Allright, this is a LONG post, so I'm gonna chop up my responses, try to clear up all of these misconceptions.
Originally posted by laumelilu
I'll explain why... What my stance is however, with the world the way it is today, is that maybe, in keeping with showing Jesus through our actions, and as a result of unfair food distribution...globalisation, the west versus the third world, i believe that maybe we should be thinking about the consiquences of everything we do.. not just eating meat, but also where we shop and other stuff....
Agricultural Inefficiency - About half the worlds grain is consumed by animals that are later slaughtered for meat. It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of feedlot Beef. About 20 vegetarians can be fed from the land it takes to feed 1 meat eater. If all the grain fed to american beef cattle was fed to humans it would feed 1.3 BILLION people
do you know what cows in feedlot eat? sorghum, milo, alfalfa, anything there you want to eat? yes, they do use some wheat, and corn, but it's largely by products.
During the wheat milling process, 72 to 75 percent of precleaned wheat becomes flour and the remaining 25 to 27 percent is available as wheat by-product. These by-products include millfeed, wheat mill run or wheat middlings. The largest use of these mill by-products is for livestock consumption.
WHile this is one big whole in your argument, it's far from the largest.
Let's say tomorrow, all of america gave up eating meat. Would this have an apprecialbe affect on the millions of starving people in the world? NO, why? the problem isn't in production, the problem is in distribution. The poor 3rd world countries would still be to poor to pay to ship the grain from Kansas to Zaire.
Originally posted by laumelilu
Soil Erosion and Desertification - Overgrazing of beef cattle and other meat animals results in high levels of soil erosion. One pound of beef from cattle raised on feed lots represents a loss of 35 pounds of top-soil. In Autralia cattle grazing contribute substantially to desertification.
Uhmm, how does a feed lot contribute to soil erosion? makes no sense.
Originally posted by laumelilu
Air Pollution - The meat industry burns up a lot of fossil fuel, pouring pollution into the air.
Say what? care to explain how the heck this works? how does meat burn more fossil fuels than grain?
Originally posted by laumelilu
Calorie by calorie, it takes 39 times more energy to produce beef than soybeans. The petroleum use in the USA would decrease by 60% if people adopted to a vegetarian diet.
WHAT? we all become vegetarians, then we decide to walk everywhere? no one really believes this do they?
Originally posted by laumelilu
Water Pollution - About 50% of the water pollution in the usa is linked to livestock. In feedlots and stockyard holding pens there is a huge concertrations of animal excretment and urine this wate is 10 -100's of times more concerntrated than raw domestic sewerage.
oh geez, where to start with this one. First off, yes, the waste in a feed lot
IS more concentrated, but do you know why? because we (by we, I mean civil engineers, like myself, who treat water and sewer) HAVE to dilute the domestic sewer, in order to keep in flowing in the pipe (uhhm, that's what the FLUSH is for) the problem then becomes you get to the treatment plant with an INCREDIBLE volume, because you had to add water to transport. It is MUCH easier to treat in the concentrated form. Also, WHile feedlots do have large amounts of concentrated waste, they treat it in a very similiar fashion to what municipalities treat there sewage (actually they have an easier, more efficient process because it's cleaner)
Also, as far as pollution, the waste from feedlots would be a dream to handle compared to the industrial waste, they are all organics, with very known, predictable, and treatable ways of decomposing them.
Originally posted by laumelilu
Water Depletion - The beef industry is wasting the diminishing supplies of fresh water. The livesrtock industries in the USA takes about 50% of water consumed each year.
First off, where did you get that concocted figure of 50%? that's totally bogus.
go to
http://water.usgs.gov/watuse/pdf1995/pdf/summary.pdf
this is a summary report of water usage in the united states done by the USGS. look closely, and you will see that water for livestock is only 13% of the total.
as far as the inhumane, I've been in half a dozen packing plants. Is it neat? no, but it doesn't bother me, if it bothers you, that's fine. But just come out and say that's your reason, don't spread misinformation trying to support it.
