Starvation of the Vulnerable Linked To Diet of the Affluent

 

Of planet Earth’s nearly 7 billion humans, roughly 1 billion people are malnourished and 6 million children starve to death annually as a result of the meat and dairy based diet of the affluent.

Farming individuals is notoriously wasteful when compared to growing plants to feed humans directly.  “Livestock” animals, individuals raised for meat and dairy, take drastically more food from the global food supply than they provide.

Crops necessary to feed individuals raised for human food are vastly more crops than it would take to feed humans directly.  It takes thirteen pounds of grain to yield just one pound of beef.  Crops such as soy and lentils produce, pound for pound, as much protein as beef, and sometimes more.

Feeding half the world’s edible grain crop to farmed individuals is a grossly inefficient use of protein and a waste of natural resources.  It requires far more land, water and energy than cultivating plant foods for direct human consumption.

One acre of land can yield between twelve and twenty times more plant food than animal-based foods.  This is also true of water usages.  Pollution of water, air and land, human mortality and morbidity, as well as starvation of the world’s most vulnerable people also result from the affluent’s meat and dairy based diet.