jonjan
July 27th, 2006, 06:38 PM
www.helpusall.com/foodandenvironment.html
I created this page and site, so please feel free to spread and share the link anywhere it's welcomed! :)
Here is part of the text (due the the forum's 10,000 word limit), with without the photos or formatting...
the orginal page also has the links to credible sources of info (this is so important)
The environmental section is the second section..
If you can, go to the page itself for the links (what good is info without knowing the sources!)
...
ENVIRONMENT
The air we breathe, water we drink and bath, and soil all food comes from
Aside from dietary health, all the other factors about food types relates to the fact that animals are fed more calories(and protein) from plant foods than the animals produce in muscle(meat) or eggs. In other words, they consume more human-edible plant nutrition, than the amount of human-edible nutrition they produce.
This additional food requires more land, soil, water, fertilizers, pesticides, and oil. It also creates billions of pounds of manure each year.
During heavy rains.. the manure becomes run-off and pollutes nearby waterways, which are connected to our drinking and bathing water. When manure lagoons rupture, they can kill all fish life in the affected waterway for several miles, which also leaves a mass of dead fish bodies among the manure, making the water very unsanitary and unusable, and affecting the ecosystem and wildlife downstream also.
Machines are used for the entire process of growing the crops... plowing, seeding, applying chemical fertilizers and pesticides, watering, harvesting, transporting, and processing. The machines are powered by oil products, which creates more demand for oil drilling, and also produces CO2 and other emissions.
More crops require more water. The groundwater is being depeleted in many areas. Already more than 1.4 million acres of irrigated cropland have been lost in Texas alone because of depleting groundwater supply.
More land being farmed for crops, means that more topsoil is treated un-naturally. It is plowed repeatedly and stripped of it's natural vegetation and protection. It is more exposed to the sun's heat and open air, and is less able to hold moisture.
More land farmed for crops also means more chemical fertilizers and pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides are applied. During rains, these can become run-off also, and pollute nearby streams and rivers.. connected to the water that we use for drinking and bathing and cooking.
A more plant-based diet helps reduce all of the above, be requiring less crops... and that means less soil, fertilizers, pesticides, water, and oil. And plant foods do not add any more manure to the billions of pounds already produced each year.
Here are some deeper details to show the extent and importance of all of these factors...
Animals consume more human-edible plant nutrition, than the amount of human-edible nutrition they produce.
This requires more crops to be grown for animal foods, than for a diet that is more plant-based. This is why the "primary consumer" (eating plants directly) is known as being the most efficient diet.
The nutrition and minerals and calories in meat and eggs and milk... comes from the plant foods the animals eat.
So humans could eat the plant foods directly. When instead those plant foods are first processed-through animals, much of the nutrition and calories is lost, and all of the fiber is lost.
Of what the nutrition the animals eat, some is also used for walking, heating their bodies, or cooling their bodies, moving, building hooves, hair, eyes, bones, and skin.
Note that hunted animals have different environmental impacts than farmed animals because there is no energy and resource-intensive process for growing and harvesting crops for them.
So how much more crops are needed to create animal foods compared to eating plant foods directly?
According to a respected ecologist at Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, "Each year an estimated 41 million tons of plant protein is fed to U.S. livestock to produce an estimated 7 million tons of animal protein for human consumption. About 26 million tons of the livestock feed comes from grains and 15 million tons from forage crops. For every kilogram of high-quality animal protein produced, livestock are fed nearly 6 kg of plant protein."
cornell.edu
even for the grain crops, the animals were fed more than 3 times the human-edible grain, than what their bodies produced.
Other university sources generalize that chickens require a 2:1 ratio of calories eaten for muscle(meat) produced. Pork(pigs' muscle) has a 4:1 ratio, and beef(bulls' muscle) has a 7:1 ratio.
Another factor that is only involved in animal foods is manure...
Water - pollution, and sustainability
-Water Pollution
According to the U.S. EPA, "...one of the nation's leading causes of water pollution (is) animal wastes from large, industrial feedlot operations." Their report says that "An estimated 376,000 large and small livestock operations that confine animals generate approximately 128 billion pounds of manure each year."
