Burger-crazy America imports over 200 million pounds of beef from Central America every year. Aside from the fossil fuels used for transporting those animals, grazing land is also needed. The only way for grazing land to appear in a densely forested region is from clear-cutting the forests and the rain forest. A recent Smithsonian study claims that the need for more grazing land means that every minute of every day, a land area equivalent to seven football fields is clear cut in the Amazon basin.
For each cheeseburger that’s been obtained from animals raised on rain forest land, about 55 square feet of forest have been destroyed. That’s just in Central America. The problem hits America closer to the heartland as well. In the United States, more than 260 million acres of forest have been clear-cut for animal agriculture. With increased per capita meat consumption, and a constantly growing population, there will only be more deforestation in the future. This is likely to accelerate faster as the economic downturn continues, and many lower income families turn to fast food as an alternative fresh food (which is more expensive) to feed their families.
March 16th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Sarah, Yesterday I sat in on a presentation about Juice Plus, which is an organic food supplement. Anyway, the presenter had a McDonalds cheeseburger that was six weeks old – and it was still in one piece and looked like a shriveled up but intact, plastic like piece of food. Disgusting. So not only are we stressing the environment, we’re stressing our bodies by ingesting gosh knows what kind of chemical preservatives. What is the plus side of all this?
March 18th, 2009 at 9:45 am
You are absolutely right about the environmental impact of the meat industry. We aren’t doing ourselves or the environment any favors by eating so many fast food burgers. Chains give you less for your money than if you would get if you bought the same ingredients at a grocery store and excessive meat consumption can have a negative impact on your health. Did you know that cutting meat from your diet just one day a week reduces your saturated fat intake by 15%, reducing your risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes?
I just started working on a non-profit campaign called Meatless Mondays, which encourages Americans to reduce their carbon footprint and improve their health by cutting meat from their diets once a week. That’s a small step to make a huge impact. If every American replaced just one chicken meal per week with a vegetarian one, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than a half-million cars off U.S. roads!
It’s not impossible to watch what you eat on the go either. We have a lot of helpful tips on how to keep you and your family satisfied without having to stop at the drive-thru available here: http://www.meatlessmonday.com/onthego
March 21st, 2009 at 1:55 pm
The time will come, maybe 80 or 100 years from now when people will have to eat grains, instead of feeding it to cattle and pigs, and then eating THEM. Rain forests are not limitless, and it’s unfair of our nation to use up our land for livestock, and then cut down the rain forests in other countries.
March 21st, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Two days ago, we had a small dinner party at our house. Three of us, including me, were vegetarians, and the other six were meat eaters. One of my friends made a chicken lasagna, and I made a vegan shepherd’s pie using vegeburgers and mashed potatoes instead of meat and cheese. The idea was that the shepherd’s pie was for the vegetarians, but the meat eaters started spooning it out themselves, even taking second helpings, so by the time the dish got passed down to the three vegetarians, there was very little left for us! And the meat eaters kept complimenting me on how good it was!
This isn’t the first time this has happened to me: Often, I take a vegetarian or vegan dish to a potluck, and the meat eaters eat as much of that as the vegetarians do – if not more!
The myth that all vegetarians eat is bland stuff like brown rice and wheat grass juice is just that – a myth! If only a few thousand omnivores would try a dish like the vegan shepherd’s pie once or twice a week, think of the difference that would make! And hopefully the trend would start to spread. Think about it!
March 21st, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Whether being a vegetarian or not is not what is important to me, at the present time (even thou I am a vegetarian), what is important, is the GLOBAL WARMING If we do nothing now WE ARE ALL GOING TO PAY we must take care of our planet NOW now while we can do some thing about all the damage before it becomes irriversable. please excuse my poor spelling
March 21st, 2009 at 7:44 pm
This is horrible! I’ve become a recent vegetarian based upon my knowledge of animal welfare and the impact on the environment.
Does anybody know how to contact Yahoo and make this information more public the world? Yahoo is always running articles. People need to wake up and CARE about the human impact.
March 22nd, 2009 at 12:23 pm
What does it take to make a hamburger? Fast food isn’t cheap food, it’s for people too lazy to make something.
March 22nd, 2009 at 6:02 pm
It sure is annoying when people begin to make the jump from criticizing Fast Food “meat”, to claiming that all meat is produced in the same way.
Animals are not meant to be fed grains, and there are still thousands upon thousands of small farms across north america that raise animals in a natural setting, allowing them to forage and graze, which provides a completely different product for the consumer, as well as a completely different life for the animals.
If you dont want to eat meat for your own reasons, that is just fine. But dont make the comparison that all meat requires the input of grains and beans. It just isnt true.
March 22nd, 2009 at 8:25 pm
The time has come for consumers to stop supporting ALL the businesses which are harming our environment. This is the ONLY way to encourage or force these businesses to adopt an environmentally-friendly stance.
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:45 pm
We need these rain forests. They are so quickly disappearing and taking with them thousands of plant and animal species, who have no where else to live. With saving the Rain Forests, we are taking a gigantic step to save our planet. Please do this before it is too late.
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:49 pm
We need these Rain Forests. They are so quickly disappearing and with the loss of these Rain Forests, we are losing plants, animals and marine life which will never come back. Saving these Rain Forests is the first step in saving our planet. Granted a tiny step, but it is the beginning and we have to start somewhere.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:59 am
im a ginger ;D
May 25th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
While deforestation due to cattle breeding is not a sensible or sustainable use of the rainforest, there still remains the question of what people in the Amazon should do — there are 25 million people in the Brazilian Amazon and no solution to deforestation will be sustainable unless it offers better living conditions to these people.
February 6th, 2010 at 7:13 pm
Mary D. Says:
The myth that all vegetarians eat is bland stuff like brown rice and wheat grass juice is just that – a myth! If only a few thousand omnivores would try a dish like the vegan shepherd’s pie once or twice a week, think of the difference that would make! And hopefully the trend would start to spread. Think about it!
i was a veggie once…people… restaurants..chains like hard rock cafe…make veggie food taste like poo…cause they don’t know how to make things taste good with out the animal meat…or (and more cynically and conspiratorially with the meat industry) they want to stop the impulse a kid/teen has to try and eventually become a veggie if the food tastes like poo.
March 25th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Fine weblog,have a good day