Going Vegetarian

As you may have read yesterday, Morgan and I have decided to set a little challenge for ourselves and go vegetarian for one month. For the past two and a half years we've been having "Vegetarian Tuesdays," in which we don't eat any meat. Now, I've known that vegetarianism is much healthier for the environment and for you- but I've never really known to what extent. So today I decided to do a little research... Here are my findings:

• 78 times more energy is used in producing beef than you get out of it (22 times for poultry), while it is equal for soybeans
• It takes 3-15 times more water to produce the same amount of meat as vegetable
• 16 pounds of soybean and grains are used to produce 1 pound of beef
• Eating 1 pound of meat emits the same amount of greenhouse gasses as driving an SUV 40 miles
• Every minute 7 football fields worth of rainforest are destroyed to make room for cattle, while a vegetarian saves 1 acre of trees every year
• You save more water by not eating a pound of beef than you do by not showering for an entire year
• In the US alone, 70% of all grain, 80% of all agricultural land, 50% of all water resources, and 33% of all fossil fuels are used to raise animals for food
• There is no nutrient that you need from meant that you can't get from plants

Not to riddle you with my dogma; but if I wasn't convinced before, I certainly am now. The shear impact that abstaining form 1 pound of beef, 1 burger has on the environment is astounding. For today I would like to leave you with a question: Doesn't it seem worth it to go vegetarian for just one day a week? Think about it.

- Amber

[facts courtesy of: http://www.goveg.com/ and http://www.britishmeat.com/49.htm]