Going Vegetarian Can Save the Environment

I apologize in advance, this post includes pictures of adorable baby animals. Who would want to eat them?

For the past year and a half, I've been adapting my diet to become less and less dependent on meat. I gave up red meat over a year ago which was easy for me since I never liked it and ate it once every two months as it was. Currently, I am a pescetarian (only meat eaten is seafood) for the past year. Giving up chicken was more difficult than the red meat; however, I never usually ate meat much to begin with (once a week) so this transition went more easily for me than it might go for people who eat meat once a day. In the future, I hope to give up seafood and might consider going vegan. The main reason I decided to go for a pescetarian diet was to keep myself healthy from early on. But recently, it came to my attention how becoming a vegetarian/vegan reduce stress on the environment, something I didn't previously bother to consider.

The common meats eaten in the world include that of: goats, fish, cows, sheep, chicken and pigs. It might come as no surprise that it takes a lot of resources to feed and grow livestock as every animal we eat needs to be properly nourished. As almost every living thing, livestock needs water. A single pound of beef is the product of over two thousand gallons of water while a pound of wheat takes up less than 200. Therefore, vegetarianism can also lead to ending world hunger.

Recently, I drove by a factory farm that produced beef. You would not imagine how much space that farm took up. It goes without surprise that, just like land is being bulldozed for cities and buildings, the need for farmland is causing the destruction of acres upon acres of land along with its natural resources. Deforestation not only hurts the environment but also the animals that were living in it.

Factory farms give off ridiculous amounts of greenhouse gases. They pollute the atmosphere more than cars. For every person that becomes a vegetarian, one hundred animals per year are saved.

Can you believe that the world's population has passed 7 billion? If it continues to grow at the rate that it is, there might not be enough resources (or land to grow them on) in the future. A diet that regularly consists of meat requires up to three times more resources than one without meat. Getting rid of factory farms would open up more land to grow crops that would be able to feed more people.

But what about protein? I admit, meat is an amazing source of protein but so are nuts, beans, fruits and even certain grains. I personally hate the taste of nuts but I have found clever ways to incorporate them into my diet. I drink almond milk and sometimes crush nuts and put them into muffins.

I'm not a complete vegetarian yet but I am trying to slowly adjust to it by giving up certain meats at the same rate that I'm obtaining substitutes. Tell me what you think about going vegetarian.