Vegetarianism

Except that to feed those few cows again you need grain that is grown on several acres of farmland, grain which, if diverted to human consumption, would feed a lot more people than the cows would.

 

I think from a Buddhist point of view, like with many other things Buddhism doesnt have set rules. However through your meditation practice and your following of the Eightfold Path it should come to a point where vegetarianism seems like the only option. That's kinda what happened me. Unlike Christianity, Islam and many other religions where there are lists of rules Buddhism is more about cultivating your conscience etc through your practice.

 

This thought has never entered my mind as a logical point on the idea of vegitariansim. For the chance to observe another point of view, I thank you.

I do ask though, can this be proven to be true, or is it an assumptive point of discussion.

 

It's proven, there was a link to a big article about it in the veggie forum before. Think it's in the book 'Beyond Beef' aswell. I'll see if I can dig out the link.

 

What the studies say is that if all the land that is used for producing beef were diverted to feeding humans, world hunger could be resolved many times over.

One pound of hamburger takes 16 pounds of grain and 2,500 gallons of water (the water is for raising the grain to feed the cattle and for the cattle to drink). Veggie burgers need 7 times less water than meat to produce. Also, the grain ratio is 1 to 1 (rather than 16 to 1) because there is direct consumption of grains by humans rather than first feeding it to cows and then later we eat the meat.

Some of McDonald's meat does come from the U.S. ; but since the demand for meat is high and land is getting scarce in the U.S. , rainforests are cut down in other countries to make grazing land for cattle.

For every rainforest beef hamburger (which is found in your typical fast food restaurant), 55 square feet of land is destroyed to produce that one hamburger.

 

That makes it sound so much worse. I never knew this.

 

::nods:: this I knew...its a sad statistic...I always feel so awful that they cut down rainforests for THAT.

And hell, veggie burgers just taste better anyway (well imho...)