Vegetables. Irresistibly Edible. Indisputably Digestible. Suitably Equitable.
CONTENTS
Introduction
The Environment
Animal Suffering
Is Meat-Eating Necessary?
Efficient Resource Usage
Food And Health
Conclusion
Introduction
In 1999 217 million tons of meat were produced for human consumption worldwide, with pastures for animals, along with land used to produce animal fodder, making up somewhere between one quarter and a third of all of the land on the planet. In most developed countries, more than 50% of the land available to agriculture is used for rearing livestock for meat and growing fodder for that livestock. In the UK more than 80 per cent of agricultural land is used to produce meat either directly or indirectly. (And even though meat production in the UK is heavily subsidised, it accounts for only 1.5 per cent of the UK's gross national product). Globally meat consumption has increased by 43 per cent in the 10 years from 1988 to 1998.[1]
This short paper looks at some of the knock-on effects of this widespread desire for meat.
The Environment: 'Think Globally, Act Locally'
Human beings consume a lot of food. So if an individual makes changes to their diet of an 'ethical consumerism' kind, the effects of these changes in the world at large will have an impact. This first section looks at some of the environmental effects of meat-eating.
Nitrogen.
In the USA, the effect of agriculture on water pollution is more pronounced than any other factor, including all other forms of industry.[2] The main problem is nitrogen, also as nitrogen oxide (NO) nitrate (...NO4) or ammonia (NH3). In Western Europe ammonia from the excrement of livestock is causing damage to forests. This ammonia is a significant factor in what we have come to know as 'acid rain', a major problem in certain areas of Western Europe. In 1992, a research committee of the German Bundestag estimated that 80 per cent of global NH3 emissions originates in livestock production. Intensive livestock farming often creates large quantities of liquid manure, a small but significant proportion of which tends to find it's way into the ground where water supplies may be threatened. In some low-lying areas such as Holland and East Anglia in the UK, excessive nitrogen in rivers, lakes and underground water from liquid manure (and also from nitrate fertilisers, which is another problem) has been causing particular concern. There are potential health costs to human beings as well as damage caused to aquatic ecosystems. Every year in the UK more than 2,000 serious water pollution incidents can be linked directly to 'industrial' livestock farming, and Europe-wide, it is estimated that around 50 per cent of all water pollution is due to problems caused by livestock.
Again, in certain low-lying areas where livestock production is particularly intense (such as some areas of Holland) over-acidification of the soil due to the presence of too much liquid manure from livestock has become a significant problem. Even if we continue to eat meat, however, There are other, better ways of doing things in this regard. As John Sheffield of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US has said:
'Animal manure has value. The United States produces 1.4 billion tons of wet manure a year, or more than 200 million tons in dry weight. The solids have value: as fertilizer, because it is rich in phosphates, and as an energy source. Those 200 million tons of manure contain energy equal to the energy in about 100 million tons of coal, roughly 10 percent of US annual coal use.' Waste treatment systems can capture methane gas from anaerobic digestion of manure, or through gasification or burning to provide an energy source to produce electricity and process heat. After undergoing these processes, the manure will have lower concentrations of polluting phosphates and also will have much reduced levels pathogens and antibiotics, allowing it to be recycled more readily.'
ORNL Article
It's 'early days' yet, but we are likely to see this kind of approach more and more as time goes by. Even the chemicals given to factory-farmed animals are turning out to be a problem: huge quantities of antibiotics are used, partly to combat disease in live animals (when often the conditions created by factory farming are themselves responsible for the potential increase in infectious diseases), partly to help 'fatten up' animals and partly also to help prolong the shelf-lives of meat products in shops. On the other hand, salmonella poisoning (for instance) remains an intermittent but serious problem. And the main reason for this is that these new strains of salmonella tend to be difficult to treat because they are resistant to antibiotics. (With over-use of the antibiotics heping to create the resistance). Many farm animals are also fed growth-promoting hormones and appetite stimulants along with other undesirable chemicals that accumulate in the meat of the animal. So whilst these chemicals may be harmful to the environment, they may also be harmful to those people who, at the end of the day, eat the meat: there is recent speculation in the scientific community that there may be a link between the falling sperm counts in most of the 'developed' countries, and the chemicals put into meat.
