“If all people world-wide were to stop eating meat and become vegetarian, would there be enough?

Question

non-meat products available to feed the world’s population?

Answer 1

We would all become rabbits!

Answer 2

Actually there would be more food if everyone ate vegetarian food. Have you every heard of the law of diminishing returns? Well that concept can be applied to food too. Every time an animal eats, it uses part of that energy for basic body functions. Not all that energy is converted to muscle and fat. Some of it is used. If you eat the vegetables and grains, you get more energy than you would if you cycle the same amount of food through an animal.

Did you know that almost one-third of the worlds grain is eaten by cattle? Did you know that it takes about 1200 gallons of water to produce one serving of beef steak? (Cows are big hungry thirsty animals!)

I grew up on a small farm. A garden less than one-quarter of an acre in size supplied fruits and vegetables for 8 people all year. (We canned and froze food from the garden to eat during the winter)

The rest of the 300+ acres were mostly grazing pastures and grain fields to feed about 30 cows. We usually had to buy extra food for the cows.

If you would like more information see if your library has a copy of "Beyond Beef - The Rise and fall of the Cattle Culture" by Jeremy Rifkin.

(I've also been told that "Diet for a Small Planet" by Frances Moore Lappe,is a good book on this subject, but I have not read it myself yet.)

As far as B12 goes, neither plants nor animals make vitamin B12. Bacteria are responsible for producing vitamin B12. Animals get their vitamin B12 from eating foods contaminated with vitamin B12 and then the animal becomes a source of vitamin B12. A range of B12 fortified foods are available. These include yeast extracts, vegetable stock, veggie burger mixes, textured vegetable protein, soy milks, vegetable and sunflower margarine, and breakfast cereals. Vegetarian B12 supplements are also available.

Some people say that a vegetarian in not "natural" or healthy because a B12 supplement is advised. However, the diet of your average American is deficient in calcium, iodine, vitamin C, vitamin E, fiber, folate, and magnesium. Supplements are a good idea for anyone, not just vegetarians.

Answer 3

Yes, because with the growing population becoming vegetarians, more businesses will sell non-meat products instead of meat.

Answer 4

Obviously there'd be enough. Meat eaters consume about 100 times more natural resources than vegetarians.

For example do you know that it takes 4 acres of plant food to produce One Pound (half a kilo) of meat. Oh and this doesn't account for the water needed or the gas produced by the 4 billion cows which contribute substantially to the increase in global warming.

To quote - Albert Einstein -
"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."

Hundreds of millions of people are vegetarian (eg. Hindus for religious reasons); more health professionals are discouraging the consumption of animal fats and red meats, that have been shown to increase the chance of obesity, cancer and other diseases; and the environmentalists who know that much of the limited resources, on Planet Earth, are wasted by converting them to meat.

I HAVE TO ADD SOMETHING.
Please stop using this forum to criticise the healthfulness of a vegan diet. I am a strict vegan and nutritionist, I have studied nutrition for over 15 years and can tell you quite categorically that a protein deficiency has not been observed in the Western World since the 1950's. There is no presumed deficiency of anything in a healthy vegan diet, and by the way I have too much B12 in my blood.
http://diet-and-health.net
ONE DAY YOU WILL ALL BE VEGAN OR DEAD

Answer 5

Seriously, a global veg population would actually relieve pressure on food resources - energy is lost at every link of the food chain, so by cutting out the middle man (or cow, or pig, or goat) and going straight to the producers (plant foods), you'll be saving a lot of energy.

Think about how much space is needed to raise one cow (that includes growing the extra food the cow eats that is provided for it, not just grazing space), then think about how many humans you could feed if you converted that land to arable use for human consumption.

Answer 6

Yes. As it is now, we waste vast acres of arable land raising crops to feed livestock. Since we'd no longer be devoting huge amounts of land, water and energy to feeding animals for slaughter, we'd be able to easily feed an enormous human population. One figure I read (although I don't recall the source as it was about 20 years ago) was that if we devoted all the arable land now used to graze livestock or raise crops fed to livestock to growing food for human consumption, we'd be able to feed a population of 20 billion. Of course, human nature being what it is, the politics of poverty would still leave people starving in some parts of the world while surplus grain rotted in silos in other parts. And we'd have a plethora of other problems (like diminishing fossil fuels) but that's a whole 'nother story!

Answer 7

Yeah, infact all that grain that is used to feed the "cattle" could feed entire 3rd world countries like Africa. Soy products and all other plant sources are grown, so there will always be enough as long as the world keeps growing. and if you are now wondering if the worlds becoming vegan problem would cause an over all impact of cows, chickens, ect. This would not be true. Because it is farm industries that keep breeding cows so that they can keep making money. Farm industries do not let cows breed naturaly, they make and slave the cows to keep breeding along with the other abuse and mother cows are sent to the slaughter house after they are no longer usefull.

Answer 8

Yes. Somebody calculated that you can feed 10 billion people on the food grown today if everybody was vegan. There are lots of soybeans and corn being fed to animals that would make a darned lot of tofu and chips...

Answer 9

Yes. You use more land to feed a cow for a meat eater than you do to feed a vegetarian.

Answer 10

Yes, the world would be in a better situation.

It needs about 7 acres to keep one cow. 7 acres would be enough land to feed hundreds of people for a year. It would keep te same number of people in meat for about half of one meal

Answer 11

Yes.

Consider that it takes 22 pounds of grain to produce one pound of edible beef. If we stopped eating meat we could end world hunger. 5200 gallons of water to produce one pound of edible beef. We would also have a lot more water available.

Consider that all that space that feed lots and factory farms take up could be turned into veggie farms. We'd be SO free!!!

Dear friend FoxHunter, you are quite wrong. You get better B12 from Nutritional Yeast. B12 is a bacteria. It is on all your fruits and veggies til you wash them. It's in your meat because the animals eat their own feces. They wouldn't if they had a choice. But we force them to.