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Daniel Weary, an applied animal biologist at the University of British Columbia, and his colleagues have been working for decades to help improve the lives of dairy cattle. His practical studies have found ways to better feed and house cows and provided farmers with advice to help them decide the best practices for their animals - but he's also demonstrated that dairy cows possess surprising intelligence and emotional sensitivity.

In a new study, Weary and his colleagues investigated how calves are affected by the emotional pain of separation from their mother and the physical pain of dehorning. The researchers found both types of pain can result in a negative cognitive bias similar to pessimism.
Physical Pain, Emotional Pain
In dairy farming, calves are usually separated from their mothers very quickly, sometimes within hours of birth. This is done both to harvest the cow's milk for human consumption, and also because it's thought that isolating the calves is safer for them. If calves are allowed to stay with their mothers after birth, a strong bond develops, weakening slowly as the calf grows older and less dependent on milk, until it is weaned at about eight months old.

Abrupt and early weaning, such as occurs on the typical dairy farm, appears to be distressing for both calf and cow, says Weary. "The calves will engage in repetitive crying and become more active," he says, "and sometimes you'll see a decline in their willingness to eat solid food."

One way to assess emotions in both people and animals is to look at the cognitive component using judgment tasks. For instance, depressed or anxious people tend to interpret ambiguous stimuli more negatively than do happier and calmer people. Animals can be trained to perform these same judgment tasks, and the same negative judgment biases (i.e., interpreting ambiguous stimuli as more negative) have been reported for animals experiencing negative emotional states, such as chronic stress and exposure to unpredictable environmental changes.

In a study published last year, Weary and his colleagues showed calves demonstrate this negative judgment bias after going through the procedure of hot-iron dehorning. Nearly all farms that keep Holstein cattle dehorn them at a young age to protect workers and other cattle. To reduce the pain as much as possible, the cows can be given a sedative to relax them and then a local anesthetic injection to block the immediate pain during the procedure. However, calves do experience some pain as the drugs wear off because of the inflammatory response to the operation.

"We now know that calves in this period of post-operative pain show this depressive-like response," Weary says. "They show this cognitive bias, a pessimistic response to ambiguous stimuli."

Weary and his colleagues saw the cognitive bias after physical pain and wondered if they could use the same judgment bias task as a way of asking the animals how they perceive other things that typically happen to them on dairy farms, such as the early separation from their mothers.
Pessimistic Calves
The researchers compared the responses of calves to ambiguous stimuli before and after separation from their mothers at 42 days of age.

The calves were trained on what's known as a "go/no-go" task. The researchers presented them with either red or white panels on LCD screens and gave them a reward when they approached the white screen, but a time-out if they approached the red screen.

Then they used Photoshop to blend the colors together, creating ambiguous stimuli that were in-between the two colors: a reddish-pink (75% red), a true pink (50% red), and a pale pink (25% red).

Weary and his colleagues found calves were less likely to approach ambiguous screens after both dehorning and separation from their mothers, indicating they were experiencing a negative emotional state after both events. The calves continued to show this negative judgment bias for at least two and a half days after separation.

Although the magnitude of the negative bias was similar following dehorning and separation, it's not clear if magnitude can be used as a measure of the strength of an emotional response.
Caring for Cows
Weary says for him, it all comes back to the welfare of the animals.

"We can't say that separation is just some instantaneous event that may be painful but doesn't bother the animal," he says. "It does bother the animal. It bothers them enough that their mood state changes for at least a couple days."

Weary thinks people are becoming more aware of the complexity of the emotional lives of animals, partly due to the development of scientific methods and tools that can assess that.

In another study earlier this year, Weary and his colleagues showed calves housed in isolation performed worse on cognitive tests than calves reared in groups. Housing calves individually, which is typical on most dairy farms, actually resulted in anxiety and cognitive deficits.

A 2004 study by Cambridge University researchers revealed cows have "eureka" moments, taking pleasure in their own learning achievements. When the cows made improvements in learning, they showed emotional and behavioral reactions that indicated excitement.

"It's interesting to us to come to understand how complex these animals are," says Weary. "It's important to provide a good quality of life for them at an early age, not just in terms of their immediate ability to enjoy life, but also in terms of the long-term effects that we have on these animals."
Reference:
Daros, R. R., Cost, J. H. C., von Keyserlingk, M. A. G., Hötzel, M. J., and Weary, D. M. (2014). Separation from the Dam Causes Negative Judgement Bias in Dairy Calves. PLoS ONE 9(5): e98429. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0098429.

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Daniel Weary, an applied animal biologist at the University of British Columbia, and his colleagues have been working for decades to help improve the lives of dairy cattle. His practical studies have found ways to better feed and house cows and provided farmers with advice to help them decide the best practices for their animals - but he's also demonstrated that dairy cows possess surprising intelligence and emotional sensitivity.

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A baby goat nuzzles its mama.

Credit: © Brian Squibb

Jonathan Balcombe is director of animal sentience at the Humane Society Institute for Science and Policy. He contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

On Saturday mornings I drive 15 miles to a sanctuary in rural Maryland where I join a small team of volunteers tending to farm animals rescued from neglect or abuse. Some of these animals will never fully trust a human. Others want to interact.

As a biologist with a special interest in animal happiness, I've figured out where they like to be scratched and rubbed. Goats, such as Trudy or Malcolm, walk over to me and lean gently against my leg. I scratch between their horns, caress their faces and vigorously swipe my hand down their backs and flanks. They become noticeably more relaxed. Their eyelids droop and they stand completely still. One of the older sheep, a ram named Adam, wags his tail in approval when he is petted. Another sheep, Clover, once scraped her hoof across my boot repeatedly when I briefly stopped massaging her back - a sheep's way of asking for more. At the pig barn, 700-pound adults lying blissfully on soft hay will assist the effort to give them a belly-rub by shimmying further onto their sides and raising their legs. And when the chicken barn door opens, about 20 birds come surging out into the sunlit garden. They spend the next few hours foraging. They nibble at seeds and vegetation, and search for invertebrates by pawing backwards at the earth with their strong feet then stooping down to peer and peck at any moving morsel they've uncovered. They do this with devotion, taking breaks to sunbathe by reclining on their sides, fluffing out their feathers, and stretching a wing to maximize the surface area available to the sun's warm rays.

Animals and sentience

Watching these animals pursue their wants and needs reminds me that they are individuals with intentions and preferences. Their lives matter to them. Their desire for rewards is part of sentience - the capacity to feel. Sentience encompasses a universe of positive and negative physical and emotional experiences.