Deforestation.
As the global demand for meat increases, so more and more forest is gobbled up too. According to the WorldWatch Institute, between 1970 and 2000 more than 20 million hectares of tropical forest were flattened in order that the land should be used as pastures for cattle. (1 hectare is equivalent to about 2.5 acres). Unfortunately logging operations are responsible for even more forest decimation, such that the total loss of natural forests worldwide is running at 16 million hectares per year. And at this rate there will be no rainforests left on earth between 50 and 100 years from now.
The Greenhouse Effect.
'The contributions of cattle breeding to the hothouse effect are about the same as for the total of automobile traffic, if we take into consideration clearing of forests for cattle and for fodder'. [3]. Methane is one of the three gases thought to contribute most to the greenhouse effect (along with carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide). The 1.3 billion livestock cattle worldwide are responsible for 12% of methane gas emissions, or 115 million tonnes per year. A single cow will excrete around 60 litres of methane per day.
Overfishing.
The populations of most of the common species of fish eaten in Europe and the USA are under serious threat from overfishing. For instance stocks of cod in both the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean have now been overfished to the point where it would take many years for the population to recover even if no more of these fish were fished at all in that time (this is a situation referred to as 'outside safe biological limits'). But not only have we in Britain and the EU devastated to North Sea cod population by not fishing in a sustainable manner, now we are exporting this problem to the developing world as well: for instance the EU paid the Mauritanian government £300m to fish in its waters between 2001 and 2006, even though these stocks are already badly depleted as well. A study commissioned by the Mauritanian government shows that as a result these EU incursions the number of people employed in traditional octopus fishing in Mauritania has fallen from nearly 5,000 in 1996 to about 1,800 in 2001. Currently (2002) the EU has it's eyes on the fish in the waters off Bangladesh. However, as Klaus Toepfer, executive director of United Nations Environment Programme pointed out 'it is vital that the unsustainable fishing of the past and the present is not exported to the developing world.'
For every pound of commercial catch caught in 'trawling' nets, 10 to 20 pounds of 'bycatch' (that is, unwanted, 'waste' catch) is caught and thrown away. Longlines (fishing lines up to 80 miles long, which carry several thousand baited hooks at a time) are responsible for the deaths of an estimated estimated 180,000 birds a year.
'Despite the fact that most of the world's fisheries are in trouble due to overfishing, fisheries mismanagement, and pollution, fishermen routinely blame seals for reduced catches. Complaints by fishermen often lead to seal slaughters or "culls," which are crude and cruel attempts to boost fishery yields. However, there is little scientific evidence that seal slaughters help replenish fish stocks. In fact, removing large numbers of seals may actually hurt fish stocks, as other animals usually eaten by seals also eat commercial fish or compete with them for the same food' [4]
In 1986 an estimated 133,000 dolphins were killed because of tuna fishing. The number of dolphin casualties from tuna fishing went down year on year until 1988, when a mere 2,000 deaths were reported (although the real figure may have been higher). In 1999 however, new guidelines on the use of the phrase 'dolphin-friendly' have been introduced (that sanction use of the term even when the techniques used incur huge numbers of dolphin casualties) and dolphin deaths are increasing again as a result.
155,000 sea turtles drown in shrimp nets each year. Most of these belong to one or another 'endangered' species of turtle.
Global Politics.
