17 reasons to eat less meat

The book "Eating Animals" by the American author Jonathan Safran Foer has sparked a debate: In times of factory farming, can we still eat meat with a clear conscience? In the price war large retail chains put the producers under pressureTo produce meat always cheaper. Many small, traditional businesses can no longer keep up and give up. The winners are the big agricultural factories.

On the other hand, there is only one solution: the vote of the consumers with the feet. We should pay attention to quality meat, buy from regional producers or organic farms. Eat less meat and spend more per serving. For luxury products we are ready to pay many Euros for extravagance. Why do not we treat our farm animals a little bit?

To produce one kilo of steak, about ten kilos of grain must be fed to a beef. More than 90 percent of it is lost to the energy that the animal needs to live. If this cereal were eaten directly (as bread, corn porridge) dozens of children in poor countries could become full.
The most important feed grain in the world is soya, which is mainly grown in monocultures in South America. Meanwhile, almost exclusively gene-manipulated plants are used. What impact this has on the environment and human health is unknown.
To increase the yield of forage crops, more and more artificial fertilizer is needed. It must be produced using oil or natural gas: a single ton of corn produced in America requires 160 liters of oil.
Even with efficient use, the fertile farmlands will no longer be sufficient from 2030 to feed the growing population.
Much of the tropical forest in South America is cut down to gain pasture and feed areas.
Every tenth liter of freshwater in the world flows into livestock.
EU subsidies benefit the largest agricultural factories and food companies. Farmers receive comparatively little.
Livestock farming accounts for around one sixth of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Above all, cattle and sheep produce methane during digestion, which is 21 times more damaging to the climate than CO2.
The production of one kilo of beef releases more than six kilos of CO2, with pork and chicken only a quarter of it, with fruits and vegetables even a tenth.
Examples of maladministration found in factory farming: 30 broilers share a square meter of soil, the narrowness leads to aggression of the animals to cannibalism; Turkeys suffer from bone damage due to too fast weight gain; in the last weeks of their life they can no longer move normally; the place for mother sows is so narrow that the animals can not lie down without pain.
Factory farming favors animal diseases such as BSE or swine fever. In so-called culling millions of animals are killed, the flesh destroyed. The fight also costs many taxpayers' money: within ten years, the EU has spent a billion euros.
In factory farming, large quantities of antibiotics are used. For example, the substances enter the environment through the manure and thus into the food chain. Even with people who eat little or no meat, so can resistance to antibiotics.
Americans consume 126 kilos of meat per capita and year, Germans 83 kilos, Indians only five kilos.
On average, women eat only half as much meat as men.
The Germans eat so much meat at such cheap prices as never before. Example: To buy one kilo of chicken you had to work more than two hours in 1960, today only 13 minutes. Overall, we spend only 11 percent of our income on food.
We produce much more meat in the EU than we need. The meat is therefore stored in cold stores and then exported from taxpayers with the help of high subsidies. These artificially low prices partially ruin farmers in developing countries who practice traditional livestock farming.
Cross-cultural applies: the more prosperity, the higher the meat consumption. But there is not a single study that shows that eating meat on the other hand also means better quality of life.