Today, most scientists agree that all vertebrate animals - mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish - are, to varying degrees, sentient. A rich and varied collection of research has made the evidence impossible to dismiss.

But this perspective wasn't always popular.

Historically, for example, sea-life rarely made it into humanity's realm of concern when it came to the ability to suffer. But meticulous experiments performed on trout a decade ago essentially have laid to rest the common view that a fish cannot feel pain. There now is also scientific support for sentience in at least some invertebrates. In research by Canadian biologist Jennifer Mather and colleagues, octopuses show curiosity, play and personality. And in a study led by Robert Elwood at Queens University Belfast, prawns spent more time grooming and rubbing a pinched antenna, unless they received a follow-up application of local anesthetic.

Once deemed inscrutable, animal emotions are now also considered a legitimate source of inquiry. Although humans cannot know for certain what an animal is feeling (indeed, we cannot know for certain what another human is feeling), we can observe changes in behavior and physiology and infer emotions. The evidence is even more compelling when we find that these changes echo changes in our bodies when we are exposed to similar stimuli.

What dogs are teaching about animal cognition

Because they are so expressive and responsive to us, domestic dogs have lately become the darlings of research on animal cognition and emotion.

During a recent visit to the Clever Dog Lab at the University of Vienna, I watched a dog select symbols on a computer screen by touching it with his nose. In another room, dogs placed their heads on a chin-rest to watch images projected on a computer screen. These are not purpose-bred "lab dogs," but happy pets recruited for the studies. The chin-rest apparatus has been used to show that dogs, like us, glance first to the left side of a human face, where our bilateral brains display more emotion. Thus, dogs get a quick read of our moods and intentions. This all happens in a fraction of a second, and like us, dogs probably are unaware they are doing it. Neither they nor we regard a dog's face this way, which makes sense because dogs' emotions are expressed uniformly on their faces. The wag of a dog's tail also contains subtle cues to their moods. Led by Giorgio Vallortigara of the University of Trento, Italian researchers found that dogs remained relaxed when they saw films of dogs whose tails were wagging predominantly to the right, but they became anxious if the tail wagged more to the left. [ Dog Kisses are More Than Just Slobber (Op-Ed )]

At Emory University, scientists are using positive reinforcement to train pet dogs to remain motionless inside an fMRI machine, allowing scientists to monitor brain activity while the dogs react to visual stimuli. Preliminary studies show brain reward centers light up when dogs see a hand signal that is normally followed by something good (a food treat), but not for a neutral hand signal. Similarly, when presented with five scents (self, familiar human, strange human, familiar dog, strange dog), dogs' brains registered the strongest delight in response to the familiar human. It appears the notion that the dog is "man's best friend" cuts both ways.

Animals and complex emotion

It is well established that when people feel depressed, we are more likely to take a pessimistic view of life. It seems we are not alone in that tendency. In a study led by Melissa Bateson of England's Newcastle University , European starlings were housed for ten days in either socially enriched enclosures with branches and water baths, or alone in smaller, barren cages.

Both sets of birds learned to forage by plucking lids from dishes, each containing a worm. The birds soon learned that dishes with white lids contained tasty worms, whereas dishes with dark gray lids harbored unpalatable (quinine-flavored) worms. Birds from both groups soon stopped flipping the dark gray lids. But when the experimenters began presenting the starlings with ambiguous dishes - lidded with lighter shades of gray - they found that "enriched" birds were more likely than emotionally impoverished birds to flip these new lids and sample the worm inside. Moreover, enriched birds became markedly pessimistic - shunning the ambiguous lids - if they were switched from enriched to impoverished lodgings. The researchers concluded that enriched starlings are more optimistic than impoverished, and presumably less happy, ones.

In a range of studies, rats, pigs, goats, and intriguingly, honey-bees all have shown the same optimism/pessimism response (scientists call it "cognitive bias") to uncertain outcomes. It seems that life for an animal can go well or ill, and that an individual's inner state has an ambient dimension beyond the fleeting emotions of a given moment.

Perhaps more predictably, baboons also have lasting emotional states. Following the death of an infant, baboon mothers show physiological and behavioral responses that mirror those of bereft women. Glucocorticoid hormones - associated with grief in humans - rise and take a month to subside again, and the bereaved mother monkey seeks therapy by expanding her social network through increased grooming interactions with other baboons.

Body temperature provides yet another window into feelings. Human body temperatures rise when we are nervous or anxious about an approaching event, such as an exam or a competition. A rat, handled by an unfamiliar person, gets warmer by 1° Celsius or more. If the same person returns to handle the rat over successive days, the rat's thermal response declines, and by about day five, her body temperature stops rising altogether. If, however, a new handler shows up on the sixth day, the rat's body temperature rises again, indicating that her temperature changes are psychologically based. This so-called emotional fever has also been documented in turtles and lizards. So much for "cold-blooded" reptiles.

The bonds between fish

Scientists have not yet shown emotional fever in fish, although I'm aware of only one study that has explored this. Does this mean that fish cannot feel emotions? Not likely. Emotions are very useful , and fish are highly evolved. They behave emotionally, showing fear, excitement, anger, pleasure and anxiety. Their brains produce the same compounds that accompany emotions in mammals. It takes 48 hours for fish hormone levels to return to normal after rough handling, such as being caught by anglers and put into small buckets.

On coral reefs, the interactions between cleaner-fish and their clients are rich with awareness and emotion. Cleaners flaunt their bright colors to advertise that they are open for business. Client fish of varied species queue up for their turn for an inspection from the cleaners, who work individually or in pairs, plucking off parasites, algae and other undesirables. Both parties benefit: the cleaners get food, and the clients get a spa treatment. This is not a willy-nilly arrangement. Clients have their favorite cleaners to whom they return repeatedly. Other client fish observe those interactions, keeping accounts of who cleans well and who does a shoddy job. There are good reasons for this so-called "image-scoring" behavior: Some cleaners may nip at the precious mucus that forms a protective shield over the client's scales. This causes the client fish to jolt, and to sometimes angrily chase the cleaner. Other "cleaners" are scheming impostors, sharp-toothed mimics that look almost identical to cleaners, then nip off a chunk of fin and flee to safety. [ If Sharks Feel Pain, Why Are They Not Better Protected? (Op-Ed )]

Careful studies by Swiss researchers led by Redouan Bshary have documented that cleaners cause fewer jolts when potential clients are watching. The cleaners also pamper their patrons by gently caressing them with their fins. Just as touch is therapeutic for humans, so too with fish. In a study from the Marta Soares and colleagues at the University of Lisbon, captive surgeonfish had lower levels of stress hormone when they could sidle up to a mechanical wand that delivered gentle strokes.

