Is a vegetarian diet better for the environment?

Question

And can you please state your sources?

Answer 1

No. It will not help the enviroment. People are usually vegitarian for humane resons, or becuase they "think" it is healthy, when in fact it is very unhealthy to not have a good source of meat protein.

Answer 2

Yes, plant-based food requires less resources (water, land, etc.) to produce than animal-based foods.  I don't remember the sources off the top of my head, but you can google it.

Answer 3

A person's vegetarian (or non-veg) diet has no importance whatsoever for the environment.

It does however make much difference, if a diet is a GM or Non-GMO one ~ in the respect that the possible effect of Genetically Modified Organisms in the environment is so far immeasurable, uncountable & irreversible!

Answer 4

I'm not stating any sources, this is just common knowledge for me.  But the biggest reason why a vegetarian diet may help the environment is because of how unsustainable the meat industry is.  Specifically, beef.  Huge factory farms with thousands of cows require tons of much energy - most of it from the artificial fertilizers needed to provide for the cultivation and production of corn feed that the animals eat.  The energy ratio (energy in: energy out) for beef is something like 10:1.  A vegetarian diet is much more sustainable.  Also a problem is the huge amounts of waste that these farms produce - the waste is usually all run out to a big reservoir (I forgot what they are called) of basically liquid animal **** and p**s.  These stagnant pools are disgusting and when flooding occurs, they often contaminate water supplies and the ground water to frightening scales.  

I'm not a vegetarian, but I do recognize the environmental impacts of eating meat.  Personally, I do not think anyone needs to go vegan.  Just don't eat meat from companies who take part in factory farm systems.  Especially giant corporations like McDonald's and Tyson.  If everyone instead cut down their meat consumption (namely, burgers and hot dogs), and purchased only organic meat, this problem would be drastically reduced.  However, the prices of meat would probably sky rocket, as the supply would decrease and be unable to meet the demand.  So I guess that if there were more vegetarians, this would be easier to deal with.

Answer 5

yes it can help the environment.  for one thing, there is a lot of land that is clear cut for cow pastures (meat production). The cows eat the grass and other vegetation leaving the land barren and not very well suited for farming. Also, in some cases, if you were to shop local, less fuel is consumed in transit when buying fruits and vegetables from local farmers markets. You can get a great source of protein (contrary to what the first answer said) in beans, and nuts. You would be suprised how easy it is to go veg! Other reasons are that around 60% of water used in Amerika is used in meat processing. Also, the amount of grain to produce one pound of beef could feed 16 people one meal. one last thought. all of that manure makes its way into our water supply.

Answer 6

It's the single most important step you can take to help the environment.  So many calories are wasted when grain and vegetation are used to grow animal meat (don't you people remember trophic levels from high school?).  Other than that, huge areas much be cleared for the meat industry for various uses.  Cattle and other animals dispel C02 and methane in tremendous qualities, contributing to global warming.  We could use way less land to produce the same amount of food if we only ate from plant sources, and our atmosphere would be unspeakably better and we may very well halt global warming.  But people who are willfully ignorant are going to presume superiority and ignore how plainly reasonable these claims are and think that vegetarians are somehow "odd" individuals, when that's not remotely the case.

As for the health of the diet, I lift weights several times a week, and do an hour or more of cardio as many times per week.  I'm actually a little over weight on the body mass index, but I'm in good shape and much of my weight is muscle mass.  I did not have this much muscle before I was vegan, as I did not work out then (I've been vegan for five years, and I'm twenty, so...).  But, I'm pretty much proof that a vegan diet is healthy and viable, even for highly athletic people.