References for the
Vegetarian Action introductory leaflet

"TAKE ACTION FOR..."

Growing demand for animal-derived foods

"Growing populations and incomes, along with changing food preferences, are rapidly increasing demand for livestock products, while globalization is boosting trade in livestock inputs and products. Global production of meat is projected to more than double from 229 million tones in 1999/01 to 465 million tones in 2050, and that of milk to grow from 580 to 1043 million tones."

Environmental cost of animal overpopulation

"We will find we can no longer subsidise or ignore the costs of mass-producing cattle, poultry, pigs, sheep and fish to feed our growing population. These costs include hugely inefficient use of fresh water and land, heavy pollution from livestock faeces,.......and spreading destruction of the forests on which much of our planet's life depends."

Forests and meat animals

"Historically, the desire to graze animals has been the dominant motive for clearing forests. It still is today......Forests and meat animals compete for the same land."

Greenhouse gas emissions

"The livestock sector is a major player, responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent. This is a higher share than transport."

"Livestock" refers to all farmed animals - including cattle, sheep, poultry and pigs. However, it is clear throughout the report that food production is the issue: "With increased prosperity, people are consuming more meat and dairy products every year. Global meat production is projected to more than double from 229 million tonnes in 1999/2001 to 465 million tonnes in 2050, while milk output is set to climb from 580 to 1043 million tonnes."

Deforestation and desertification

"Cattle production.... (is the) primary contributing factor to deforestation and desertification."

Water

"A pound (450 gr) of meat requires 50 times as much water as an equivalent quantity of wheat.... The demands of animal production are drying up the vast underground pools of water on which so many of the drier regions of America, Australia, and other countries rely."

Pollution

"A pig farm of 5,000 animals produces as much faecal waste as a city 50,000 people."

Energy efficiency

"Growing crops is generally at least 5 times more energy-efficient than grazing cattle, about 20 to 50 times more energy-efficient than producing chickens, and more than 50 times more energy-efficient as feedlot cattle production."

Native wildlife

"According to the Australian Conservation Foundation the rate of extinction of native mammals in Australia's grazing country is the highest in the world. Twenty medium sized mammals and their habitats have disappeared since settlement in 1778. Scrub clearance, trampling by livestock, overgrazing and soil erosion are all implicated."

Native animals are declared "pests"

"Sheep and cattle grazing has meant that the kangaroo and dingo have been declared pests in their own native land. Kangaroos are shot because they compete with stock for food. Dingoes are poisoned and caught in barbaric steel jaw traps because they attack sheep."

Think we can save the environment and still eat meat? THINK AGAIN!

"The way that we breed animals for food is a threat to the planet. It pollutes our environment while consuming huge amounts of water, grain, petroleum, pesticides and drugs. The results are disastrous."

Enough resources to feed everyone

"Currently, sufficient land, energy and water exist to feed well over twice the world's human population…"

Malnutrition and starvation

"How frequently a child on Earth dies as a result of malnutrition and starvation: every 2.3 seconds."

Beef or potatoes

"One acre of land will yield 165 pounds (75 kg) of beef, or 20,000 pounds (9,000 kg) of potatoes."

We get back less than 5%

"It takes twenty-one pounds (9 kg) of protein fed to a calf to produce a single pound (450 gr) of animal protein for humans. We get back less than 5 percent of what we put in."

30 times as many people

"At least 10 times as many people can be supported on a cereal diet than on a meat based diet - and that figure rockets up to 30 TIMES AS MANY people being supported by a diet based on soya protein."

Animals eat food that people could eat

"Nearly 40 per cent of the world's wheat and corn is fed to animals and huge amounts of land are given over to growing things such as alfalfa, peanuts, turnips, tapioca to be used animal food. This land could just as easily be used to grow food for people."

"The calf must now be fed. No matter how little space he and his companions are crowded into, land must be used to grow the corn, sorghum, soybeans, or whatever it is that the calf eats. Now we are feeding the calf food that we ourselves could eat."

Most of this does not become meat

"Amount of nutrient wasted by cycling grain and soy through livestock Protein 90% Carbohydrate 99% Fiber 100%"

"The calf needs most of [the food it eats] for the physiological processes of day-to-day living. No matter how severely the calf is prevented from exercising, his body must still burn food merely to keep him alive. The food is also used to build inedible parts of the calf's body, like bones. Only the food left over after these needs are satisfied can be turned into flesh, and eventually be eaten by human beings."

Half the world's grain

"Half of the world's grain harvest is fed to livestock while millions of humans go hungry."

95% of the world's soybeans

"95% of world soybean production is used for animal feed."

