What if the whole world was veg*n?
Posted by deuceO on Oct 09, 2007 · Member since Nov 2006 · 548 posts
I got into an interesting discussion with one of my co-workers today. He is an omni, but very respectful of my choice. We were theorizing what would happen if overnight, the entire world became vegetarians. What would happen to all the animals in the factory farms? Would the eat all the vegetables that us veg*ns love so much? Would all the pigs turn into feral pigs? Would there be enough of non-animal products to feed everyone? How would it affect the economy and society?
I didn't have answers but it really got me thinking.
America's cash crops are corn and soy. If the world didn't even become vegetarian, but tried to get the daily required fresh fruits/vegetables servings for each day, there isn't enough in the entire U.S. to support that.
This also shows just how horribly unhealthy american diets are.
Wow! Great concept! What would happen to all those factory farm animals? I suppose they could be adopted out to rural farms where they could live out the rest of their lives in pretty pastures. Wouldn't that be nice? Assuming the animals were kept from reproducing their population would decrease to a more managable number. It's estimated now that 85% of the corn crops are used to feed agriculture animals--so if all those animals no longer existed the human population would have plenty of food--but I think it would probably take a least a decade for animals and humans to get to the right number--but could you imagine how awesome it would be to think that in 10 years time animals would no longer be kept as slaves to our food system but as our friends--and all the excess food stuffs could be sent to starving countries!
Of course that is all theory and I am in no way educated to make accurate predictions, but I think it would be awesome if the world went vegan! :)
i can't remember exactly where i heard it, probably a few places actually, but if the world stopped eating meat it would go a long way to help the hunger problem. I beleieve it's called the tropic levels (again, not certain) but it takes more grain and produce to feed the live stock than the actual people who would eat the live stock. so cut out the middle man, more food for the masses. i remember reading 10000lbs of grain a 1000lb cow feeds 100lbs of human. so no cow means 10000lbs of grain feeds 1000lbs of human, ie, a lot more people.
What a great conversation!
My first thought was : then the cook at our local pizza joint wouldn't come out to say 'hi, I knew y'all were here because of the weird order'. We usually buy him a beer when he gets it right.
Keep this thread going, I have some thoughts, but I MUST finish my work (promised the architect plans in the AM) and I have no biz on vegweb right now.
i can't remember exactly where i heard it, probably a few places actually, but if the world stopped eating meat it would go a long way to help the hunger problem. I beleieve it's called the tropic levels (again, not certain) but it takes more grain and produce to feed the live stock than the actual people who would eat the live stock. so cut out the middle man, more food for the masses. i remember reading 10000lbs of grain a 1000lb cow feeds 100lbs of human. so no cow means 10000lbs of grain feeds 1000lbs of human, ie, a lot more people.
I heard that too. It takes alot of grain and water to feed the animals and that could be used to feed the populations instead.
I have a hard time theorizing about this question because logically, I know this would never happen. (I have wondered about this before, though--I'm not at all knocking the question! I just can't really wrap my brain around what I think would happen if everyone went vegan overnight. ;) I know it would be more of a gradual thing.)
This website talks specifically about the U.K. (not the U.S.), but I found it interesting. It highlights what would happen if everyone eventually went vegan:
http://www.ivu.org/oxveg/Publications/Oven/Articles_General/whatifallvegan.html
It's funny--whenever I hear questions like this (not too often, but still), I automatically get this image in my head of a happy, smiling cow prancing all over a green pasture... ::) I wish.
My friend recently asked me if Id make the whole world vegan if I could and how I though that was possible...I said that yes, I would make it vegan but it would be a slow process...First, i would ban breeding all animals that are interned for human use/consumption. I think that in order to have a mangable population (no more than could be cared for humanly) I would allow them to be used for a few months (this though makes me so sad but we could not take care of all the cows, pigs, chickems, etc... that we currently have.) People would eat those animals. Non vegan/vegetarian foods would stop being produced. There would be education provided to farmers who currently raise stock animals and they would be given government supplied equipment to turn their lands into land for raising crops. Individuals would also be given tax breaks for the amount of produce they raised on their own lot ( you'd be surprised how much once can grow on their 1/6 of an acer bit of property.
