way to eat. An acre of land can yield 20,000 pounds of potatoes, but that same acre would only graze enough cows to get 165 pounds of meat.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Few people sufficiently appreciate the colossal task of feeding a world of billions of omnivores who demand meat with their potatoes.
I eat meat, but no meat that isn't pastured is acceptable, and we probably need to eat a whole lot less.
I go in the butchers and there's not a lot of meat I can eat these days, with having all the animals.
I'm not here to say I don't eat vegetables - I do, a lot of them - but, from a soil perspective, they're actually more costly than a cow grazing on grass.
In vast parts of the world, people don't eat meat.
Meat supplies a variety of nutrients - among them iron, zinc, and Vitamin B12 - that are not readily found in plants. We can survive without it; millions of vegetarians choose to do so, and billions of others have that choice imposed upon them by poverty.
Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world's resources. A vegetarian diet is better.
It takes less land to grow a pound of broccoli than it does a pound of beef. Less land to grow a pound of grain than a pound of beef. Less water, less energy.
I'm very picky about the meat I eat. I eat grass-fed beef, which is now becoming more common. Yes, it's still more expensive, but it's a very sustainable product.
Meat reared on land matures relatively quickly, and it takes only a few pounds of plants to produce a pound of meat.