Need Motivation to Eat Less Meat and More Plants? Part 12 of 12

Today, why you’re contributing to environmental damage if you eat high on the food chain:

Gallons of oil spilled by the Exxon-Valdez: 12 million

Gallons of putrefying hog urine and feces spilled in North Carolina in 1995 when a hog excrement dam broke:   25 million

Fish killed as an immediate result: 10-14 million

Fish whose breeding area was decimated by this disaster: half of all mid-East Coast fish species

Farmed fish the answer to avoid overfishing?   Farmed fish contains much higher levels of pollutants and pesticides, including 10 times more PCBs (2001 study)

Concentration of pathogens in hog waste (a biohazard) compared to human sewage: 10 to 100 times greater

For every household in the country, 20 tons of livestock manure are produced annually.

The single largest source of water pollution, which cauterizes waterways and kills fish: dairy farms

Rainforest beef destroys: 20-30 plant species, 100 insect species, and dozens of bird, mammal, and reptile species

When will Indonesian forests (280 million acres) be gone if cleared to produce enough beef for Indonesians to eat as much as the U.S. does, per capita: 3.5 years

When will Costa Rican rainforests be gone if cleared to produce enough beef for Costa Ricans to eat as much as the U.S. does, per capita: 1 year

What a hamburger would cost (produced by clearing forests in India, which is common practice) if the REAL costs were included and no subsidies were involved: $200

Tell me: what does this mean to you?   Do you think we are overconsuming meat?

Posted in: Eco Friendly Living, Lifestyle, Whole Food