Food and politics have always been intertwined. In particular, food issues are at the heart of relationships between the developing world and the 'first' world. For instance
'Poor countries bought 68 percent of last year's [2000] U.S. weapons output. US arms makers signed contracts for some 18.6 billion dollars in 2000, up from around 12.9 billion dollars the previous year. US contracts accounted for 49.7 percent of global sales last year. [5]
'Much of the protein wasted on the livestock eaten by the West comes from the poor countries; oilseeds and peanuts from West Africa, fishmeal from Peru, soybeans from Brazil...' [6]
'In Senegal a subsidiary of the giant American transnational Bud Antle ... has established huge irrigated "garden plantations" on land from which peasants have been moved. These plantations produce vegetables in the winter and feed for livestock (for export) in the summer. None of this produce is eaten in Senegal.' 'This process is occurring across all of North Africa. In Ethiopia in an area where thousands of people were evicted to make way for agribusiness and then starved to death, international firms are producing alfalfa to feed livestock in Japan. [7]
Until recently Senegal also had an agreement with the EU whereby EU fishing fleets were given right of access to Senegali waters in return for a couple of hundred million dollars, even though fish stocks were dangerously low there already. Currently two-thirds of Senegal's export earnings come from the fish exported to Europe. However, whilst traditionally fish has been one of the most important parts of the diet in coastal communities, increasingly it is simply no longer available because stocks are so low.
'Much of the Third World's productive capacity has become geared to the demand of the developed countries. This is most evident in the case of export crops. In some countries half of the best land grows crops to export to the rich countries. This is a direct consequence of allowing the highest bid to determine the uses to which the Third World's productive capacity is put. These export applications of Third World productive capacity yield to the people of the Third World only minute proportions of the wealth generated. For instance in Central America a 3000 hectare cattle ranch might provide (very low) incomes for only 2 people, yet one hectare of intensive home garden might feed 5-10 people.' [8]
In 1960 rich world average income was 20 times poor world income.
In 1980 rich world average income was 46 times poor world income.
In 1990 rich world average income was 55 times poor world income.
Source: World Development Reports, World Bank.
Between 1963 and 1985, the World Bank loaned 1.5 billion US dollars to the livestock businesses of Latin America...
'Even if the growth rate of the poor countries doubles, only 7 would close the gap with the rich nations in 100 years. Only another 9 would reach our level in 1000 years.' [9]
If you go vegetarian these problems will not disappear overnight, but making such a committment will surely be a step in the right direction.
Animal Suffering
The question here is 'why cause suffering to animals, either directly or indirectly, if you do not have to do that?'. All to often the 'factory-farming' techniques invloved in the rearing, transportation and slaughter of animals destined for the table do cause suffering. Generally, this suffering is hidden from the public; understandably perhaps as often the reality is nightmarish. Laws covering 'health and safety' and 'animal welfare' seem to have barely made a dint in the horrors inflicted on animals bred for their meat. Agribusiness treats animals as commodities, not living, feeling creatures.
Even in 'developed' countries such as Britain and the US one finds up to six egg-laying hens placed in wire battery cages that have a floor area of little more than 2 square feet. Living in such conditions leads to lameness, bone brittleness, osteoporosis, and muscle weakness in the hens. It 'pays' to put a lot of birds in a cage because chickens are cheap, while cages and floorspace are reelatively expensive.
In 1888, the average farm hen laid 100 eggs per year in 1998, it was 256. At the end of a laying cycle, sometimes food and water is denied for several days in order to shock a hen's body into (unnaturally) initiating another laying cycle. Egg-producing battery farms have no use for male chicks, so they are killed (usually by suffocation in plastic bags). Chickens raised for meat are selectively bred and genetically altered to produce bigger thighs and breasts. However this makes them so heavy that often the bones cannot support the bird's weight, making it difficult for them to stand. They are also 'encouraged' to grow so rapidly and unnaturally (generally reaching their market weight of 3.5 pounds in seven weeks) that many die from congestive heart failure. Beaks and toes may well be 'docked' to reduce the damage to birds from infighting (the overcrowded conditions increasing a birds' aggression). But even industry researchers have pointed out that 'neurophysiological and behavioral observations provide indirect evidence that beak-trimming of pullets causes pain which apparently persists for weeks or even months.' [10]
Breeding sow pigs are pregnant for most of their adult lives, and they confined in farrowing crates that measure just two feet by six feet. The sows cannot walk, turn around, or even lie down comfortably. Over 70 per cent of factory-farmed pigs suffer painful foot and leg injuries, irritating skin mange, and chronic respiratory diseases. Many pigs die in transit from a to b, as one worker testified: 'over 250 hogs show up dead at packing plants every day. Death losses during transport are too high. But it doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out why we load as many hogs on a truck as we do. It's cheaper.' [11]
And then there are beef cattle, veal calves and dairy cows. Take a look at the vegan outreach page for more information on what goes in the world of factory farming, if you dare.