It also mentions the trend towards factory farming, "The livestock industry has undergone dramatic changes in the past 20 years, consolidating scattered, smaller facilities into fewer but vastly larger feeding operations." EPA.gov
The water pollution involves the pesticides, fertilizers (manure/etc), and soil that is carried off by rain into waterways. Manure lagoons from factory farms have broken and flooded rivers with manure causing massive kills of fish, which both kills the fish and also makes the waters extremely unsafe for people to use.
When plant foods are eaten directly, there's only human manure. Roughly 6 times less manure than when animals are used for food.
Water supply and depletion
"U.S. agriculture accounts for 87 percent of all the fresh water consumed each year. Livestock directly use only 1.3 percent of that water. But when the water required for forage and grain production is included, livestock's water usage rises dramatically."
"Grain-fed beef production takes 100,000 liters of water for every kilogram of food. Raising broiler chickens takes 3,500 liters of water to make a kilogram of meat. In comparison, soybean production uses 2,000 liters for kilogram of food produced; rice, 1,912; wheat, 900; and potatoes, 500 liters. "Water shortages already are severe in the Western and Southern United States and the situation is quickly becoming worse because of a rapidly growing U.S. population that requires more water for all of its needs, especially agriculture," cornell.edu
grain-fed beef - 100,000 liters of water per kilo of meat)
chickens - 3,500 liters per kilo of meat
soybeans - 2,000 liters of water per kilo
rice - 1,912 liters
wheat - 900 liters
potatoes - 500 liters
Is water depletion an issue?
According to the USDA's National Resources Conservation Service (link at end of section):
"Areas impacted by overdraft of ground-water resources include-the High Plains of Texas, the Ogallala aquifer is near depletion. The state of Texas has lost 1.435 million acres of irrigated cultivated cropland over the period, 1982-1997 (2). Most of the loss is due to dwindling ground-water supplies from the Ogallala aquifer. Aquifer level declines have ranged from 50-100 feet since 1980"
"Depth to water is highly variable but commonly exceeds 100 feet. Well yields are down from 1000 gallons per minute (gpm) to 250 gpm and less in some areas. At current rates of pumpage, current irrigated acreage is predicted to drop 50% by 2030"
OIL USE
...and the accompanying air and water pollution (and gas prices and political/war implications)
Plant foods require less fossil fuel to produce the same amount of caloric energy.
The data is from Dr. David Pimentel at Cornell University, who does research as an agricultural ecologist.
http://collections.ic.gc.ca/highway/english/energy/live.html The data measures the kilocalories of fossil fuel required to produce kilocalories of food.
Figures on the webpages, with the ratio corrected. Ratio = Fossil fuel energy used to produce food : energy provided by food (both in Kilocalories)
---------oil used : food produced
Range beef -- 10 : 1
Chicken ------ 16 : 1
Range lamb - 16 : 1
Milk --------- 19 : 1
Eggs --------- 28 : 1
Beef --------- 35 : 1
Pork --------- 68 : 1
Lamb ------ 188 : 1
Corn -------- .4 : 1
Wheat ------- .46 : 1
Soy --------- .24 : 1
Apple ------- .9 : 1
Potato ------ .72 : 1
Spinach --- 5.0 : 1
Tomato --- 1.6 : 1
Animal foods range from using 10-188 calories of fossil fuel, to create 1 calorie of food.
Plant foods range from using .24-5 calories of fossil fuel, to create 1 calorie of food.
The average animal food efficiency is 47(input):1(output)
The average plant food efficiency is 1.7(input):1(output)
So of the foods measured, plant foods require 27 times less fossil fuel energy than animal foods do, to produce the same number of calories of food.
The authors switched the ratio used (energy input:energy output) when giving the data for animal foods versus plant foods. The authors also used words like "most efficient" to describe animal foods, and described the efficiency of wheat as "relatively low"... even though wheat is 20 times more efficient than the most efficient animal food.
Less fossil fuel (oil and gas) correlates with less oil being explored for, drilled, transported, processed, and transported, and combusted. Each of these stages uses fossil fuels.
