It’s becoming harder to justify eating meat these days. Three of the major challenges we face as a world at the moment – clean drinking water, feeding everybody and stopping climate change are all linked to livestock farming. Here are some interesting statistics I hadn’t heard before:
- Agriculture is the largest user of fresh water (~70% in the developed world and more in developing countries). It takes somewhere between 10 and 100 times more fresh water to produce a kilogram of meat than a kilogram of wheat/vegetables (depending on the meat/vegetable).
- A piece of land the size of 5 football pitches can produce enough meat to feed 2 people. That same piece of land could feed 10 people if planted with maize, 24 people with grain or 61 people with soya.
- The UN say that the livestock industry is responsible for 18% of harmful greenhouse emissions. To put that into perspective, the entire world transport system only contributes 13.5%.
I think I’ve probably eaten significantly less meat this year. Living with vegetarians has probably helped subliminally but it’s been more because meat is more expensive and when cooking for one, even the small packs of mince or chicken are more than one meals-worth and I found that the other half of the pack would go off before I get round to eating it. Unfortunately, like many people, I do really enjoy a good steak / sunday roast / bacon sandwich / quality burger and was very happy on Christmas day that my lunch did not look like this…
… but maybe this year I’ll try to cut my meat consumption again. It’s probably healthier anyway.
(Cow photo by mnmlbeats)
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