Question

If people in the United States moved to a diet in which they consumed more grain and less meat, would there be more food for people in poor countries of the world? Why or why not?

Answer 1

The truth is that more meat we eat the fewer people we can feed. Vegan diet is a concrete solution to world's hunger. It can be understood by following arguments:

• Studies show that food for a vegan can be produced on only 1/6 of an acre of land, while it takes 3 1/4 acres of land to produce food for a meat-eater. If we added up all the arable land on the planet and divided it equally, every human would get 2/3 of an acre. This means it is sufficient to produce a vegetarian diet but not for meat eaters.
• Another argument in favour of veg diet is saving of water. It takes a large amount of water to produce grains to feed farm animals whereas less amount of water is used to produce food for vegetarians. Also large amount of water is used to produce food for meat eater. This means by going vegan we are able to save lot of water.
• Meat consumption leads to inefficient use of grains. Grains are used more efficiently if they are consumed by humans. To produce more meat we will have to feed more grains to animals and this means less food is available for people.
• Industrialized countries are exporting grains to developing countries and are importing meat produced from it. This has adverse affect in farmers as they are driven off their land. The farmers have to adopt intensive livestock rearing in place of efficient agricultural production methods. This results in pollution of air and water and also makes the land infertile and barren. All this results in further decline in production of food.

To conclude if US people moves to a diet which involves less meat and more vegetarian products , hunger in the poor countries can be controlled to large extent. So, the magic mantra is that less meat we consume the more people we can feed and save the world from starvation.