Animal-based diets have a considerable impact on environmental destruction. Soil runoff is one of the major causes of water supply contamination. The Senate Agricultural Committee released a report in 1997 stating that animals raised for food produce 130 times the amount of excrement produced by the entire human population. Unlike human waste, which is chemically treated in waste management plants, animal feces are left outdoors where they are washed into nearby streams, poisoning entire ecosystems.

Another serious environmental consequence of animal-based diets is an enormous waste of natural resources. It takes 16 pounds of grain and over 5,200 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef. Very little of the energy animals receive from food becomes part of their bodies; a person consuming the flesh of an animal only receives one calorie for every 20 calories consumed by the cow.

Animal consumption also has irreversible effects on deforestation. More than 260 million acres of forests in the U.S. have been cleared in order to produce food for farm animals. Tropical rain forests are being cleared at alarming rates in order to provide grazing area for cows. Fifty-five square feet of rain forest may be razed in order to produce just one quarter-pound burger.

For more information on this complex issue, please visit:

http://www.sierraclub.org/factoryfarms

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