...I had to remove much of the info to make the post fit. www.helpusall.com/foodandenvironment.html
has it all. please go see! :)
I created this page and site, so please feel free to spread and share the link anywhere it's welcomed! :)
Here is part of the text (due the the forum's 10,000 word limit), with without the photos or formatting...
the orginal page also has the links to credible sources of info (this is so important)
The environmental section is the second section..
If you can, go to the page itself for the links (what good is info without knowing the sources!)
...
ENVIRONMENT
The air we breathe, water we drink and bath, and soil all food comes from
Aside from dietary health, all the other factors about food types relates to the fact that animals are fed more calories(and protein) from plant foods than the animals produce in muscle(meat) or eggs. In other words, they consume more human-edible plant nutrition, than the amount of human-edible nutrition they produce.
This additional food requires more land, soil, water, fertilizers, pesticides, and oil. It also creates billions of pounds of manure each year.
During heavy rains.. the manure becomes run-off and pollutes nearby waterways, which are connected to our drinking and bathing water. When manure lagoons rupture, they can kill all fish life in the affected waterway for several miles, which also leaves a mass of dead fish bodies among the manure, making the water very unsanitary and unusable, and affecting the ecosystem and wildlife downstream also.
Machines are used for the entire process of growing the crops... plowing, seeding, applying chemical fertilizers and pesticides, watering, harvesting, transporting, and processing. The machines are powered by oil products, which creates more demand for oil drilling, and also produces CO2 and other emissions.
More crops require more water. The groundwater is being depeleted in many areas. Already more than 1.4 million acres of irrigated cropland have been lost in Texas alone because of depleting groundwater supply.
More land being farmed for crops, means that more topsoil is treated un-naturally. It is plowed repeatedly and stripped of it's natural vegetation and protection. It is more exposed to the sun's heat and open air, and is less able to hold moisture.
More land farmed for crops also means more chemical fertilizers and pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides are applied. During rains, these can become run-off also, and pollute nearby streams and rivers.. connected to the water that we use for drinking and bathing and cooking.
A more plant-based diet helps reduce all of the above, be requiring less crops... and that means less soil, fertilizers, pesticides, water, and oil. And plant foods do not add any more manure to the billions of pounds already produced each year.
Here are some deeper details to show the extent and importance of all of these factors...
Animals consume more human-edible plant nutrition, than the amount of human-edible nutrition they produce.
This requires more crops to be grown for animal foods, than for a diet that is more plant-based. This is why the "primary consumer" (eating plants directly) is known as being the most efficient diet.
The nutrition and minerals and calories in meat and eggs and milk... comes from the plant foods the animals eat.
So humans could eat the plant foods directly. When instead those plant foods are first processed-through animals, much of the nutrition and calories is lost, and all of the fiber is lost.
Of what the nutrition the animals eat, some is also used for walking, heating their bodies, or cooling their bodies, moving, building hooves, hair, eyes, bones, and skin.
Note that hunted animals have different environmental impacts than farmed animals because there is no energy and resource-intensive process for growing and harvesting crops for them.
So how much more crops are needed to create animal foods compared to eating plant foods directly?
According to a respected ecologist at Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, "Each year an estimated 41 million tons of plant protein is fed to U.S. livestock to produce an estimated 7 million tons of animal protein for human consumption. About 26 million tons of the livestock feed comes from grains and 15 million tons from forage crops. For every kilogram of high-quality animal protein produced, livestock are fed nearly 6 kg of plant protein."
cornell.edu
even for the grain crops, the animals were fed more than 3 times the human-edible grain, than what their bodies produced.
Other university sources generalize that chickens require a 2:1 ratio of calories eaten for muscle(meat) produced. Pork(pigs' muscle) has a 4:1 ratio, and beef(bulls' muscle) has a 7:1 ratio.
Another factor that is only involved in animal foods is manure...
Water - pollution, and sustainability
-Water Pollution
According to the U.S. EPA, "...one of the nation's leading causes of water pollution (is) animal wastes from large, industrial feedlot operations." Their report says that "An estimated 376,000 large and small livestock operations that confine animals generate approximately 128 billion pounds of manure each year."
