What If Everyone Went Vegetarian?

Most likely, you or someone you know follows a vegetarian diet, so we thought we'd give it a go.

What would happen if all people suddenly adopted a vegetarian diet?

What impact would it have on the earth and our lives?

Only a small percentage of people practice vegetarianism globally; it ranges from between 4-5% in the US and Canada to just over 30% in India.

Consequently, there are presently over a billion sheep, over a billion pigs, 1.5 billion cows, and 20 billion chickens in the planet.

Whole herds of domestic animals would go extinct if there were no humans who ate meat to offer a market.

Additionally, a huge amount of land would become available.

An area about the size of Africa is utilized for grazing, which is 33 million square kilometers.

Not to mention the acreage devoted to growing crops only for animal feed.

While a large portion of the area now utilized for pasture is really too dry to produce crops, some of it would be required for the increasing number of vegetable crops.

This area may become a desert if people didn't provide artificial fertilizers, but if farmland is maintained well, it might revert to grasslands or woods, which could help slow down the effects of climate change.

After instance, one of the main causes of the rise in CO2 levels worldwide is the disappearance of CO2-absorbing trees that were cut down for agriculture.

Large-scale methane generation by cows and other grazers contributes to climate change as well. Methane has 25 times the capacity to warm the earth than CO2.

Livestock production contributes around 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions, which is greater than the combined emissions from all of the world's cars, trains, and airplanes. This is in addition to the loss of forests and other repercussions.

Actually, a lot of experts think that cutting back on meat consumption might be one of the greatest ways to combat climate change.

Since agriculture uses over 70% of the freshwater consumed worldwide, a vegetarian diet would likewise significantly cut water consumption.

A kilogram of cattle requires 15,000 liters, 6,000 liters for pork, and 4,000 liters for poultry. In contrast, 1,600 liters are needed for cereal crops, 900 liters for fruit, and 300 liters are needed for garden vegetables.

Naturally, a kilogram of meat has far more calories than a corresponding weight of fruit, but even when you compare the amount of water that is used for every calorie of energy available in food, beef still uses five times as much water as fruit, seven times as much as vegetables, and twenty times more than cereal.

So are there drawbacks to following a vegetarian diet?

For many livestock byproducts, such as leather made from animal hides or animal fats used in detergents, candles, and cosmetics, we would then be without an affordable supply.

Although there are alternatives based on vegetables, their production would need to rise, requiring more space to be set aside for crop growth and less to be returned to its natural form.

A more nuanced reality is that over 1 billion people work full-time in the animal husbandry and processing industry; the majority of these individuals are small-scale farmers in developing nations.

While some would be able to switch to farming vegetables or even milk or eggs, many would have to deal with their way of life becoming outdated.

Naturally, any increase in vegetarianism is more likely to occur gradually than abruptly.

Surprisingly, the trends are really going the other way; as people get wealthier in countries like China and India, they eat more meat, essentially offsetting the decreases we observe in other nations.