If you're a topical expert - researcher, business leader, author or innovator - and would like to contribute an op-ed piece, email us here.

Which brings me to Larry. He's a Bahamian grouper befriended by Florida-based journalist and author Cathy Unruh. When Unruh scuba-dives in Larry's domain, Larry recognizes her and comes over to greet her. Like those reef client fish lining up for their turn to be plucked over by hungry cleaner-fish, or the goats and sheep I coddle at the animal sanctuary, Larry enjoys being gently stroked and petted.

What does it all mean? Most of us who have lived with dogs and cats need little convincing that these beloved beings are unique individuals with feelings. But we generally have a cloudier view of wild animals, or those destined for the dinner plate.

Today, scientists are asking questions about animals' inner lives like never before, and their toolkit for probing such questions is growing more sophisticated. As their findings emerge, we gain a more enlightened perspective of the diverse expression of animal emotions. It gives me optimism that the neglectful and abusive expressions of the human-animal relationship will evolve through understanding towards compassion.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates - and become part of the discussion - on , and . The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

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Jonathan Balcombe is director of animal sentience at the Humane Society Institute for Science and Policy. He contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. On Saturday mornings I drive 15 miles to a sanctuary in rural Maryland where I join a small team of volunteers tending to farm animals rescued from neglect or abuse.

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The Congress finds that the use of humane methods in the slaughter of livestock prevents needless suffering; results in safer and better working conditions for persons engaged in the slaughtering industry; brings about improvement of products and economies in slaughtering operations; and produces other benefits for producers, processors, and consumers which tend to expedite an orderly flow of livestock and livestock products in interstate and foreign commerce.

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Not a lot of people know this, but in most cases it's actually illegal for cows and pigs to feel pain when they're slaughtered.

In 1958, Congress passed the Humane Methods of Livestock Slaughter Act, which set slaughter requirements for all meat producers supplying the federal government. The similarly named Humane Methods of Slaughter Act 1978 (HMSA or Humane Slaughter Act) expanded the requirements to all federally inspected slaughter establishments; since slaughterhouses have to pass federal inspection to sell meat across state lines, that subjected almost all US meat production to humane slaughter regulation.

The Humane Slaughter Act specifically requires that cows and pigs be "rendered insensible to pain by a single blow or gunshot or an electrical, chemical or other means that is rapid and effective, before being shackled, hoisted, thrown, cast, or cut." There's an exception for kosher and/or halal slaughter, and a big exception for poultry, but most beef and pork slaughter is covered. And the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) at the Department of Agriculture has inspectors conducting regular audits meant to identify and curb abuse.

The problem? The US government has never really enforced these humane slaughter standards. There are inspectors, and they make note when they see horrifying cases of animal cruelty, but FSIS rarely issues more than a slap on the wrist to even egregious offenders. Now a group of animal rights organizations is trying to make them take the law seriously.

"The cow was lying in a large pool of blood"

The groups - the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Compassion Over Killing, Farm Forward, Farm Sanctuary, Mercy for Animals, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - submitted a 38-page petition to FSIS this past Tuesday, demanding better rules regulating animal slaughter.The petition documents numerous times that inspectors for FSIS willfully ignored federal law and allowed plant staffers to inflict severe pain on animals. The groups rely on previous investigations from the Government Accountability Office and the USDA's inspector general, as well as their own investigations (e.g., this one) and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

In a number of cases, FSIS issued slaps on the wrist (like "noncompliance records" and "notices of intended enforcement") even after documenting that animals endured minutes-long, painful slaughters. Note that the descriptions come from FSIS inspectors who saw this happen, so they know exactly what's going on. Note also that FSIS inspectors have to announce their audits, so in many cases the abuses happened while plant operators knew the feds were watching.

A pig at a Wells, Jenkins & Wells plant in North Carolina was shot through the head, enduring the pain for more than 90 seconds: "The animal had a hole in its forehead, was bleeding from the hole, and was circling around the stunning area."

At CEO Natural in New York, after a pig was cut so as to bleed out, it "began to vocalize loudly and move about. The employee continued to hoist the pig and several more sticks were attempted, each resulting in additional loud vocalization from the animal ... The pig ceased breathing and appeared dead about 1-2 minutes after the initial stick."

At Swift in Colorado, an unspecified animal was shot six times over five minutes. The FSIS report noted that it "went wild after the first shot, circling its head, falling over, running into the fence and, at one point, charged toward the pen supervisor."

At a JBS Souderton plant, a dairy cow, after being shot in the head, tried to stand and escape. It was shot again, but that wasn't enough to render it unconscious either.

FSIS isn't limited to slaps on the wrist. It actually has a great deal of power. It can suspend plants, barring them from producing meat until changes are made. It can withdraw the mark of inspection, rendering the plant's products unsalable. It can withdraw inspectors entirely, requiring the plant to reapply for inspections before entering the market again.

But when plants did receive suspensions, their conduct was generally so bad that they should've been shut down entirely:

Gallo Meats in Washington had two suspensions over less than six weeks, but the plant still wasn't shut down. Here's one offense: "Mr. Gallo [shot] the hog behind the ear on the side of its head using a .357 magnum pistol. The hog dropped to its knees, and then stood back up. The hog was grunting and walked around the pen. Mr. Gallo then shot a second time with the .357 pistol again behind the ear and the hog again was walking around the pen grunting. Mr. Gallo then shot a third time still behind the ear on the side of the head and the hog still grunted and walked in the pen. The fourth shot with the .357 magnum pistol rendered the hog insensible."

JBS Green Bay in Wisconsin got suspended but not shut down for this: "The cow was lying in a large pool of blood with its throat stuck/slit, that it was kicking excessively, breathing/gasping rhythmically, had normal movement of the stomach rising and falling, and had an intact palpebral reflex ... The cow required two more captive bolt shots to render her unconscious."

FSIS can also refer violations for criminal enforcement, since violation of the Humane Slaughter Act has been a crime since 1978. But criminal provisions of the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act have never been invoked against a USDA-inspected plant. And yet, the petition includes a number of accounts of slaughter plants whose conduct clearly merited criminal charges:

An employee at Islamic Meat and Poultry in California "introduced an electric prod through the side of the chute and used it excessively in the animal's genital, rectal and tail area. He prodded the animal six to seven times using this electric prod. The animal vocalized loudly and became very agitated inside the chute each time," according to the FSIS report.

