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FAQs

We understand it’s not easy to shift your mindset overnight. In case you share some of these questions, here are some of the most common objections we get. All citations available on our quotes page.
 

How much water does animal agriculture use?

Animal agriculture accounts for:

 

How much of the planet's land is used for animal agriculture?

UN FAO LEAD reports that more than two-thirds of all agricultural land is devoted to growing feed for livestock, while only 8 percent is used to grow food for direct human consumption.

 

Why does animal agriculture require so much water?

Farmed animals need to drink plenty of water, but most of the water used to rear them is in growing grain, forage and roughage for them to eat, and plenty is also needed to service and slaughter them. 

 

Per Foodtank, "What the water footprint reveals is the magnitude of water 'hidden' in meat as a tally of all the water consumed at the various steps during production. Better understanding meat’s resource intensity necessitates a closer look at two crucial factors." The first has to do with an animal's inherent inefficiency at turning its food into body mass, and the second reason for meat production’s great resource intensity is its immense scale.

 

Basically, cycling crops through animals before eating them is terribly inefficient, yet developed countries consider animal meat/products to be daily staples included in virtually every meal, and developing nations, who consider doing so to be aspirational, are increasing their intake of animal meat/products as well.

 

Plants need water, too.

Ironically, it takes far more plants to feed people who eat from farmed animals (both omnivores and vegetarians) than it does to feed a person eating a plant-based diet (a vegan). This is because vegans eat food directly rather than through a “middle animal,” who drinks lots of water and eats large amounts of crops, which are often irrigated, for months or years. 

 

In their report Food, Water, and Energy Security, UNESCO states: "The production of a meat based diet typically consumes twice the amount of water as compared to a vegetarian diet." 

 

In their article Water Conservation Tips, National Geographic states: "On average, a vegan, a person who doesn't eat meat or dairy, indirectly consumes nearly 600 gallons of water per day less than a person who eats the average American diet." Since they specify the average American diet requires 1,000 gallons of water per day, that means the average vegan diet requires less than half the water to produce. 

 

Water Footprint Network founder Arjen Y. Hoekstra, PhD, who is creator of the water footprint concept, has had multiple publications translated into several languages, and has advised government and multilateral institutions like UNESCO and World Bank, says ""Animal products are the single most important factor in humanity's water footprint" and "we need to re-examine the place meat and dairy have in the diet of modern man." 

 

Almonds/avocados/rice are the problem.

Nope, it’s still farmed animals that are consuming more than half of our nation's water, per Center for Science in the Public Interest. No crop comes close, though some plant foods are more water-intensive than others. However, nutritious foods like almonds and avocados are usually eaten pretty sparingly compared to meat products.

 

It may seem outrageous that a single almond requires about 1 gallon of water to produce (a serving is 23 almonds) – but not when you consider that a single egg requires 53 gallons, a hamburger 660, and a gallon of dairy milk 880 gallons of water to produce. And almonds are consumed quite sparingly compared to eggs, meat, and dairy, the true water-guzzling luxuries that are nevertheless treated as a main dish.

 

Even though California produces at least half of all – and up to 99% of several – U.S. fruits, vegetables, and nuts, but only 21% or less of any U.S. meat or animal product, meat and dairy account for nearly HALF of the state’s water footprint.

 

20% of California’s agricultural water goes toward producing alfalfa hay alone, which is more water than any other state crop receives – even almonds, which, use use 9% of CA agricultural water to supply 80% of the entire planet and 99% of the nation with nutrient-dense monounsaturated fats. True, it doesn't make much sense to grow most of the world's almonds in a water scarce region, but almonds in and of themselves are not problematic the way animal agrilculture is.

 

Sources to above facts are included here.

 

Showers/lawns/golf courses/construction sites are the problem.

Again, it’s still livestock that is consuming more than half of our water. 
 

So you think it’s okay for people to waste water on their lawn?

While we don’t condone wasting water at all, these other water wasters receive plenty of attention already. Our goal is to open the conversation to include the actual root cause of our water shortages, which is usually left out of the conversation entirely.
 

