I have a question for you: Would you feel able to give up on your steaks and sausages, and eat only fruits, vegetables, and other cereals? Well, I’m saying that because you may soon have to give up on your favourite BBQ, since a recent study done by the International Institute for the Study of Stockholm Water (SIWI) predicted that soon, the world’s population will increase so much that our resources will not be enough to feed us. And to remedy this, this study advises humanity to switch to a vegetarian diet by 2050.
A vegetarian diet is to no longer eat any animal flesh, including red meat, poultry and fish meat either! In contrast, in vegetarianism, you can continue to eat eggs, cheese and milk. What if the percentage of vegetarians in the world was 100%? Would we survive without any problem? Or our species and our health would gradually decline? What would our planet look like without grazing and without livestock? What could be the consequences for our economy? Of course, we cannot deal with all aspects related to vegetarianism in this post but we will still try to see roughly how it could affect us. Here, the idea is not to demonstrate that one diet is better than another, but rather to show what a very specific diet on the scale of all humanity can result.
The diet
So the first question coming in our head is: can we live by depriving ourselves of meat in our diet? For the ones who still ignores it, the answer is YES. In reality, the human being is neither carnivorous nor herbivorous, he is omnivorous. That is to say, he can consume both meat and vegetables, or just one or another.
But does that mean that a human being cannot survive without meat? In theory, all the nutrients found in meat can also be found in plants. The stakes for humanity would be to be able to feed accordingly. And it would require controlling what you put on your plate in order to avoid deficiencies and things like that. In any case what must be remembered is that over the millennia, eating meat has been less and less a question of survival but now more than anything a sign of luxury. And concerning the long-term effects, some experts say that in a vegetarian world, the mortality rate could drop by 6 to 10%, since consuming less red meat would already release a lot of cardiovascular diseases.
The economy
But a ban on eating or producing meat would nevertheless be a blow given to all those who live from the animal exploitation, and we will face thousands of jobs lost and would probably see many conversions as farmers or reforestation agents, etc. So even if these new unemployed are allowed to reconvert themselves into new jobs, the unemployment curve might initially get a little fuzzy.
"Life would become impossible in some environments without their livestock," says Ben Phalan, a researcher at Cambridge University.
"Especially for nomadic groups, who, deprived of their livestock, would have to settle permanently in cities or villages and lose their cultural identity," says the BBC.
Furthermore, the majority of the meat-dependent areas will be affected, as well as isolated populations and tribes living exclusively from animal exploitation. These populations will be forced to live in the city and abandon their traditions, according to the BBC.
The planet
What about the planet in all this? Of course, the reports do not all agree among themselves, this would have been too easy. BUT one thing seems to come out clear enough, it seems that Global Warming related to man would enormously be reduced. Incidentally, the Cowspiracy documentary (that is available on Netflix) is dealing with the topic in an amazing way.
Have you ever heard of methane? You know this very polluting gas even more harmful than CO2? Well, we find it in the fart of the cows. And with the proliferation of livestock, the amount of methane that escapes into the atmosphere and tickles the ozone layer has increased significantly. For those who do not know, pastures occupy over the globe about 33 000 000 km2. To give you an idea, it's about the size of the entire African continent. And if we did not eat meat anymore, all these spaces would logically be returned to Mother Nature.
But today over the time, these lands have become very dry, either because the animals above have eaten all the greenery, either because they are too numerous on the plots. And because of their continuous manure, the soil has become more and more acidic. And so even if these lands were returned to nature, they would remain unsuitable for agriculture. Some might even turn into desert. Unless we use chemicals to make them fertile again, all these pretty little meadows would remain infertile and unusable lands. That said, to the extent that these lands are already sterile because of the breeding, the fact that one passes to the vegetarianism or not the inside there would change absolutely nothing.
A new agriculture
One could also think that in a vegetarian world, we would see the multiplication of fields to feed humanity. You will actually be surprised, but the effect would be exactly the opposite. Why? Because 70% of the agricultural lands that we cultivate today, which is the equivalent of 23 000 000 m2, are currently used to feed livestock, which is itself intended to feed us.
So if we don’t feed the animals anymore, on those 70% of the agricultural lands, and according to my sources we would need to recover only a fifth of it to be able to feed all the remaining humanity. So the four-fifths of the spaces left abandoned we could leave them to nature, reintroduce species, etc. Let’s say that we would use it to recreate forests, it would be the equivalent of the whole area of Russia fully reforested. It's a lot of fir trees, isn’t it?
The Water Issue
In this new world, humanity could also solve a pretty thorny problem that is the one of drinking water. To produce 1kg of steak on your plate, the total amount of water consumed to produce this amounts of meat is 15 000 litres, this includes all the water needed to feed the animal + the water to grow the grass + the cereals that the cow grazes must be watered too. Whereas in comparison, it takes 900 litres to grow 1kg of soy, which contains on its side a bit more protein than beef for the same quantity.
The animals
But you surely wonder, what will become of all these animals that we will not eat anymore. Well, according to the FAO, which is the US Food and Agriculture Organization, an average of about 60 000 000 000 terrestrial animals are slaughtered each year, which is about 8 times the number of humans that populate the earth. Then you can add 1 000 000 000 000 marine animals, which are also killed each year, the figure is 1 060 000 000 000 animals consumed per year. Well in a vegetarian world it is so many cows, calves, and salmon etc. that are saved every year, and that’s A LOT...
Here is a video explaining more in details What Would Happen If The World Suddenly Became Vegetarian:
Hope you liked the post,
Noémie.
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