A worker at Halal Meat in North Carolina "grabbed the tail of [a cow] and began bending the small end up until an audible pop was heard."

A worker at Berry & Sons in Michigan picked up a 50-pound lamb and threw it onto the bed of a truck; it was observed flying in midair by spectators.

In total, the petition cites at least 32 cases of criminal-level animal treatment. None were prosecuted.

What is to be done?

The petition calls for five changes at FSIS:

1. Require that FSIS at least issue noncompliance records for all violations of the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act.

2. Codify a definition of "egregious" violations, including dismembering conscious animals, running equipment over them, stunning animals but then allowing them to regain consciousness, etc.

3. Require that FSIS suspend any plants found to have committed an egregious violation.

4. Require all intentional cruelty, or especially egregious and reckless abuse of animals, be referred for criminal prosecution.

5. Get serious about permanently withdrawing approval of plants that repeatedly violate the law, including a requirement that any plant with three or more egregious violations in a year have its grant of inspection withdrawn.

This is not exactly a radical agenda. It's not enacting new protection standards. It's not rendering meat economically unviable. It's just requiring that FSIS operate as though its animal welfare mandate matters.

"If they refuse to take any actions we ask them to take, we can sue them under the Administrative Procedures Act," Bruce Friedrich, director of policy at Farm Sanctuary, explains. The idea is to prove, in court, that the USDA is using an arbitrary interpretation of the law, enacting an arbitrary policy that goes against the intentions of the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, and, in the case of criminal prosecutions, effectively repealing the law in part, by completely neglecting an entire section of it.

Of course, it doesn't necessarily have to make it to that point. FSIS could agree to the regulatory changes voluntarily. "We have had probably half a dozen meetings with people in the FSIS enforcement office over the last few years," Friedrich explains. "They have expressed sympathy toward our arguments but we haven't seen changes." The petition could change that, though, because federal agencies are required to respond to every point in rulemaking petitions. FSIS will have to respond to each of the animal groups' proposals and either explain why it's unwilling to adopt them or respond that it's getting on board. "Once they are legally obligated to contend with the issues we're raising, our hope is that we'll actually see the five changes," Friedrich says.

In response to a request for comment, FSIS spokesperson Adam Tarr writes, "Ensuring the humane treatment of animals under our jurisdiction is a top FSIS priority. From fiscal year 2012 through fiscal year 2014, the number of meat and poultry establishments with a systematic approach to humane handling increased from just over 40 percent to 63 percent. A systematic approach to humane handling is a comprehensive plan designed to prevent mistreatment from occurring in the first place.

"FSIS will provide an official, public response to the petition after it has had the opportunity to fully review and consider it."

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"The cow was lying in a large pool of blood": the horrifying animal abuses the feds ignore

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Not a lot of people know this, but in most cases it's actually illegal for cows and pigs to feel pain when they're slaughtered. In 1958, Congress passed the Humane Methods of Livestock Slaughter Act, which set slaughter requirements for all meat producers supplying the federal government.

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Food culture in Britain has happily changed for the better since the early 90s, when a hungry vegetarian friend of mine was first proffered baked halibut and then lumped with a bowl of boiled cauliflower to wash down with tea. Even chophouses now offer an ungrudging vegetarian option, while no supermarket carries fewer than four varieties of hummus. I became a confirmed vegetarian in my 20s, not because I am Indian, as is often assumed - most Indians are not vegetarians - but because I once dated an American who was one. More ingloriously, perhaps, I'm squeamish about hurting fluffy little chicks and cute calves with large pleading eyes. I'm not, however, an evangelical vegetarian, not least because my inability to embrace full veganism, compounded by a passion for cafe au lait and banoffee pie, somewhat disqualifies me from preaching to others about eating animal products.

Moreover, vegetarianism can be as loaded with prejudice and nastily coercive as any other ideology. Growing up in India, I developed a keen awareness of how dietary taboos around meat could be speciously used to assert caste or religious superiority, often violently.

Last April Hindu extremists attempted to prohibit the serving of beef in university dining halls as a way of further stigmatising marginalised Dalit students whose food culture includes beef. Even though the historical record suggests that beef was once eaten by upper-caste Hindus, food fascism of this sort, including the shibboleth of "cow protection", has also been used as a deadly political weapon against minority Muslim communities. In fact Indians, including some Hindus, consume 1.14m tonnes of buffalo meat a year, with India set to lead beef exports in 2012.

But the claims of vegetarians and vegans to the most environmentally responsible diets now appear to be validated by a report from leading scientists warning that catastrophic food shortages can only be avoided if the world switches to a mainly vegetarian diet in the next 40 years. With many regions like the Sahel in Africa already facing near-famine conditions, 2 billion people already malnourished, and an estimated 2 billion increase in the world population by 2050, a global plant-based diet seems not just desirable but inevitable. The Stockholm International Water Institute's report notes that one third of the world's arable land produces grain to feed livestock rather than people. A vegetarian diet commandeers five to 10 times less water than a carnivorous diet, though dairy consumption still contributes to the problem.

While there are strong environmental and health reasons to reduce our dependence on animal farming and for the better-off to drastically cut meat and dairy consumption, we must resist the temptation to abstractly denote a universal vegetarian lifestyle as the sole or simple answer. At stake are also tenacious problems of overconsumption and the inequitable commandeering of global resources, neither of which will be solved merely by passing the braised tofu.

In the name of "growth", that capitalist holy cow, a smaller number of people consume far more than their share of essential resources. Wealth concentration generates disparate purchasing power that allows richer nations as well as the better-off in every nation to consume - and waste - a disproportionate share of food, fuel, water and other resources. Arable land itself is put towards profit through speculation, mining and logging, rather than feeding people. The predictable argument that overpopulation is the main problem remains a red herring. When one person can consume or waste between two and five people's share at a time when per-capita food production has increased, inequity, not human numbers, and the richer, not the poorer, are still the problem.

Overconsumption and the corporatisation of food supply chains also underwrite the factory farming responsible for unconscionable levels of animal suffering and the depletion of marine ecosystems. When they can afford to do so at all, the poor have eaten meat sustainably and relatively humanely through small numbers of livestock or by fishing in limited quantities. The irony of vegetarianism or veganism as a lifestyle choice in wealthier countries is that it correlates with the relative affluence of being able to choose to spend your food budget on good-quality fruits, vegetables and grains. The less affluent remain condemned to buying whatever is cheapest, whether stale vegetables, processed foods or factory-farmed chicken.

