[Correspondence] How will the earth change if I become a vegetarian?

It seems that the era in which vegetarianism was increasingly accepted as a culture is coming from an era when vegetarianism was rare.

The vegetarian population has also increased significantly compared to the past.

According to the Korea Vegetarian Federation data, the number of vegetarians this year is 2.5 million.

That's a million more people than 10 years ago.

Overseas, the wind has already started to blow a few years ago.

The Economist even called 2019 the “year of the vegan.”

Today's Mabu News is going to look at the story of vegetarian and meat eating with data.

How is meat being maintained, how it affects the environment, and what happens to the environment if we choose to be vegetarian.

So, the question Mabu News raises today is this.

200 million slaughtered in one day

Before we talk about vegetarianism, let's talk about meat. Currently, the world's population is 7.9 billion. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 80.3 billion livestock are slaughtered in one year to feed this population. 200 million animals a day, 9 million animals an hour, over 150,000 animals per minute are being slaughtered. You may not have a sense of how many 80.3 billion animals are, so I'll explain it this way. Estimating the cumulative population since the birth of our human species (Data from the Population Reference Bureau), it is about 116.7 billion people. Every year and 5 months, as many animals as the human population that have ever lived on Earth are slaughtered.

Especially the chicken is overwhelming. Of the total 80.3 billion slaughtered in a year, 72.1 billion chickens are slaughtered. It is huge because it accounts for 89.7% of the total. The difference between 2nd and 2nd is huge. Ducks rank second with 3.3 billion, but less than 5%. After ducks, there are 1.3 billion pigs and 300 million cattle. For every tick of the second hand, 2,287 chickens die, 43 pigs and 10 cows die.

Why are so many livestock slaughtered?

That's why we spend so much!

Worldwide, richer countries tend to consume more meat.

The graph above is a spread of average meat consumption per capita (FAO data) and gross domestic product per capita (World Bank data) by country around the world.

The gross domestic product per capita varies so much that it is plotted on the logarithmic axis.

Is it obvious that it is pointing to the right?

Wealthy countries are, on average, consuming more meat.

The country that consumes the most meat per capita is by far the United States.

As of 2018, the amount of meat consumed per American per year was a whopping 123.2 kg.

Korea consumes about 71.1 kg per person.

Raising livestock requires a lot of resources.

We need land for the animals to grow, we'll have feed to feed them, we need clean water.

Let's see how much goes in.

The habitable land on the planet Earth is about 104 million square kilometers.

Of this, 50% is used for agriculture, and a whopping 77% of this farmland is used for livestock.

The total supply of grain for feed for livestock around the world in 2021 according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture has exceeded 1.6 billion tons.

Since the production of food we eat is about 3 billion tons in 2019, it means that one-third of the grains on Earth are used for feed.

The water is also quite heavy.

Of the clean water available to us, 92% is used for agriculture, of which 27% is used for human food and 29% is used for milk and meat production.

Reducing your carbon footprint with a vegetarian diet

If meat consumption is reduced, the resources used to raise livestock can be used elsewhere. It could also reduce the amount of carbon emitted by raising livestock. Food production is so large that it accounts for 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions. How much would greenhouse gases be reduced if everyone in the world gave up eating meat? According to a study conducted at Oxford University in the UK, a vegan diet can reduce greenhouse gases from the food sector by as much as 60 to 70%.

In particular, reducing beef may be the most effective.

Because cows are the most carbon-producing meats.

According to a paper (Poore & Nemecek) published in Science in 2018, carbon generated per kilogram of beef is a whopping 99.5 kilograms.

If you eat 1 kg of protein from beef, 498.9 kg of carbon is generated.

Moreover, the amount of meat produced is the lowest compared to the grain input.

It takes 25kg of feed to produce 1kg of beef!

Pigs need about 6.4 kg and poultry such as chickens and ducks 3.3 kg, which is a huge difference.

If you cut down on meat and increase your vegetarian diet, you might be able to use the land you used to raise livestock differently.

Did I mention that 77% of the land used for agriculture is used for livestock?

This land is about 40 million square kilometers, which is about the size of Europe and Africa combined.

If this land becomes forests and grasslands again, it could reduce carbon.

If the trees that were cut down to raise cattle can grow back on the land, it could help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide.

Or maybe you could plant plants for vegetarians.

However, since most of the land used for livestock is dry, there is a possibility that it will become a desert if not managed.

Reduce meat gradually

It's impossible for everyone to stop eating meat and become vegetarian all of a sudden all at once. Animal protein can be obtained through meat eating, and many people enjoy it. Moreover, not everyone is positive that suddenly everyone starts going vegetarian. With so many animals being slaughtered, there are a lot of people working in the huge livestock market. There are over 100 million people around the world who work in livestock farming and meat processing. Most of them are small-scale farmers in developing countries. If the world gave up meat, developing countries would become poorer. So we need gradual change.

The livestock industry is taking a step towards carbon neutrality through seaweed. It was inspired by the fact that a component in seaweed blocks the process of producing methane, and it is said that cows that eat a feed additive made from seaweed reduce methane by 80% compared to just cows. There is also a market for meat substitutes made with plant-based meat or 3D printing. There is still a long way to go, but we are working towards reducing environmental damage.

Right now, we can make a big difference just by eating occasionally without completely cutting out meat.

There is a diet developed by scientists with the purpose of solving the problem of global health and food shortages in preparation for the age of 10 billion people in 2050.

This is the so-called Anthropocene diet.

It is recommended to eat 500g of vegetables and fruits per day, and only 84g of meat.

This is a 65.3% reduction in meat compared to the global average diet.

When applied to Korea, the annual consumption in Korea is 71.1 kg per person, which is 195 g per day.

To reach 84g, cut the meat in half and eat more vegetables and fruits to make a diet for the planet.

If you are having trouble controlling your diet, intermittent vegetarianism may be the way to go.

Once a week, choose a vegetarian diet.

This is the article prepared by Mabu News today.

We looked at the data to see how many resources go into a meat diet and what the effect of choosing a vegetarian diet would be.

The question Mabu News asks its subscribers today is their thoughts on vegetarianism.

Do you want to try vegetarianism, and if so, how much you can do?

Or, if you don't already want to go vegetarian, please let us know in the comments why!

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: Not Heather

: anjunseok

: Kim Seon-Kyeong, Jan is