Why I am vegetarian:

- Livestock consumes 70 percent of U.S. grain production. Twenty million people die each year as a result of malnutrition and starvation. Americans could feed 100,000,000 people by reducing their intake of meat by 20 percent.

-One acre of prime land can produce many pounds of edible product. Here are a few examples:
>30,000 pounds of apples
>40,000 pounds of potatoes
>50,000 pounds of tomatoes
>250 pounds of beef

-Livestock- cattle, poultry, goats, sheep- totaling 15 billion worldwide now outnumber people three to one. Livestock graze on half of the world's mass. The explosion of livestock populations has resulted in a parallel explosion of animal wastes that pollute surface and ground water. U.S. livestock produce 230,000 pounds of excrement per second. The amount of waste created by a 10,000-head feed lot is equal to the waste of a city of 110,000 people.

-World livestock production is now a significant factor in the emission of two of the four global warming gases: carbon dioxide and methane. Every steak we eat ha the same effect as a 25-mile drive in a typical American car.

-Each year, an estimated 125,000 square miles off rainforest are permanently destroyed, bringing about the extinction of approximately 1,000 plant and animal species.

-Producing 1 pound of feedlot steak results in the loss of 35 pounds of topsoil. It takes 200 to 1,000 years to form one inch of topsoil.

-It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce 1 edible pound of beef. It takes 49 gallons of water to produce 1 edible pound of apples.

-Eighty percent of the meat produced in the United States contains drugs that are passed on to you when you eat it.

-Animal products contain large quantities of saturated fat and cholesterol and have no dietary fiber. The U.S. surgeon general has stated that 68 percent off all diseases are diet related. A diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and grains (and free of animal products) can prevent, improve, and sometimes cure breast cancer, osteoporosis, prostate cancer, impotence and obesity.

-Seventy-five percent of federal poultry inspectors say they would not eat chicken