A serious discussion about food security and natural resource usage must emphasise redistributive social justice and not just lifestyle choices in the abstract. The excessive consumption of animal products clearly poses an imminent danger to both planet and human existence. But addressing this cannot take the form of a coercive herbivorous moralism. We need a comprehensive reordering of the global economy and our priorities as human beings to end the limitless scandal that is widespread hunger.
Topics

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Turning vegetarian will not solve the food crisis | Priyamvada Gopal

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Food culture in Britain has happily changed for the better since the early 90s, when a hungry vegetarian friend of mine was first proffered baked halibut and then lumped with a bowl of boiled cauliflower to wash down with tea. Even chophouses now offer an ungrudging vegetarian option, while no supermarket carries fewer than four varieties of hummus.

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The United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said that food production will need to increase globally by 70% to feed the world's surging population in 2050. The FAO says that efficiency gains in agriculture will be overwhelmed by the expected population growth.

As the global population surges towards a predicted 9.1 billion people by 2050, western tastes for diets rich in meat and dairy products, and which are increasingly being adopted around the world, are unsustainable.

Simply put, the more people eat meat, the fewer people can be fed. For example, over 10 pounds of plant protein are used to produce one pound of beef protein. If these grains were fed to humans instead of animals, more food would be available for the 925 million people in chronic hunger worldwide. Research from Cornell University, of the United States, found that the grain used to feed livestock in the United States alone could feed 800 million people.

The issue with water is similar. It takes about 2,500 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef and about 660 gallons to make a pound of chicken. It only takes about 220 gallons to make a pound of tofu and 180 to make a pound of wheat flour. Compared with the meat industry, a vegetarian diet consumes far less water. There are plenty of other examples, but you get the idea.

Some may be concerned about whether a vegetarian diet is healthy. In fact, a well-balanced vegetarian diet is actually more healthful than a meat-oriented diet. The American Dietetic Association and the United States Department of Agriculture both agree that a vegetarian diet can provide complete nutrition for optimal human health including all 10 essential proteins (amino acids) necessary for good health. Vegetarians suffer less from heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, and a variety of other diet-related diseases which now cost the United States alone over $1.2 trillion each year.

There is more than enough food in the world to feed the entire human population. So, why are more than one billion people still going hungry every day? The meat-based diet is largely to blame. We cycle huge amounts of grain, soybeans, and corn through animals killed for food rather than directly feed starving people. If we stopped intensively breeding farmed animals and grew crops to feed people instead, we could easily feed everyone on the planet with healthy and affordable vegetarian foods.

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World Hunger Can Be Solved With Vegetarian Diet

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The United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said that food production will need to increase globally by 70% to feed the world's surging population in 2050. The FAO says that efficiency gains in agriculture will be overwhelmed by the expected population growth.

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Carnegie Mellon Study Finds Eating Lettuce Is More Than Three Times Worse in Greenhouse Gas Emissions Than Eating Bacon

By Shilo Rea / 412-268-6094 / shilo@cmu.edu

Contrary to recent headlines - and a talk by actor Arnold Schwarzenegger at the United Nations Paris Climate Change Conference - eating a vegetarian diet could contribute to climate change.

In fact, according to new research from Carnegie Mellon University, following the USDA recommendations to consume more fruits, vegetables, dairy and seafood is more harmful to the environment because those foods have relatively high resource uses and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per calorie. Published in Environment Systems and Decisions, the study measured the changes in energy use, blue water footprint and GHG emissions associated with U.S. food consumption patterns.

Eating lettuce is more harmful to the environment than eating bacon.

"Eating lettuce is over three times worse in greenhouse gas emissions than eating bacon," said Paul Fischbeck, professor of social and decisions sciences and engineering and public policy. "Lots of common vegetables require more resources per calorie than you would think. Eggplant, celery and cucumbers look particularly bad when compared to pork or chicken."

Fischbeck, Michelle Tom, a Ph.D. student in civil and environmental engineering, and Chris Hendrickson, the Hamerschlag University Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, studied the food supply chain to determine how the obesity epidemic in the U.S. is affecting the environment. Specifically, they examined how growing, processing and transporting food, food sales and service, and household storage and use take a toll on resources in the form of energy use, water use and GHG emissions.

On one hand, the results showed that getting our weight under control and eating fewer calories, has a positive effect on the environment and reduces energy use, water use and GHG emissions from the food supply chain by approximately 9 percent.

However, eating the recommended "healthier" foods - a mix of fruits, vegetables, dairy and seafood - increased the environmental impact in all three categories: Energy use went up by 38 percent, water use by 10 percent and GHG emissions by 6 percent.

"There's a complex relationship between diet and the environment," Tom said. "What is good for us health-wise isn't always what's best for the environment. That's important for public officials to know and for them to be cognizant of these tradeoffs as they develop or continue to develop dietary guidelines in the future."

CMU's Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research and the Colcom Foundation funded this research.

Read the full study.
Related Article:
Weighing Environmental Impacts of Obesity in U.S. Population

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Vegetarian and "Healthy" Diets Could Be More Harmful to the Environment - News - Carnegie Mellon University

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By Shilo Rea / 412-268-6094 / shilo@cmu.edu Contrary to recent headlines - and a talk by actor Arnold Schwarzenegger at the United Nations Paris Climate Change Conference - eating a vegetarian diet could contribute to climate change.

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A global switch to diets that rely less on meat and more on fruit and vegetables could save up to 8 million lives by 2050, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by two thirds, and lead to healthcare-related savings and avoided climate damages of $1.5 trillion (US) , Oxford Martin School researchers have found.
The study, published today in , is the first to estimate both the health and climate change impacts of moving towards more plant-based diets for all major world regions.

"What we eat greatly influences our personal health and the global environment," says Dr Marco Springmann of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food, who led the study.

"Imbalanced diets, such as diets low in fruits and vegetables, and high in red and processed meat, are responsible for the greatest health burden globally and in most regions. At the same time the food system is also responsible for more than a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore a major driver of climate change."

To assess the health and environmental impacts, the researchers modelled four different dietary scenarios for the year 2050: a 'business as usual' scenario based on projections of future diets; a scenario based on global dietary guidelines which includes minimum amounts of fruits and vegetables, and limits to the amount of red meat, sugar, and total calories; and vegetarian and vegan scenarios which both conform to the dietary guidelines.

They found that adopting diets in line with global dietary guidelines could avoid 5.1 million deaths per year by 2050. Even greater benefits could come from vegetarian diets (avoiding 7.3 million deaths) and vegan diets (avoiding 8.1 million deaths). Approximately half of the avoided deaths were due to reduction of red meat consumption, with the other half due to a combination of increased fruit and vegetable intake and a reduction in calories, leading to fewer people being overweight or obese.