I'm sure there would be plenty of hiccups and growing pains...but if, i could...this is what id do.
i can't remember exactly where i heard it, probably a few places actually, but if the world stopped eating meat it would go a long way to help the hunger problem. I beleieve it's called the tropic levels (again, not certain) but it takes more grain and produce to feed the live stock than the actual people who would eat the live stock. so cut out the middle man, more food for the masses. i remember reading 10000lbs of grain a 1000lb cow feeds 100lbs of human. so no cow means 10000lbs of grain feeds 1000lbs of human, ie, a lot more people.
Yep. 10% rule. The energy that moves from one level of the food chain to the next is 10% of what went into it. From producers to primary consumers to secondary consumers... you lose 90% of the energy to metabolism, growth, etc.
However... most of the stuff that cows eat is inedible for humans. It's a specific type of commodity corn (thank you Michael Pollan and "Omnivore's Dilemma"). All those fields would have to be replanted with some of those fields replanted as vegetable fields and orchards etc... but I'm guessing that would take a full season and a lot of hard work. I guess the price of fruits and vegetables would skyrocket because of the high demand during that first year (as Cutething mentioned)... and most people would have to rely on grains and soy products to fill out the rest of their diets. Some of the fruits would take much longer to come along (I can imagine it takes a long time to grow an apple tree or an orange vine...).
I'm always hesitant about revolution. I always counsel evolutionary change instead (I'd probably do something close to VHZ's plan, but I haven't really thought about it).
I have a hard time imagining this too. Precisely because, logically, it just won't happen. If only due to medical reasons. A cousin of mine has severe allergies to, literally, everything. She had a g-button put in as a toddler (before that she was fed through a tube in her nose) in order to suuply her with scientifically formulated food.
Right now, she's better, but from the handful of things she can actually eat are duck and rabbit. Also, she can drink goat's milk.
Plus, there are individual concerns to think about, i.e. my S/O went vegan for 6 months and felt like he was dying the whole time. And he did the diet "correctly." But, his body has been messed up due to chemo, his digestive tract messed up due to all the antibiotics and crap he had to take while on chemo. Meat, for some reason, is easier for his body to handle than lots of veggies and grains. (He doesn't eat any dairy.)
So, I don't personally think it's a diet for everyone. Especially, if their bodies have been affected through things like allergies or other medical issues.
Otherwise, in terms of what would happen ... I think, mainly, all the farm animals would eventually go extinct. We'd have to have a system in place to, first, care for them and feed them until they all went extinct. Which would also take a lot of room. Grazing them all won't be possible because overgrazing will become a huge ecological problem. So, they'd still have to be fed grain. Which means, now, we'd have to have room for them to live, and room for grain to grow for them.
Probably, this isn't a popular notion, but the best thing IMO would be to humanely kill them. Use the meat to feed the hungry. Bulldoze the factory farms and feedlots. Switch the corn growing land for small, farms with diversity for sustainability purposes. The cows and other farm animals on the, present, small, sustainable farms can be left alone. This way we have ecological sustainability, humane treatment, and enough food to feed people.
It's funny--whenever I hear questions like this (not too often, but still), I automatically get this image in my head of a happy, smiling cow prancing all over a green pasture... ::) I wish.
what a great picture!
hmmm. well first i do agree with those that say it wouldn't happen. obviously it wouldn't but that isn't what deuce is asking, anyhow....
though i am getting more and more into animal rights all the time, i am different from many people in that i do not think that it is inherently wrong to eat animals. i do, however, think it is inherently wrong to torture them. this view makes me see this whole debate in a completely different light than most of you.
i also disagree with the exploitation of land. yep. i do not think that our mass farming is ecologically sustainable, either. so i don't think the whole world going vegan but still keeping to all of our others ways would help in the long run. now, i obviously believe in the vegan diet, being that i am a vegan, etc. i just don't think it would solve all of our problems if everyone went vegan. what really need to happen is we need to forage more, and reduce the human population (in addition to consuming less, just being happy to BE).
i also don't really buy into 'we need to take care of the animals' thing. i think adamcrisis mentioned this so i might have one other person who agrees with me but i actually don't think we should keep pets. though, i know that for better or for worse we have domesticated some animals and need to take care of them now.
ok so i guess what i would do is: humanely kill down to a number that can be wild (but who would set this number? i just don't know if this is feasible) and let them be. but, i do believe we would need to begin producing more edible human food first. for various reasons already stated.
i also don't really buy into 'we need to take care of the animals' thing. i think adamcrisis mentioned this so i might have one other person who agrees with me but i actually don't think we should keep pets. though, i know that for better or for worse we have domesticated some animals and need to take care of them now.