Is Meat-Eating Necessary?
Human beings are technically 'omnivores' as our bodies are capable of digesting both meat and vegetable matter (but not grass, unfortunately!).
Forest apes have varied diets. They tend to be mostly vegetarian, with some protein obtained from insects, birds eggs, small reptiles and the like. 15 million years ago our forest ape ancestors were most definitely NOT carnivores in the true sense of the word. They were vegetarians who ate a little meat, if catching it required little or no effort. (It has often been pointed out that a gorrilla's large canine teeth emphatically suggest carnivorous habits: this is not the case -a gorilla's canines are there mainly for show: to impress and scare off other individuals in competition situations: gorillas are mostly vegetarian). It was around 15 million ago years that climate changes catalysed a global reduction in the amount of forest cover. Some species of ape (gorillas, gibbons, etc) stayed in the forest, while other species, the precursors of homo sapiens, gradually moved out onto the plains to take their chances there. This move from forest to savannah seems to have led to our ancestors eating more meat, as in those circumstances it was the easiest way of satisfying their needs. Around a million years ago further steps down the carnivorous road appear to have been taken with the development of cooperative hunting techniques where animals were tracked and brought down by teams using weapons. So homo sapiens, who first appeared around 150,000 years ago, represents a vegetarian-turned-carnivore, adapting to circumstances as necessary. We are not innately carnivorous (with some current human societies having had almost no contact with meat for thousands of years) and, as those of us reading this on a computer can get hold of protein and other nutrients by other means, there is no way it can be said that we need to eat meat. If we miss out on one or two nutrients (such as B12) then it's easy to get them from other sources (eg from various yeast-extract '...mite' products or from supplements). Are we more in charge of our own destinies than our prehistoric ancestors were? We have a choice.
In many latter-day human societies meat-eating is, or was, the exception not the rule: that is, the occasion would be a special one. Often this would be the case because economically, meat was a luxury. In present-day Japan meat tends to be a garnish at meal time and not the main food event. One study found that populations of Eskimos, Greenlanders and Russian Kurgis had among the highest intakes of flesh foods. These groups also had the lowest life expectancies. Conversely populations of Hunzas, East Indian Todas, Russian Caucasians and Yucatan Indians, who ate little or no meat at all, were found to have the highest life expectancies.
The World Health Organization has estimated that a human being's minimum daily protein requirement is around 5 percent of the daily intake of calories. This is equivalent to 37 grams of protein per day for an active male and 29 grams for an active female. It is not difficult to obtain this much protein, present as it is in the majority of non-meaty foodstuffs. Put another way it is extremely difficult to design a vegetarian diet deficient in proteins (without recourse to a diet of sugar, jam and jelly...).
Although protein is essential, too much causes problems. As meat is digested, the liver, pancreas and kidneys have to work harder to deal with the after-effects. It used to be said that meat protein was superior to protein obtained from any other source, but now it is known that the reverse is true: the proteins found in vegetables, fruit, seeds, and nuts tend to be smaller molecules that are more easily digested by the body, producing less toxic wastes in the process. The body is nonetheless still able to use plant proteins for it's own synthetic adventures just as easily. Animal proteins tend to lead to an increase in blood cholesterol, whereas vegetable proteins tend to reduce it. In the United States, per-capita meat consumption is now more than 2 kilograms a week,[12] a full 8 times more than the World Health Organization's recommended 37g per-day minimum daily protein requirement (for men: the figure for women is even less: see above).