Can’t they just build desalination plants?

Incredibly energy-inefficient, cost-prohibitive ocean water desalination plants are an extreme solution that avoids addressing the root cause of water shortages. Desalinated ocean water is the most expensive form of freshwater, costing at least 5 times more than harvesting freshwater. Billions of taxpayer dollars will need to go to this. It also creates a heavy toll on our already ravaged oceans and oceanic biodiversity. Finally, desalination presents significant issues with disposal of concentrated saltwater sludge residue. (Info from Food Choice and Sustainability.) If we stop giving most of our water to livestock, we won’t need to attempt billion-dollar miracles.

 

We will also be drinking recycled sewer water soon in San Diego – this while cows drink from pristine underground aquifers. 

 

Are you implying we should let the cows/animals die of thirst? 

No. We are saying it’s time to stop breeding them to eat from. It’s only a false sense of need to consume animal foods that requires them to be artificially/forcibly bred in the first place, and in astronomical numbers. We are reducing incredibly resource-intensive, complex, sentient beings down to their most simple, basic elements that we could be getting from plants. Plants contain all the protein that humans need, plus fiber and no cholesterol. Decreased demand won’t happen overnight, because systemic change happens at the individual level, but veganism is one of today's fastest-growing movements. We’re not doing animals any favors to mass-breed them for the food industry’s “live stock.”

 

Here's some more info.

 

Plants are alive, too.

We have already addressed that eating plants requires less water and resources. From an ethical standpoint, while plants react to stimuli and are alive, they are not sentient and lack a brain, heart, and nervous system. This is why, for example, firefighters rescue pets but not houseplants, and no advocacy or rescue group for neglected houseplants exists. An international group of prominent scientists signed The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness in which they state that animals are conscious and aware to the degree that humans are, but such a statement has never been made of plants. If your concern for plants persists, producing meat & animal products "requires a lot of animals raised on huge, unsustainable amounts of plant protein (which is a direct quote from Chemical & Engineering News). So eating from animals always maximizes your plant usage, while being vegan minimizes it. And while eating plants is necessary for human survival, eating the flesh and/or fluids of any animal is not. (See next question).

 

All the soy eaten by vegans is environmentally destructive.

There is very real damage caused by growing soybeans, but blaming tofu and soy-based alternatives to animal products (to which there are also non-soy based vegan alternatives) for this damage is misdirected. This can be made clear with a simple analogy. Imagine if we fed the vast majority of all the world’s garbanzo beans to farmed animals, and then blamed hummus for the damage that would be caused by growing so many garbanzo beans. See how silly that is?

Per SoyaTech, "About 85 percent of the world’s soybean crop is processed into meal and vegetable oil, and virtually all of that meal is used in animal feed. Some two percent of the soybean meal is further processed into soy flours and proteins for food use. Approximately six percent of soybeans are used directly as human food." 

Soy is a bean. It only damages the environment to grow beans if you breed tens of billions of animals and then feed them beans. See more here and here.

 

But people need to eat meat and animal foods to be healthy.

This is an unsubstantiated but popular myth. The world's largest organization of food and nutrition professionals, now called the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, states: "It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes." All their international counterparts have similar positions. In fact, not a single medical or dietetic association claims otherwise. There are no exceptions noted for body or blood types, etc. Truly. Many world-class athletes including bodybuilders and NFL players are vegan as well.

 

My doctor says I need meat.

Most medical doctors receive little to no training in nutrition. Their expertise is in medicine, not food. They are also likely personally biased toward continuing to eat meat, as are most people. Refer them to the above position of the world's largest organization of food and nutrition professionals, and seek out more informed nutritionists and other sources.

 

How does animal agriculture exacerbate world hunger?

We've compiled dozens of highly reputable sources on this devastating issue.

 

Not everyone wants to eat rabbit food.