The study projects that by 2050, food-related greenhouse gas emissions could account for half of the emissions the world can afford if global warming is to be limited to less than 2°C. Adopting global dietary guidelines would cut food-related emissions by 29%, vegetarian diets by 63%, and vegan diets by 70%.

The researchers also modelled the economic benefits of dietary change and found that the changes in diets could produce savings of $700-$1,000 billion (US) per year on healthcare, unpaid informal care and lost working days. The value that society places on the reduced risk of dying could even be as high as 9-13% of global GDP, or $20-$30 trillion (US). In addition, the researchers found that the economic benefit of reduced greenhouse gas emissions from dietary changes could be as much as $570 billion (US).

"Putting a dollar value on good health and the environment is a sensitive issue," says Dr Springmann. "However, our results indicate that dietary changes could have large benefits to society, and the value of those benefits makes a strong case for increased public and private spending on programmes aimed to achieve healthier and more environmentally sustainable diets."

Dr Springmann points out that there are large regional variations in the health impacts of dietary change. The greatest number of avoided deaths is projected to be in developing countries, particularly in East Asia and South Asia, but per-person benefits would be twice as large in developed countries, due to larger per-person reductions in red meat consumption and total calorie intake.

Reduced red meat consumption was the factor that had the biggest effect in East Asia, in Western high- and middle-income countries, and in Latin America, while increasing fruit and vegetable intake was the biggest factor in reducing deaths in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Reduced calorie intake, and the resulting reductions in the number of overweight or obese people, played a key role in improving health in the Eastern Mediterranean, Latin America, and Western high- and middle-income countries.

"The regional detail of our study can be used to identify the most appropriate interventions for both the production and consumption sides of the food system," adds Dr Springmann.

The scale of the task is "clearly enormous," he says. The study finds that just to meet global dietary recommendations, fruit and vegetable production and consumption would need to more than double in some regions, such as Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, whereas red meat consumption would need to be halved globally, and cut by two thirds in Western high- and middle-income countries, East Asia, and Latin America. In addition, overconsumption would need to be tackled.

"And that might not even be enough," Dr Springmann warns. "Our analysis indicates that adopting global dietary guidelines would not be enough to reduce food-related greenhouse gas emissions to the same extent that total greenhouse gas emissions will need to fall to keep global temperature increases to below 2°C."

"We do not expect everybody to become vegan," he adds. "But climate change impacts of the food system will be hard to tackle and likely require more than just technological changes. Adopting healthier and more environmentally sustainable diets can be a large step in the right direction. The size of the projected benefits should encourage individuals, industry, and policy makers to act decisively to make sure that what we eat preserves our environment and our health."

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Plant-based diets could save millions of lives and dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions

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A global switch to diets that rely less on meat and more on fruit and vegetables could save up to 8 million lives by 2050, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by two thirds, and lead to healthcare-related savings and avoided climate damages of $1.5 trillion (US) , Oxford Martin School researchers have found.

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Vegetarian diet: How to get the best nutrition

A well-planned vegetarian diet is a healthy way to meet your nutritional needs. Find out what you need to know about a plant-based diet.
By Mayo Clinic Staff
Vegetarian diets are popular. Reasons for following a vegetarian diet are varied but include health benefits, such as reducing your risk of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers.

Yet some vegetarians rely too heavily on processed foods, which can be high in calories, sugar, fat and sodium. And they may not eat enough fruits, vegetables, whole grains and calcium-rich foods, thus missing out on the nutrients they provide.

However, with a little planning a vegetarian diet can meet the needs of people of all ages, including children, teenagers, and pregnant or breast-feeding women. The key is to be aware of your nutritional needs so that you plan a diet that meets them.

Types of vegetarian diets

When people think about a vegetarian diet, they typically think about a diet that doesn't include meat, poultry or fish. But vegetarian diets vary in what foods they include and exclude:

Lacto-vegetarian diets exclude meat, fish, poultry and eggs, as well as foods that contain them. Dairy products, such as milk, cheese, yogurt and butter, are included.

Ovo-vegetarian diets exclude meat, poultry, seafood and dairy products, but allow eggs.

Lacto-ovo vegetarian diets exclude meat, fish and poultry, but allow dairy products and eggs.

Pescatarian diets exclude meat and poultry, dairy, and eggs, but allow fish.

Pollotarian diets exclude meat, dairy and fish, but allow poultry.

Vegan diets exclude meat, poultry, fish, eggs and dairy products - and foods that contain these products.

Some people follow a semivegetarian diet - also called a flexitarian diet - which is primarily a plant-based diet but includes meat, dairy, eggs, poultry and fish on occasion or in small quantities.

Planning a healthy vegetarian diet

The key to a healthy vegetarian diet - like any diet - is to include a variety of foods. No single food can provide all the nutrients your body needs. A registered dietitian can help you create a vegetarian diet that's right for you.

Keep in mind that the more restrictive your diet is, the more challenging it can be to get all the nutrients you need. A vegan diet, for example, eliminates natural food sources of vitamin B-12, as well as milk products, which are good sources of calcium.

To be sure that your diet includes everything your body needs, pay special attention to the following nutrients:

Calcium and vitamin D

Calcium helps build and maintain strong teeth and bones. Milk and dairy foods are highest in calcium. However, dark green vegetables, such as turnip and collard greens, kale, and broccoli, are good plant sources when eaten in sufficient quantities. Calcium-enriched and fortified products, including juices, cereals, soy milk, soy yogurt and tofu, are other options.

Vitamin D also plays an important role in bone health.Vitamin D is added to cow's milk, some brands of soy and rice milk, and some cereals and margarines. Be sure to check food labels. If you don't eat enough fortified foods and have limited sun exposure, you may need a vitamin D supplement (one derived from plants).

Vitamin B-12

Vitamin B-12 is necessary to produce red blood cells and prevent anemia. This vitamin is found almost exclusively in animal products, so it can be difficult to get enough B-12 on a vegan diet. Vitamin B-12 deficiency may go undetected in people who eat a vegan diet. This is because the vegan diet is rich in a vitamin called folate, which may mask deficiency in vitamin B-12 until severe problems occur. For this reason, it's important for vegans to consider vitamin supplements, vitamin-enriched cereals and fortified soy products.

Protein

Protein helps maintain healthy skin, bones, muscles and organs. Eggs and dairy products are good sources, and you don't need to eat large amounts to meet your protein needs. You can also get sufficient protein from plant-based foods if you eat a variety of them throughout the day. Plant sources include soy products and meat substitutes, legumes, lentils, nuts, seeds, and whole grains.

