Watch the following two videos The Meatrix (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEkc7
ID: 116191 • Letter: W
Question
Watch the following two videos
The Meatrix (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEkc70ztOrc)
The Meatrix II (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAN6G8sBNIE&feature=related)
1) Using your knowledge of the energy pyramid, explain why more people can be fed if they eat grains and vegetables than if they eat a diet high in meat.
2) After viewing the two videos, describe and discuss one concern mentioned in the Meatrix videos about the way most of our meat in the US is produced on "factory farms."
3) Then use reliable sources (not Wikipedia) to check out the claim. List your source and discuss your findings (how it supports your discussion in #2). If possible, pick a concern not already discussed and you must select a unique source to check the claim.
Explanation / Answer
1. The more meat we eat, the fewer people we can feed. If everyone on Earth received 25 percent of his or her calories from animal products, only 3.2 billion people would have food to eat. Dropping that figure to 15 percent would mean that 4.2 billion people could be fed. If the whole world became vegan, there would be plenty food to feed all of us"”more than 6.3 billion people. The World Watch Institute sums this up rightly, saying, “Meat consumption is an inefficient use of grain"”the grain is used more efficiently when consumed by humans. Continued growth in meat output is dependent on feeding grain to animals, creating competition for grain between affluent meat-eaters and the world’s poor.”
takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of edible animal flesh. According to the USDA and the United Nations, using an acre of land to raise cattle for slaughter yields 20 pounds of usable protein. That same acre would yield 356 pounds of protein if soybeans were grown instead"”more than 17 times as much!
Producing the grain that is used to feed farmed animals requires vast amounts of water. It takes about 300 gallons of water per day to produce food for a vegan, and more than 4,000 gallons of water per day to produce food for a meat-eater. You save more water by not eating a pound of beef than you do by not showering for an entire year.
It should be no surprise, then, that food for a vegan can be produced on only 1/6 of an acre of land, while it takes 3 1/4 acres of land to produce food for a meat-eater. If we added up all the arable land on the planet and divided it equally, every human would get 2/3 of an acre"”more than enough to sustain a vegetarian diet, but not nearly enough to sustain a meat-eater.
2. factory farms not only lead to the mistreatment, suffering and death of billions of animals every year, but they also cause soil contamination, loss of biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions and land, energy and water wastage. This is not just an animal welfare or environmental concern, it’s also a humanitarian crisis, because factory farms are diverting precious natural resources like land, water and fossil fuels to raise farm animals, while millions of people around the world are malnourished and still do not have access to safe drinking water.
To make matters worse, consuming meat and dairy products containing hormones, antibiotics, pesticides and dioxins have been found to increase the risk of cancer, heart problems and other degenerative diseases in humans. Further, emerging food-borne diseasesare causing public and ecosystem health challenges around the world and are often traced back to industrial animal agriculture.
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