Negative Essay: How Vegetarianism Can Save The Environment

How Vegetarianism could save the Environment

For many years, vegetarians and vegans have been publicly exposed to stereotypes and judgment. A person who decided to eat mostly plants, was considered a freak or a nonconformist. In restaurants and at private events, vegetarians commonly experienced difficulties to find food within the chosen dietary pattern and thus, unable to fully be part of cultural or social events, such as thanksgiving and barbecues. The omnivorous public perceived vegetarianism as a stigma and vegetarians are still subjects of comedy in many cases. Furthermore, vegetarians were often believed to jeopardize their health for a higher cause. Despite warnings that red and processed meats are carcinogenic, most Americans consider meat the core of their diets (Teicholz, N. 2014). Nonetheless, vegetarianism persisted and slowly grows in popularity and social acceptance, particularly in major cities and urban areas. Once stigmatized, vegetarianism is now so common, that many restaurants offer separate menus

2003) and already more than half of the land suitable for pastures is subject to overgrazing and erosion, posing a risk for food production in the near future. The erosion level of pastures and rangeland exceeds the erosion rate of cropland by roughly six times, meaning, that the land becomes unusable for agricultural use at higher rates when used for meat production rather than vegetarian foods. Moreover, croplands are not exclusively used for human consumption but animal feed accounts for 40 percent of the harvest. Thus, livestock requires land to graze while also depending on land to produce feed. The FAO (FAO, 2012) estimates, that due to the high land-use of conventional agriculture and an increasing demand for omnivorous products such as beef and milk, more than 10 billion hectares of forest are lost to expand pastures and grasslands to feed