Plant-based food has evolved tremendously. We have never taken an omnivore to restaurants like Native Foods with anything but pleasant surprise and raves. Almost everything omnivores eat, we eat delicious plant-based versions of, including meat and cheese. Sandwiches, pasta, Mexican, Thai, sushi, pizza – we eat it all! (Except for hay. We leave that to actual rabbits.) See #whatveganseat on Instagram at any given moment for literally millions of inspirational photos, with more added by the second.

 

I don’t like vegetables/I love meat.

Most people don’t go vegan because we stop liking the food we grew up with and are used to, we do it because we understand it is no longer sustainable or logical. It won’t taste exactly the same as what you’re used to at first, because it is not the same. It’s new and different. Your taste buds and stomach microflora may take a few weeks to adjust or for you to feel full. But that does change, and quickly. Be sure to give it some time.

 

It’s not realistic to expect everyone to go vegan.

Millions of people already have. Be the change you want to see in the world instead of refusing to change solely because you believe no one else will change, or you fear social judgment. All change requires a critical mass to be reached before the scales are tipped. Change and challenge is a good thing. A favorite applicable proverb: "Those who say something can't be done should get out of the way of those already doing it."

 

I eat local, sustainable meat and animal products.

It’s much easier to accept that grass-fed, pastured animals are the answer than to shift away from eating them altogether. But using land and water to raise livestock is a tremendously inefficient way to produce food, no matter what zip code or setting they're in. And land use would increase dramatically if everyone switched to pastured meat. Simple math shows there is simply not enough land on Earth to accommodate this for any significant percentage of the population. And free-ranging animals still need to drink the same outrageous thousands of gallons of water per animal per year. 

 

Per Water Footprint Network founder Arjen Y. Hoekstra, PhD, "It’s not so simple to say that extensively pasture-raised is better than intensively industrially produced... From an environmental perspective it’s best to reduce or stop meat consumption altogether. The reason is that it’s so much more efficient to obtain calories and protein directly from crops than indirectly from meat." 

 

Anders Berntell, Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI)'s executive director, told via BBC News, "Animals fed on grain, and also those which rely on grazing, need far more water than grain crops." 

 

Umbra Fisk, Grist Research Associate II, Hardcover and Periodicals Unit, wrote in Grist's Is grass-fed beef better in a drought?,  "Plant-based preferences... will have a much bigger impact [on the drought] than chowing down on even the best grass-fed burgers. Here’s to a delicious BBQ season filled with Portobello burgers, bean patties, and grilled veggies!"

 

So is this about being vegan? 

Veganism is a growing movement that many are embracing because the planet is facing a crisis and we want to be part of the solution rather than the problem. Water depletion is one aspect of many. Per Cowspiracy, "Animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation, water consumption and pollution, is responsible for more greenhouse gases than the transportation industry, and is a primary driver of rainforest destruction, species extinction, habitat loss, topsoil erosion, ocean dead zones, and virtually every other environmental ill." 

 

All kinds of people are vegan, including many of the athletes, politicians, and celebrities we admire. You may be surprised at the people who are vegan, like Samuel L. Jackson and Al Gore! Seeing as gorillas are vegan (the strongest animal on Earth pound for pound) other than the occasional ant, it’s perhaps not shocking to know that even some bodybuilders are vegan.

 

A shift toward veganism may be met with many questions and sometimes even hostility. You are going against the grain, stepping outside the box, being true to your beliefs – which can make some people uncomfortable. Most people don't want to think about animals being killed, which this lifestyle choice brings to the surface even when you don't say anything about that aspect. But it’s your diet, not theirs. If you find yourself constantly having to defend yourself and answer the same questions, or if there are questions you need answers to, consult sites like vegansidekick.com, which blend humor with irrefutable logic.

 

How do I go vegan?

Please visit the following websites for all the information you need to get started:
ChooseVeg.com
LiveVegan.org
Challenge22.com
Adaptt.org
VeganKit.com
VeganEasy.org

Great Facebook note:
facebook.com/notes/berkay-tamer/why-vegan/843429495715758

Helpful Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/4A.Vegan

 

 

 

 

 

PLUS:

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