Omega-3 fatty acids

Omega-3 fatty acids are important for heart health. Diets that do not include fish and eggs are generally low in active forms of omega-3 fatty acids. Canola oil, soy oil, walnuts, ground flaxseed and soybeans are good sources of essential fatty acids. However, because conversion of plant-based omega-3 to the types used by humans is inefficient, you may want to consider fortified products or supplements or both.

Iron and zinc

Iron is a crucial component of red blood cells. Dried beans and peas, lentils, enriched cereals, whole-grain products, dark leafy green vegetables, and dried fruit are good sources of iron. Because iron isn't as easily absorbed from plant sources, the recommended intake of iron for vegetarians is almost double that recommended for nonvegetarians. To help your body absorb iron, eat foods rich in vitamin C, such as strawberries, citrus fruits, tomatoes, cabbage and broccoli, at the same time as you're eating iron-containing foods.

Like iron, zinc is not as easily absorbed from plant sources as it is from animal products. Cheese is a good option if you eat dairy products. Plant sources of zinc include whole grains, soy products, legumes, nuts and wheat germ. Zinc is an essential component of many enzymes and plays a role in cell division and in formation of proteins.

Iodine

Iodine is a component in thyroid hormones, which help regulate metabolism, growth and function of key organs. Vegans may not get enough iodine and may be at risk of deficiency and possibly even a goiter. In addition, foods such as soybeans, cruciferous vegetables and sweet potatoes may promote a goiter. However, just 1/4 teaspoon of iodized salt a day provides a significant amount of iodine.

Getting started

One way to transition to a vegetarian diet is to gradually reduce the meat in your diet while increasing fruits and vegetables. Here are a couple of tips to help you get started:

Ramp up. Each week increase the number of meatless meals you already enjoy, such as spaghetti with tomato sauce or vegetable stir-fry. Find ways to include greens, such as spinach, kale, Swiss chard and collards, in your daily meals.

Substitute. Take favorite recipes and try them without meat. For example, make vegetarian chili by leaving out the ground beef and adding an extra can of black beans. Or make fajitas using extra-firm tofu rather than chicken. You may be surprised to find that many dishes require only simple substitutions.

Branch out. Scan the Internet for vegetarian menus. Buy or borrow vegetarian cookbooks. Check out ethnic restaurants to sample new vegetarian cuisines. The more variety you bring to your vegetarian diet, the more likely you'll be to meet all your nutritional needs.

See more In-depth

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Vegetarian diet: How to get the best nutrition

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A well-planned vegetarian diet is a healthy way to meet your nutritional needs. Find out what you need to know about a plant-based diet. By Mayo Clinic Staff Vegetarian diets are popular. Reasons for following a vegetarian diet are varied but include health benefits, such as reducing your risk of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers.

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Is it right to kill animals for food? And if it's wrong, how wrong is it? Could and should Western society ever change its views?

Four philosophers share their views with BBC Radio 4's Analysis programme.

Peter Singer: Our future selves will consider meat eating to be barbaric
Peter Singer is professor of bioethics at Princeton University and the author of Animal Liberation.
"You could say that if you kill a cow you're depriving it of the rest of its existence, which could also have been a happy, good existence, so why deprive it of that just because you want to eat some meat when you've got other healthy, nutritious, delicious things that you could also eat?

"The counter-argument is this cow would not have existed if we had not already planned in advance that at some point we would kill it and we would sell the meat, because obviously it costs something to rear a cow, and we can only meet that cost if we are going to kill it.

"So in a sense the cow could thank us for her existence - at least she has some existence rather than none.

"If a cow is killed that will make it possible for another cow to come into existence who will have a good life, and if the first cow were not killed it would not be possible for the other cow to come into existence.

"So yes, this cow standing in front of us will lose the rest of her life, but that loss is replaced by bringing the other cow into existence and the other cow will also have that happy life.

"In theory - other things being equal - I do buy that argument. I say in theory because I think it's very hard to produce circumstances where that actually occurs and there aren't other undesirable side effects. Given the animals in our food supply are mostly cattle and sheep, and they are major producers of greenhouse gases, I think on balance, it would be better if they didn't exist.

"I think we'll come to view [eating meat] in the way we now look back on the Roman games; having crowds of enthusiastic people cheering on the lions as they slaughtered the Christians or gladiators fighting each other to the death.

"The last time I intentionally ate meat was 1971. I grew up eating a lot of meat in Australia and I liked it, but I really haven't missed it for a long time."

Elizabeth Harman: A moral mistake but not morally wrong
Elizabeth Harman is associate professor of philosophy in human values at Princeton.
"The kind of moral picture that I would urge is one in which we think about whether we can justify our treatment of individuals. If you're going to do something terrible to a particular morally significant individual, how can that be justified?

"Animals have moral status, and animal suffering matters because it's a harm to something that counts morally. Killing an animal harms the animal. We're actively doing something that deprives it of future life.

"One way of thinking about how to justify an action is what could you say to the one that you're harming? That works very well with people. It works less well with cows who can't understand justifications.

"But we can imagine someone who is a representative of the cow and what could you say to the cow's representative to justify your treatment of it? If you kill one cow and then you create another cow, that doesn't justify killing the one cow at all, in my view.

"I think that meat production is morally wrong, and I think that eating meat is a moral mistake but not morally wrong.

"If you buy or eat meat, you're doing something that plays some kind of causal role in meat production, but it's a very removed causal role, so it's not plausible that any particular animal suffering depends on whether you make a particular purchase. So in that way you don't have any particular bit of animal suffering or death on your head for that instance of meat eating.

"What you're doing is participating [in] the continuation of meat production, and you're also failing to participate in the vegetarian movement, which I think is a really good moral thing that's happening.

"I do still eat meat and I'm really torn about how I feel about that."

Jeff MacMahan: Cows have a moral interest in continuing to live
Jeff MacMahan is White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford.
"If you didn't kill the cow, it could go on living and have a life that would be good for it. That's part of why it would be wrong for me to kill you. It would be depriving you of the good experiences that you would have if I didn't. And an animal has an interest in living to have its next meal as well.

"You don't have to think about humans in exactly the same way that you think about cows. But you've got to explain why you think it's permissible to do to an animal what you think it would be impermissible to do to a human being. In the case of people their suffering matters, but their happiness also matters. The same should be true in the case of animals.

"Do I think it's permissible to kill a cow and eat it if it has had a life that's been good and it's killed painlessly?

