A well worded simply put explination of the theory that becoming animal lovers and plant haters will save the world (yes playing with words-will that stop you from absorbing possible info? what programming do we already have that dicates how we view info that challenges our beliefs?).

Ok seriously this is a simply put explination of why the theory that it takes less space for plant farming than animal farming is falwed. Actually I have heard other aspects that get more detailed but what is covered here is pretty straight forward.

"Animal Farming Is An Efficient Use Of Land

The human population of this planet is now approaching six billion and, even if every country on Earth enforced a strict and effective birth-control policy today, it is estimated that the total population will climb to fifteen billion before stabilizing.

The Earth's total land area is 179,941,270 square kilometers (69,479,518 square miles). A little simple mathematics tells us that at present, on average, one square kilometer has to support just over thirty-three people. If all of it were cultivated, that would certainly be possible.

The argument fails, however, because not all of it is available for arable cultivation. The main environmental factors that determine plant development and distribution are climate and soil type.

We can discount the whole of the unproductive continent of Antarctica, so that reduces the total by 13,335,740 square kilometers immediately. We can also discount, at least as far as arable farming is concerned, all other ice-covered areas, tundra, mountains, deserts, heath and moor land, areas covered by rivers, salt marshes and lakes, cities, roads, and railways; and to a large extent semi-deserts, savannah, rain forest, low-lying meadow land and areas liable to regular flooding. We have now discounted most of the Earth's surface.

In fact, only eleven percent of the land surface is farmed.

Almost all of the land we have just discounted does support grass or other plant life that we cannot utilize directly. We need a system that converts that grass into a form of food that we can eat.

And we have one: much of the land we have discounted for arable use can be, and is, used for the raising of food animals. Take New Zealand, for example. Here we have a country of 269,000 square kilometers - larger than Great Britain - with a human population of 3 million, a sheep population of 42 million and many cattle.

When I was in New Zealand for three months in Spring 1999, I didn't see one field of grain. It wasn't surprising: as the ground is rarely flat and the volcanic rock on which New Zealand is built is very close to the surface, that country is quite unsuitable for the cultivation of grain. And the same applies to many other parts of the world."


"The Naive Vegetarian Part 1"

http://www.mercola.com/2002/feb/2/vegetarian.htm

animals act like farmers and condense nutrition from plants for us. Personally I am extreamly greatful to them.

Another aspect which I don't think is covered is trying the amounts of omega 6 to 3 ratios.

An imbalance in this ratio leads to inflammation.