Efficient Resource Usage
It takes a lot of land, relatively speaking, to produce 1kg of meat per year. The same amount of land could produce
200 kg of tomatoes or
160 kg of potatoes or
20 kg of cherries or
120 kg of carrots or
80 kg of apples
This same 1kg of meat will require between 2000 and 3000 litres of water to produce,[13] whereas growing a kilo of grain requires only 100 litres of water. When fed to livestock, 7 to 16 kilo of vegetable matter is needed to produce 1 kilo of meat. Clearly rearing livestock is a very inefficient way of creating protein. Calculating a simple measure by which to compare the relative efficiency of i) creating protein from meat and ii) creating protein from vegetable sources, is not actually completely straightforward, as there are many variables that must be taken into account, but most objective calculations suggest that producing protein from plants such as soya is 5 to 8 times as efficient as creating protein from livestock. A good (62-page hard-copy) source of the statistics can be found in 'Taking Stock: Animal Farming And The Environment' by Alan Durning and Holly Brough (available from the Worldwatch Institute web site
). You can find extracts of this book online at the Vegetarian Site).
In the US, around 80 per cent of the each year's grain harvest is fed to the country's 8 billion slaughter animals.
About half of the grain produced worldwide is used as animal feed. If the 'average' American were eat (say) 10 per cent less meat, then the quantity of the grain saved would be enough to feed an awful lot of people elsewhere.
It would appear to be the case that across the world people are eating more and more meat (that is, if you divide the total amount of meat produced by the number of people on the planet, then you get a figure for 'average meat consumption per person' and this figure is rising all the time, partly because people's average disposable income is rising all the time) and following on from that, across the world the proportion of grain used for animal fodder, as opposed to direct human consumption, is increasing all the time. For example, in the former Soviet Union meat consumption has tripled since 1950, with the concomitant demand for fodder quadrupling in the same period. In 1950 the Soviet Union was a net exporter of grain. Now it is the world's second largest importer.
According to the Vegetarian Society of the UK, a piece of fertile land 10 acres in size (equivalent to 5 football pitches) will support
60 people growing soya (assuming a climate warm enough to grow soya)
24 people growing wheat
10 people growing maize
2 people growing cattle
Some 40 per cent of the world's cereal harvest is fed to livestock. In Europe we import huge quantities from developing countries to feed to animals to produce more meat and dairy products than we can use, thus creating the infamous EEC surpluses. Many of the developing countries who do export grain to the 'first world' countries of the West are unable to feed all of their own people. Historically it has at times been also the case that countries may be keen to sell grain to the West in order to acquire dollars with which to buy arms (from the West again of course, in which case the rich countries gain twice over). As if this was not enough, having imported much of the grain of developing countries, subsidised meat producers in the first world often then offload meat back again to poor countries at unrealistically low prices, encouraging yet more meat (over)production at the expense of local markets in the developing world.
It would be quite impossible for everyone in the world to eat the average Western diet, since there is simply not enough land, and the current juggernaut increase in global meat consumption has to stop somewhere as we are dealing with finite resources.
The Worldwatch Institute has estimated that if one took into account all of the ecological costs of meat production, including fossil fuel use, the effects on ground water, pollution of the soil by liquid manure and the release of harmful gases by livestock animals (let alone the effects on public health, see Health below) then the price for meat would have to be doubled or tripled.