20 million people will starve to death

"This year twenty million people will starve to death due to lack of grains and legumes to eat."

"Number of people who will die as a result of malnutrition and starvation this year: 20,000,000."

Not the only cause… but one of the most important

"Of course eating meat isn't the only cause of world hunger but it is one of the most important."

Everyone on earth could have enough to eat

"If the whole world ate a vegetarian diet - that's plant foods and dairy products such as milk, cheese and butter - Tickell states there would be enough food right now to feed 6 billion people well. In fact, if everyone became vegan and cut out all dairy products and eggs, the world's population could be fed on less than one quarter of the land that's used at present!"

Massive animal population

"The growing consumption of meat, poultry and dairy products has created an explosion in livestock population worldwide."

52 billion animals

"Globally, the number of animals slaughtered for food in 2003 was 52.7 billion, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation. This conservative figure does not account for non-slaughter deaths, under-reporting by smaller countries, and many billions of aquatic animals."

Food animals don't live normal or enjoyable lives

"It is not practically possible to rear animals for food on a large scale without inflicting considerable suffering. Even if intensive methods are not used, traditional farming involves castration, separation of mother and young, breaking up social groups, branding, transportation to the slaughterhouse, and finally slaughter itself. It is difficult to imagine how animals could be reared for food without these forms of suffering. Possibly it could be done on a small scale, but we could never feed today's huge urban populations with meat raised in this manner."

"A producer of broilers (table chickens) gets a load of 10,000, 50,000, or more day-old chicks from a hatchery, and put them into a long, windowless shed - usually on the floor, although some producers use tiers of cages in order to get more birds into the same size shed….

"Broiler chickens are killed when they are seven weeks old (the natural lifespan of a chicken is about seven years). At the end of this brief period, the birds weigh between four and five pounds (2 - 2.5 kilos); yet they still may have ....less than the area of a sheet of standard (A4) typing paper (450 square centimetres)....Under these conditions, when there is normal lighting, the stress of crowding and the absence of natural outlets for the birds' energies lead to outbreaks of fighting, with birds pecking at each other's feathers and sometimes killing and eating one another. Very dim lighting has been found to reduce such behaviour and so the birds are likely to live out their last weeks in near-darkness."

"Disease and behavioural abnormalities are rife in Australia's factory farmed pig systems... Lack of space is linked with aggression between animals. Barren pens, where nesting materials are absent, are linked with increased savaging of piglets by sows….

"The confinement of pregnant sows in stalls is an appalling practice. The stall is so narrow that it prevents the sow from turning round. The only exercise that the pregnant sow can take, during her four months confinement, is to stand up or lie down. If she lies down, she frequently has to do so in her own excrements."

"In a natural environment cattle are ruminant creatures that spend up to 12 hours a day grazing, seeking a variety of grasses. Not surprisingly intensive husbandry practices come with a variety of disorders and this is becoming more prevalent in feedlots. The Animal Research Institute in Queensland is seeking ways of dealing with new disease threats associated with intensive management of cattle. These include tick fever; buffalo fly; bovine herpes virus (BHV1); bovine respiratory disease (BRD); acidosis; feedlot bloat; liver abscesses; sudden death syndromes; botulism and pink eye. Causes of feedlot lameness include - toe abscesses; mechanical injury to the hoof; footrot; swollen joints; broken bones and muscle damage."

"Over the latter part of the 20th century wild catches of fish have increased by 500% to nearly 100 million tons per year and consequently wild fish populations have been decimated.....Agribusiness profiteers have exploited this situation and intensive farming of fish has doubled in the past decade. Approximately 1 in 5 fish consumed today have been reared in captivity......Fish crowded in these "farms" are susceptible to disease and suffocation. Agrichemicals are necessary to kill bacteria, disease and vegetation. Intensive factories of any kind bring with them unavoidable cruelty, disease, stress suffering and are environmentally devastating."

Food animals suffer horribly before and while they die

"Transportation of animals includes more than the final trip to slaughter.... Animals placed in a truck for the first time in their lives are likely to be frightened....The motion of the truck is also a new experience, and one which may make them ill. After one or two days in the truck without food or water they are desperately thirsty and hungry.... If the journey is in winter, subzero winds can result in severe chill; in summer the heat and sun may add to the dehydration caused by the lack of water.... Others die before reaching destination, or arrive with broken limbs and other injuries."

"All animals fear when they're going to die. If he don't want to go, if he falls down, they beat him with pipes, kick them, hit them with pieces of wood, stick them with knives. If he still won't move, you wrap the cable around his neck and drag them with the hoist. You drag them while they're still alive. Choke them to death."