I agree with this, too. I am actually really...disgusted (?)--maybe disappointed would be a better word--by people who buy their pets from breeders. If I had my way, we would stop breeding pets completely and just take care of the ones we have already brought into this world. I love my (adopted) dog so very much, but I will never buy from a breeder. Personally, I just don't think it's right to support this industry when there are so many animals without homes already. Why breed more?! >:( :'(
My supervisor at work breeds Boxers with his fiancee "for a fun hobby." While I respect his right to partake in this, and I understand that he enjoys it... I just can't understand why people are so drawn to buying/breeding animals when there are just millions of them who will be put to sleep every year because they can't find decent, loving homes. What's the point?
though i am getting more and more into animal rights all the time, i am different from many people in that i do not think that it is inherently wrong to eat animals. i do, however, think it is inherently wrong to torture them. this view makes me see this whole debate in a completely different light than most of you.
I think as you do. And, also don't think animals should ever have been domesticated to keep as pets. I actually think we should never have domesticated farm animals either. Keep them free, as we are, I say. If someone wants to eat meat, they can go out and hunt some - like any other animal in the wild. Of course, here, I am NOT talking about hunting for sport (which is sick) but, rather, in order to feed one's family.
though i am getting more and more into animal rights all the time, i am different from many people in that i do not think that it is inherently wrong to eat animals. i do, however, think it is inherently wrong to torture them. this view makes me see this whole debate in a completely different light than most of you.
I think as you do. And, also don't think animals should ever have been domesticated to keep as pets. I actually think we should never have domesticated farm animals either. Keep them free, as we are, I say. If someone wants to eat meat, they can go out and hunt some - like any other animal in the wild. Of course, here, I am NOT talking about hunting for sport (which is sick) but, rather, in order to feed one's family.
i agree... i just think this way about vegetables as well ;D
And, also don't think animals should ever have been domesticated to keep as pets. I actually think we should never have domesticated farm animals either.
But we did...we can't very well take that back, can we?
Hmmm...I have to wonder, would we have evolved differently if we didn't keep pets or domesticate livestock? I'm not buying into the whole "you have to eat meat to evolve" or the whole top of the food chain bumper sticker argument, but do you think we'd be as humans what we are if it weren't for dogs, chickens, and cows?
Will and I were discussing this over dinner, and we couldn't recall anything in our understanding of history about wild cows, or rather what would happen to cows if people didn't eat them any more? Would they "return to the wild?" what does that mean after 2000+ years?
He, BTW was being a real prick about the whole thing and decided that if all humans stopped eating meat that we'd still have to "cultivate" animals to feed our animals (we have 2 dogs and 2 cats) which got off onto a whole other tangent and nothing was solved ::)
...as if I expected to solve the worlds problems over a cheese-less pizza and a few beers.
he's right, though. we would. it is unfortunate that we did domesticate them, imo. no offense to any pet lovers, i love them, too (don't have any, but...). what gives us the right to own another animal?
most cats can still hunt, but dogs... do dogs still hunt? that sounds dumb that i don't know, but i have never had a dog!
I don't think I could agree with the term "unfortunate" regarding the domestication of dogs...we just pack so well together. I do admit an obvious bias.
I don't fully understand the need to bear children, as I haven't.
I don't think I could agree with the term "unfortunate" regarding the domestication of dogs...we just pack so well together. I do admit an obvious bias.
I don't fully understand the need to bear children, as I haven't.
Nutdragon, I think we may have been related in a previous life. ::) There are so many posts of yours that I read and I think "Wow, that is exactly what I was thinking!"
Anyways, thank you all for your thoughtful responses. Will this ever happen? No, but it sure did sparks some creative thinking on my part. :)
Oh Duece, I'm sure we were (let's see...Gemini, baseball fans, veg*an,dog people...there can only be a few of us...) besides that, you are drop dead gorgeous...my sisters could only wish!
Thank you for your kind words. I have to believe that some of us really were cut from the same cloth.
America's cash crops are corn and soy. If the world didn't even become vegetarian, but tried to get the daily required fresh fruits/vegetables servings for each day, there isn't enough in the entire U.S. to support that.
This also shows just how horribly unhealthy american diets are.
That also shows how overpopulated the world is.