Food And Health
The BSE crisis in the UK illustrated many things. Prior to that, the not-altogether-saintly alliance of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and the farming lobby itself in the UK had said, more or less 'leave it to us, we know what we're doing'. But the BSE crisis demonstrated that to do so was not altogether wise. All too often it had been the case that the British public had not known the conditions under which meat was being produced. Did the meat-producers have something to hide? (The question is rhetorical). Information on what parts of the animal were being used (eg brains, spines, and so on) was also withheld from the British public. This lack of transparency led to the adoption of practises that ultimately were a complete disaster. And things had to get very very bad indeed before those who had been standing up to say 'we need to take critical look at this' could do so without having to withstand what were often quite vicious character assasinations. (As happened to Professor Richard Lacey of Leeds University, just around the corner from me...). But so much for vested interests. Food has always had it's own politics.
A study sponsored by the British Medical Association in 1986 found that 'A vegetarian diet confers a wide range of health benefits. Research has proven that vegetarians suffer less from many of the diseases linked to a modern Western diet: obesity, coronary heart disease, hypertension, type II diabetes, diet-related cancers, diverticular disease, constipation and gall stones'.
Whilst there is widespread general evidence that vegetarians live longer (McMichael 1992) it is also clear that the main reason for this is the fact that vegetarians are less liable to suffer from all of the diseases mentioned above. Research demonstrating the extent to which vegetarians are often significantly less prone to one or more of these diseases (heart disease in particular) includes an 11-year study of 1,900 vegetarians in Germany, (Chang-Claude 1992/1993), a 12-year study of 6,115 British vegetarians and 5,015 meat-eaters (Thorogood 1994), another study looking at more than 6,000 British vegetarians (Burr and Butland 1988), a 21-year study of Californian Seventh-Day Adventists (Kahn 1984), and a study of more than 5,000 young adults aged 18 to 30 (Slattery 1991).
Another study looking into obesity found that of the vegetarians they looked at, 5.4 per cent of them could be considered to be obese, whereas the figure for non-vegetarians was 19.5 per cent. (Levin 1986a).
Various studies have also shown that vegetarians tend to have lower blood pressure than non-vegetarians (Armstrong 1977, Rouse 1983, Margetts 1986). -High blood pressure is undesirable for a number of health reasons.
And so on. There is actually a huge amount of research supporting the health benefits of a vegetarian diet. I won't refer to any more of it here but it's not hard to find this material on the internet if you want to pursue it further: try here for instance as a starting point.
Here is a list of the physical conditions that research has shown vegetarians to be less susceptible to:
breast cancer
cancer of the colon
constipation
diet-related cancers
diverticular disease
gall stones
heart disease
hypertension
lung cancer
obesity
osteoporosis
prostate cancer
type II diabetes
If you decide to go vegetarian, these are the things that your diet may have less of from now on vitamin B12 (found in yeast extract, some beers and supplements), vitamin D (found in many margerines), iron and zinc so if you think you're missing out, taking vitamin and mineral capsules to make up for the losses may well be a good idea.
Regarding protein, amino acids are the 'building blocks' used by the body in the synthesis of protein. There are more than 20 amino acids, but only 8 or 9 are considered to be 'essential' insofar as they can't be synthesised by the body. The rest can be built more or less 'from scratch'. 'Ready-made' protein itself is found in many non-meat foodstuffs, from fruit to nuts to bread, and so on, but should it be necessary for the body to create more protein, then generally is not difficult for the body to find all of the amino acids it needs for protein synthesis without any special choices having to be made. (Many people live almost exclusively on fruit and/or nuts, for instance).
Soya products, from soybeans, generally contain 7 of the 8 most essential amino acids. The 'missing' amino acid, methionine, can easily be supplied from wheat (ie bread) or maize (sweetcorn). Soya flour has twice the protein content of wheat flour. (Then there's tofu, soya milk, soya curd, soy sauce, textured vegetable protein and many many products containing soya protein in various forms). Similarly rice contains all of the essential amino acids except tryptophan, and again this is not difficult to obtain from other sources. As a vegetarian, you should not need to even think about how to plug the gaps -a normal vegetarian diet will include all of the building blocks. These days there are many different 'soy protein' products, and, to illustrate the protein-value of soya relative to meat, full-fat soya flour is around 40 per cent protein, defatted soy flour is around 55 per cent protein (by weight): -the best beefsteak is only around 30 per cent protein by weight.