It also mentions the trend towards factory farming, "The livestock industry has undergone dramatic changes in the past 20 years, consolidating scattered, smaller facilities into fewer but vastly larger feeding operations." EPA.gov
The water pollution involves the pesticides, fertilizers (manure/etc), and soil that is carried off by rain into waterways. Manure lagoons from factory farms have broken and flooded rivers with manure causing massive kills of fish, which both kills the fish and also makes the waters extremely unsafe for people to use.
When plant foods are eaten directly, there's only human manure. Roughly 6 times less manure than when animals are used for food.
Water supply and depletion
"U.S. agriculture accounts for 87 percent of all the fresh water consumed each year. Livestock directly use only 1.3 percent of that water. But when the water required for forage and grain production is included, livestock's water usage rises dramatically."
"Grain-fed beef production takes 100,000 liters of water for every kilogram of food. Raising broiler chickens takes 3,500 liters of water to make a kilogram of meat. In comparison, soybean production uses 2,000 liters for kilogram of food produced; rice, 1,912; wheat, 900; and potatoes, 500 liters. "Water shortages already are severe in the Western and Southern United States and the situation is quickly becoming worse because of a rapidly growing U.S. population that requires more water for all of its needs, especially agriculture," cornell.edu
grain-fed beef - 100,000 liters of water per kilo of meat)
chickens - 3,500 liters per kilo of meat
soybeans - 2,000 liters of water per kilo
rice - 1,912 liters
wheat - 900 liters
potatoes - 500 liters
Is water depletion an issue?
According to the USDA's National Resources Conservation Service (link at end of section):
"Areas impacted by overdraft of ground-water resources include-the High Plains of Texas, the Ogallala aquifer is near depletion. The state of Texas has lost 1.435 million acres of irrigated cultivated cropland over the period, 1982-1997 (2). Most of the loss is due to dwindling ground-water supplies from the Ogallala aquifer. Aquifer level declines have ranged from 50-100 feet since 1980"
"Depth to water is highly variable but commonly exceeds 100 feet. Well yields are down from 1000 gallons per minute (gpm) to 250 gpm and less in some areas. At current rates of pumpage, current irrigated acreage is predicted to drop 50% by 2030"
OIL USE
...and the accompanying air and water pollution (and gas prices and political/war implications)
Plant foods require less fossil fuel to produce the same amount of caloric energy.
The data is from Dr. David Pimentel at Cornell University, who does research as an agricultural ecologist.
http://collections.ic.gc.ca/highway/english/energy/live.html The data measures the kilocalories of fossil fuel required to produce kilocalories of food.
Figures on the webpages, with the ratio corrected. Ratio = Fossil fuel energy used to produce food : energy provided by food (both in Kilocalories)
---------oil used : food produced
Range beef -- 10 : 1
Chicken ------ 16 : 1
Range lamb - 16 : 1
Milk --------- 19 : 1
Eggs --------- 28 : 1
Beef --------- 35 : 1
Pork --------- 68 : 1
Lamb ------ 188 : 1
Corn -------- .4 : 1
Wheat ------- .46 : 1
Soy --------- .24 : 1
Apple ------- .9 : 1
Potato ------ .72 : 1
Spinach --- 5.0 : 1
Tomato --- 1.6 : 1
Animal foods range from using 10-188 calories of fossil fuel, to create 1 calorie of food.
Plant foods range from using .24-5 calories of fossil fuel, to create 1 calorie of food.
The average animal food efficiency is 47(input):1(output)
The average plant food efficiency is 1.7(input):1(output)
So of the foods measured, plant foods require 27 times less fossil fuel energy than animal foods do, to produce the same number of calories of food.
The authors switched the ratio used (energy input:energy output) when giving the data for animal foods versus plant foods. The authors also used words like "most efficient" to describe animal foods, and described the efficiency of wheat as "relatively low"... even though wheat is 20 times more efficient than the most efficient animal food.
Less fossil fuel (oil and gas) correlates with less oil being explored for, drilled, transported, processed, and transported, and combusted. Each of these stages uses fossil fuels.
...I had to remove much of the info to make the post fit. www.helpusall.com/foodandenvironment.html
has it all. please go see! :)