Chemical cocktails

"Hormones, antibiotics and pesticides are routinely used at feedlots to promote growth and curb disease caused by the intensive conditions. Residue can end up in meat and milk."

"Across Australia, feedlot sheep and cattle, pigs and chickens are fed more than 500,000 kilos of antibiotics a year, making this country a world leader in their use. The farmyard fix worries those in the front line of the battle against lethal new superbugs in humans, vancomycin resistant enterococci. These highly contagious bacteria are causing havoc in our hospitals and are increasingly resistant to antibiotics, our last silver bullets. There is an undeniable link between the antibiotics fed to animals and the resistance to very similar antibiotics given to humans."

If you care about suffering, keep animals off your plate

"I don't like the idea that to have a piece of steak or a chop on the table, a living creature has to have its throat slit and be skinned."

Lower rates of disease

"Vegetarians have the best diet. They have the lowest rates of coronary disease of any group in the country....Some people scoff at vegetarians, but they have a fraction of our heart attack rate and they have only 40 percent of our cancer rate."

"Vegetarians have less heart disease and fewer problems with blood pressure, cholesterol and obesity.....So impressive are the potential health benefits of vegetarian diets, that some researchers feel that a vegetarian diet may be the best diet for treating coronary heart disease, angina and high blood fats."

"Other problems which are less common among vegetarians include: constipation, diabetes, gallstones, kidney stones and osteoporosis."

Iron

"Iron deficiency is one of the biggest nutritional deficiencies in the world, although only slightly less common in industrialised countries than in the third world. It affects meat eaters and vegetarians alike in similar proportions. Although veggies tend to have lower iron stores (serum ferritin) than meat eaters there is no difference in their rates of iron deficiency anaemia. Two of the world’s most prestigious health organisations – the American Dietetic Association and the British Medical Association – support this view."

"Incidence of iron deficiency anaemia among vegetarians and vegans are similar to non-vegetarians therefore vegans and vegetarians are not at greater risk from this condition. Vegetarians and vegans have lower iron stores compared to non-vegetarians however their serum ferritin levels are usually within the normal healthy range."

Too much iron

"The evidence against haem iron is growing and it has been shown that high iron stores from red meat increase the risk of heart disease, particularly in older men and women. Another study has shown an increased risk of heart attacks among meat-eating males generally and came to the conclusion that there was a direct association between meat intake, high haem iron stores and heart disease. Yet more research has shown that high iron stores and a high dietary iron intake are strongly linked to heart disease. Excessive iron stores can also affect the body’s ability to regulate insulin production, which is the first warning sign of diabetes."

More iron

More calcium

Vitamin B12

For a discussion of Vitamin B12 and how it affects vegetarians, including a list of B12 fortified foods, please see Vitamin B12 - what every vego needs to know

For detailed references on B12, please see References for the web page - Vitamin B12....

Protein

"The World Health Organisation recommendation of (daily protein intake is) 29 grams for a woman and 37 grams for a man. The figures are for a woman eating 2,300 calories per day and a man eating 3,000 calories per day (the so-called "average" diets)."

"It is almost impossible to design a categorically adequate (2000 calorie) diet, utilising foods from all the 'Vegan Six' groups [whole grains and potatoes, legumes, green and yellow vegetables, nuts and seeds, fruits, vitamin and mineral foods], and not obtain at least 50 grams of high-quality, 'complete' protein."

Too much protein

"There is a voluminous amount of information showing a relationship between the consumption of concentrated protein foods and heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, arthritis, osteoporosis, gout, ulcers, and a host of other maladies, documented by T.C. Fry, Victoras Kulvinskas, Blanche Leonardo, Barbara Parham, John A. Scharffenberg, Orville Schell, and Herbert M. Shelton, among others."

"The average Australian diet contains meat and dairy products, and so it is often high in protein. According to government research, women are consuming over 70 grams and men over 100 grams of protein per day on average."

Save an acre of trees every year

"Cornell economist David Fields estimates that for every person who changes to a vegetarian diet, an acre (about half a hectare) of trees is saved every year."

Contribute to a hunger-free world

"10 acres of land (about 5 football pitches) will support: 60 people on a diet of soya beans; 24 people on a diet of wheat; 10 people on a diet of maize; 2 people on a diet of cattle meat."

Save 1000s of animals

"It is estimated that the average Australian will consume in a lifetime around 17 beef cattle, 92 sheep, 15 pigs, 1000 fish and 1171 chickens."

Do your health a favour

"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases."

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