Did you know that…
3.2 percent of adults follow a vegetarian diet? That’s 7.3 million people!
0.5 percent of those people are vegans?
Over 1.3 billion human beings could be fed each year from the grain and soybeans that go to livestock in the United States?
Livestock in the US produces roughly 30 times more excrement than human beings?
It takes 7.5 pounds of protein feed to create 1 pound of consumable hog protein; and it takes 5 pounds of protein feed to create 1 pound of consumable chicken protein? Close to 90% of protein from wheat and beans is lost to feed cycling.
If everyone went vegetarian for just one day, the U.S. would save:
100 billion gallons of water, enough to supply all the homes in New England for almost 4 months
1.5 billion pounds of crops otherwise fed to livestock, enough to feed the state of New Mexico for more than a year
70 million gallons of gas — enough to fuel all the cars of Canada and Mexico combined with plenty to spare
33 tons of antibiotics
According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads.
Sources:
The Big V 