Frances Lappe, in her 1971 book Diet for a Small Planet, fostered the idea that it was a good idea to get a good mix of amino acids (eg by mixing grains and pulses) so that the body could then synthesise protein for itself most efficiently. She has since revised her opinion on the subject, however, saying 'if people are getting enough calories, they are almost certain of getting enough protein'...
Sometimes people who are not used to a vegetarian diet say 'what on earth do you eat?' as though this is a problem: sometimes they simply can't imagine what a vegetarian might eat, seemingly holding an image of boiled carrots and potatoes in their heads ad nauseam. However, creating vegetarian meals that are varied and interesting is actually easy. (And there's thousands of recipes out there on the internet, of course). If you think that a vegetarian diet may not provide enough nutritional value, think again.
Conclusion
Actions have consequences.
Ethical consumerism is already helping to shape the world.
You don't need to eat meat.
Go for it!
References.
1. Foreign Agricultural Service. Total Meat Summary 1988-1998.
2. Cross, Russell H., Byers, Floyd M., and others: Current Issues in Food Production: A Perspective on Beef as a Component in Diets of Americans, page 5.26, April 1990.
3. Ernst U. v. Weizäcker, Head of the Wuppertal-Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy.
4. Steven Pearlstein, Sealing the Seal's Fate. Washington Post Foreign Service, September 19, 1999, p. A27.
5. US Congressional Research Service Report: Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1993-2000.
6. P. Harrison, Inside the Third World, 1979, p. 276.
7. W. Murdoch, The Poverty of Nations, 1980, pp 297-298.
8. Third World Poverty And Underdevelopment web site.
9. Robert McNamara, President of the World Bank. 1983.
10. Poultry Science Magazine Issue 71 1992.
11. Lancaster Farming, 10/27/90.
12. USDA FAS 1991; Bailey 1990.
13. Reisner & Bates 1990; Sweeten 1990; Weeks et al. 1988; Oltjen 1991; Ward, Dept. Animal Sciences.
Here are some other possible sources that you might want to explore for background information:
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS)
Agricultural Research Service (ARS)
FAS Production Estimates and Crop Assessment Division (PECAD)
National Agricultural Statistics Service
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
USAID Famine Early Warning System (FEWS)
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
The World Bank
The World Bank Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)
Some Famous Vegetarians
Albert Einstein
Albert Schweitzer
Annie Lennox
Anthony Perkins
Billie Jean King
Bob Dylan
Boy George
Brad Pitt
Brooke Shields
Bryan Adams
Carmen Miranda
Charles Darwin
Cher
Chrissie Hynde
Claudia Schiffer
Darryl Hannah
David Bowie
David Duchovny
Drew Barrymore
Dustin Hoffman
Elvis Costello
Gandhi
George Bernard Shaw
George Harrison
Grace Slick
HG Wells
Henry David Thoreau
Indigo Girls
Isaac Newton
Joan Armatrading
Joan Baez
John Lennon
Kate Bush
KD Lang
Kim Basinger
Leo Tolstoy
Leonard Cohen
Leonardo Da Vinci
Liv Tyler
Louisa May Alcott
Mark Twain
Martina Navratilova
Mary Tyler Moore
Michael J Fox
Michael Jackson
Michael Stipe
Moby
Morrissey
Nina Hagen
Olivia Newton John
Paul McCartney
Peter Gabriel
Plato
Prince
Pythagoras
Ralph Nader
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Richard Thompson
Richie Havens
Ringo Starr
River Phoenix
Roseanna Arquette
Seal
Shania Twain
Sinead O'Connor
Socrates
Steve Jobs
Stevie Nicks
Stevie Wonder
Thomas Edison
Voltaire
William Blake
That's All Folks!
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