"If people couldn't get adequate nutrition otherwise, then I think yes. In a society like contemporary America or Great Britain my inclination is to say no. It's not at all clear that the interest that people have in killing and eating the cow outweighs the interests that the cow has in continuing to live.

"That's because the flesh of the cow is going to provide a certain amount of additional pleasure for the people who eat it. When we do the cost benefit analysis here, we shouldn't weigh all the pleasure that people get from eating a meal with the cow's meat in it; we should weigh just the difference in pleasure that they would get from eating the cow and eating some meal that didn't have meat in it.

"My own view is that in most cases that's not very much. I don't feel as a vegetarian that I'm in any way deprived."

Gary Comstock: Cows can learn - and know they're doing so
Gary Comstock is professor of philosophy at North Carolina State University.
"In killing an animal we deprive it of its ability to have a future and to satisfy its desires, so I'm very interested in whether cattle look forward. I think they do.

"An interesting experiment was done by Donald Broom and colleagues at Cambridge a few years ago with heifers - one-year-old cows - which seems to show not only that they can learn, but that they take satisfaction in knowing that they are learning.

"In the first control group, heifers learned to hit a button that let them into a long chute, at the end of which was a reward. They knew which button to push, but had no control over when the gate would open. They were interested to get to the end of the chute, but otherwise their behaviour was unremarkable.

"A second group of heifers had control over when the gate would open. As they learned which button to push to open the gate, they got better at pushing the right button, and the gate opened faster so they got the reward more quickly.

"When the second group of heifers saw their own improvements in performance, they jumped and kicked and galloped down to get the reward, behaviours that suggest strongly that they not only anticipated the pleasure of the coming reward, but were also taking pleasure in their own role in making it happen. It seems they were aware of - perhaps even proud of - their accomplishment.

"There is a danger of anthropomorphising the animals, of over-interpreting their behaviour, [but] these are controlled experiments, these are not my intuitions about what I think is going on in cattle's minds.

"There is also anatomical evidence. If you look at the brains and neural pathways in cattle, and compare them to humans, there are massive similarities. The amygdala, the cerebellum, the thalamus which are all involved in processing pain in us, are all found in cattle.

"People used to justify eating meat for biological reasons: we are omnivores, our incisors are designed to eat meat, this is a natural thing for us to do. The problem is there are many natural things that are not right for us to do, and the biological features are irrelevant to the question of how we ought to live our lives.

"Evidence seems to be building that the shoe's on the other foot now; that those who want to kill animals and eat them ought to justify their view. It shouldn't be the other way round."

Analysis is on BBC Radio 4 on Monday 26 October at 20:30 GMT. You can listen online or download the programme podcast. At 21:00 GMT on Monday 26 October, Jeff MacMahan and Gary Comstock will take part in a live Q&A on the Radio 4 Facebook page.

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Is it right to kill animals for food? And if it's wrong, how wrong is it? Could and should Western society ever change its views? Four philosophers share their views with BBC Radio 4's Analysis programme. Peter Singer is professor of bioethics at Princeton University and the author of Animal Liberation.

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http://vegetarian.procon.org

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A vegetarian diet cannot provide all of the nutrients needed for a healthy diet. It's quite the opposite. While eating meat may provide you with an easier method of acquiring needed nutrients-they do come along with chemicals and health problems done the road. Being vegetarian, one acquires the needed nutrients in a much more natural way.

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Raising animals for food is a perfectly fine thing.

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Raising animals for food is a perfectly fine thing.

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There is a growing movement to raise "cruelty free" organic meat. In the United States, animals raised for certified organic meat must be given access to the outdoors, clean air, and water. They cannot be given growth hormones or antibiotics and must be fed organically-grown feed free of animal byproducts.
(http://vegetarian.procon.org)

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The process that is supposedly meant to be upkeep for slaughtering animals is not humane.

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The process that is supposedly meant to be upkeep for slaughtering animals is not humane.

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The Humane Methods of Slaughter Act (HMSA) mandates that livestock be stunned unconscious before slaughter to minimize suffering; however, a lot of the slaughterhouse do not follow that act and many animals exempted from it.
(http://vegetarian.procon.org)

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A vegetarian diet will not lead us to ending world hunger.

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A vegetarian diet will not lead us to ending world hunger.

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According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the world "currently produces enough food for everybody, but many people do not have access to it."
(http://vegetarian.procon.org/)

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With a vegetarian diet, we are one step to ending world hunger. 

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With a vegetarian diet, we are one step to ending world hunger. 

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Over 10 pounds of plant protein are used to produce one pound of beef protein.
(vegetarian.procon.org)

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Processed protein vegetarian meals can create more greenhouse emissions.

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Processed protein vegetarian meals can create more greenhouse emissions.

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"giving up all animal products would only give a 7% reduction in green house gas emissions, [106] not enough to be worth the dietary sacrifice."
(vegetarian.procon.org)

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A vegetarian diet lowers the amount of greenhouse gas emission 

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A vegetarian diet lowers the amount of greenhouse gas emission 

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A June 2014 peer-reviewed study found that diets including meat cause the creation of up to 54% more greenhouse gas emissions than vegetarian diets.
(vegetarian.procon.org)

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Meat is the easiest way to acquire all of the nutrients needed for our body.

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Meat is the easiest way to acquire all of the nutrients needed for our body.

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In one serving, meat provides all the essential amino acids (the building blocks of protein), as well as essential nutrients
(vegetarian.procon.org)

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With a vegetarian diet one can get the needed  nutrients.

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With a vegetarian diet one can get the needed  nutrients.

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a vegetarian diet can meet protein requirements, provide all the essential amino-acids (the building blocks of protein), and improve health.
(vegetarian.procon.org)

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It is not cruel to kill animals because eating meat is a part of life.

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It is not cruel to kill animals because eating meat is a part of life.

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Vegetarians put the lives of animals in a higher place than plants when plants have emotions as well.Research shows that plants respond electrochemically to threats and may feel fear, [98] so vegetarians are also causing harm every time they kill and eat a plant. (vegetarian.procon.org)

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It is cruel and sickening to kill animals of there are vegetarian options

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It is cruel and sickening to kill animals of there are vegetarian options

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Scientific studies show that cattle, pigs, chickens, and all warm-blooded animals can experience stress, pain, and fear.
(vegetarian.procon.org)

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Claims, Evidence, Reasons

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Claims, Evidence, Reasons

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Vegetarianism is healthy and beneficial for every party involved (animals, people, and the environment).

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I strongly believe that vegetarianism is something that benefits everyone; not only regarding your body but also animals and our environment.