Varieties of vegetarianism

It is worth bearing in mind that when restricting meat, there are several diets we can choose from.

Vegetarianism is a diet where we give up meat and fish. The most common variety is lactovegetarianism - we eat eggs and dairy. Other types include lactovegetarianism (dairy only) and ovovegetarianism (eggs only).

Veganism is a diet of giving up all animal products. This means not eating meat, fish, eggs, dairy but also, for example, honey.

Semivegetarianism , on the other hand, is a diet in which meat consumption is limited, but we still eat it in certain quantities.

Knowing the types of diets that limit meat consumption, we can move on to the question of why we should opt for this way of eating.

The environmental impact of the meat industry

One of the main reasons that can make us switch to vegetarianism is the environmental impact of meat production.

The data depicting how the meat industry is affecting our planet is frightening. Animal farming is responsible for producing more climate-changing greenhouse gases than all the world's transport systems combined. According to the United Nations, it is the massive reduction in meat consumption that would be the best solution to mitigate the effects of global warming.

photo: panthermedia

Water consumption is also an important aspect here. Let us remember that water is used not only to water the animals, but also to grow the crops they are fed and to clean the farms. To get an idea of the scale of the problem, let us look at cow farming. One milk-producing cow drinks up to 50 gallons (1 gallon is about 3.8 litres) of water, and up to twice that amount on hot days. To produce just 1 gallon of milk we need as much as 683 gallons of water! Producing 300 grams of steak, on the other hand, means using as much as 5,000 litres of water! By comparison, producing 300 grams of tofu, a popular meat substitute, uses about 10 times less water. Being on a vegan diet, we can save up to 219,000 gallons of water!

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In addition to water consumption, there is also the problem of water pollution. A side effect of meat production on large industrial farms is animal excrement. Very often they are stored in an inappropriate way, which results in a high risk of organic components running off into groundwater, surface water and ultimately into the Baltic Sea.

Another issue is land use. Animal husbandry occupies incredibly large areas. According to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, it takes 10 pounds of grain to produce one pound (1 pound is 454 grams) of meat. In the US alone, 56 million acres are used for fields dedicated to growing food for animals, while only 4 million are used to grow crops for humans. It is also interesting to note that more than 90 per cent of the acreage gained by clearing the Amazon Rainforest is used for cattle grazing. It is worth using a comparison here again to illustrate how a plant-based diet can help reduce this problem. It takes 20 times more land to produce food for someone on a diet containing meat than for someone who is vegan.

In the next part of the article, we will discuss aspects of the health impact of a vegetarian diet and the topic of animal suffering.

way4cure.com

Why limit meat consumption? - part 1.

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