Monday, January 06, 2014

Why a Sustainable Plant Based Diet?

This year saw a trend in big money investors like Microsoft's Bill Gates, Twitter Co-founders and Google co-founder Sergey Brin all investing plant based fake meat/eggs companies. 
Why We Must Shift to Sustainable Plant-Based Eating
These investors recognize that the planet cannot sustain its current level of industrialized animal farming. There’s a big problem with our reliance on meat, dairy and eggs, and it’s only going to get worse.
If you’re an animal lover, you already despise the grinding, horrifying cruelty of today’s factory farms. Gone are the bucolic, rolling pasture lands dotted with roaming farm animals that our grandparents remember. Farmers just can’t meet the staggering worldwide demand for meat, eggs and dairy by doing business that way anymore.
To make raising livestock profitable, chickens are caged together so tightly they can’t spread their wings or walk around – ever. Pigs are jammed into gestation crates they cannot turn around in, their teeth and tails cut off without anesthetic to keep them from chewing at one another out of madness or boredom. Cattle are kept constantly impregnated so their milk will never stop flowing, while their newborn calves are carted off to become veal.
If the plight of farmed animals isn’t enough to turn you plant-based, have you taken a close look at the effects of today’s farming practices on the environment? The statistics are sobering:
  • 76 percent of all U.S. farmland is used only to graze livestock. That’s 614 million acres of pasture, 157 million acres of public land and 127 million acres of forest.
  • In addition to the above, if you also factor in the land used to grow feed for animals, a staggering 97 percent of U.S. agricultural land is devoted to sustaining livestock and poultry.
  • Animals raised for food create 89,000 pounds of manure per second, causing extensive groundwater pollution.
  • 30 percent of the entire land surface of the Earth is used by livestock.
  • 70 percent of Amazon deforestation is directly due to clearing land to provide livestock grazing area.
  • 33 percent of the world’s arable land is used to produce feed only for livestock.
  • More than 70 percent of the crops we grow in the U.S. are produced just to feed meat-producing livestock.
  • 70 percent of available water is used for growing crops, most of which feed livestock, not people.
  • It takes 13 pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat.

Despite all of the above, worldwide meat production will explode from 229 million tons in 2001 to 465 million tons by 2050, while global milk output will increase from 580 million tons in 2001 to 1043 million tons by 2050.
“There will not be enough water available on current croplands to produce food for the expected 9 billion population in 2050 if we follow current trends and changes towards diets common in western nations,” according to a report issued in 2012 by Stockholm International Water Institute.
Our current system simply won’t enable us to feed 9 billion people a the current rate at which we consume meat, eggs and dairy. Crunch the numbers and it becomes disturbingly clear that something must change – soon.
That’s why smart, high dollar investors are eyeing companies which understand this coming crisis and are offering solutions. They’re out in front, paving the way for a plant-based future. 

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/the-skyrocketing-business-of-vegan-food-aims-to-save-the-world.html#ixzz2ph9QOCYp