Human consumption of animals

Meat eating
Eating animal flesh
Human consumption of dairy products
Human consumption of animal products
Excessive consumption of meat
Flesh-eating
Eating dead animals

Nature

The consumption of animal flesh (whether meat, fowl or fish) or the use of animal products (leather goods, products of bone-processing, eggs and cheese) is unethical, unaesthetic, uneconomic, and without nutritional justification. Human beings should not needlessly kill sentient animals. The consumption of animal flesh is not the most economic method of obtaining the highest yield of nutritional products from agricultural land. The economic and social costs of meat consumption include hugely inefficient use of freshwater and land, heavy pollution from livestock faeces, rising rates of heart disease and other degenerative illnesses and spreading destruction of forests.

Background

Since historic times, meat has been served at feasts and celebrations. It is not just a food, but a reward. Throughout the world, one of the first things people do as they climb out of poverty is to shift from their peasant diet of mainly grains and beans to one that is rich in pork or beef.

Incidence

According to the latest statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), almost 80 billion animals are killed for food annually. The United States Department of Agriculture reports that 9.76 billion land animals were slaughtered in 2020. Global meat production has more than quadrupled since 1961, reaching over 330 million tonnes in 2020. This exponential increase in meat production is closely tied to rising human population and income levels, driving up demand for animal products. To put this into perspective, in 2020, the average person worldwide consumed around 43 kilograms of meat per year, compared to just 23 kilograms in 1961. In 2013, the average person in the USA consumed over 100 kg of meat annually, while most counties in Western Europe consumed between 80 and 90 kilograms of meat per person annually. This is 10 times more than low-income countries, like Ethiopia (7kg/year), Nigeria (9kg/year), and Rwanda (8kg/year).

Livestock production also places immense pressure on land resources. Globally, around 70% of agricultural land is used for livestock farming, including both pastureland and land dedicated to feed crop cultivation. The environmental impact of this land use is profound, with livestock production being a leading driver of deforestation in regions such as the Amazon rainforest. Additionally, the water footprint of animal agriculture is significant, with an estimated 15,000 liters of water required to produce just one kilogram of beef, compared to around 1,250 liters for one kilogram of wheat.

Factory farming, which accounts for the majority of meat production globally, raises significant ethical concerns. In the United States, approximately 99% of farmed animals are raised in intensive confinement systems, where they experience overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. The use of antibiotics in animal agriculture is widespread, with around 80% of antibiotics sold in the United States being used in livestock farming. This overuse of antibiotics contributes to the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, posing a serious threat to both human and animal health.

From a health perspective, excessive consumption of animal products has been linked to a range of chronic diseases. Studies have shown that individuals who consume large amounts of red and processed meats have an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer. The World Health Organization (WHO) has classified processed meats as carcinogenic to humans, while red meats are classified as probably carcinogenic.

Annually, livestock farming produces an estimated 13.7 billion metric tons of waste, as reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). This waste contains substantial quantities of nutrients, including approximately 130 million metric tons of nitrogen and 30 million metric tons of phosphorus, which can lead to nutrient runoff and subsequent water pollution. In the United States alone, livestock farming generates over 335 million tons of manure each year, with large-scale operations being significant contributors. The environmental impact of livestock waste extends to greenhouse gas emissions, with the livestock sector accounting for approximately 14.5% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Methane, a potent greenhouse gas emitted during manure decomposition, contributes significantly to this figure.

Claim

Meat is not necessary for human survival. Its production involves a long and cruel process of forced imprisonment, biological manipulation, transportation over long distances in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, followed by a violent death in a slaughterhouse.

Ethical considerations aside, meat provides an excessive amount of fat to the body and is therefore dangerous to the health. Data strongly suggest that a major influence on cholesterol levels and disease rates is the high consumption of animal-derived foods, including dairy products. Heart disease, cancer, hypertension, diabetes, obesity and food-borne illnesses are directly associated with meat-eating.

We are living graves of murdered beasts / slaughtered to satisfy our appetites / Like carrion crows we live and feed on meat / regardless of the sufferings and the pain. (George Bernard Shaw).

The meat industry serves as a viral breeding ground, with cramped and unsanitary conditions providing the perfect environment for deadly pathogens to mutate and spread. Zoonotic diseases originating from livestock, such as avian influenza and swine flu, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic are evolving into global pandemics, threatening human health and our entire civilization.

If Americans reduced their meat consumption by 10% they would free up 12 million tons of grain for human consumption, which is enough to feed adequately 60 million people, roughly the number who starve to death every year.

The shift from wildland hunting and gathering to systematic herding and farming enable us to produce food surpluses, but the surpluses also allowed us to reproduce prodigiously. It was only a matter of time and geography before the large area of wildland, per individual, that is necessary to sustain a top-predator species, was exceeded. Other top-predators that need space are compromised to an even greater degree.

Counter-claim

The animal-centred view, while trying to take a higher moral ground, seldom takes into account the suffering of a carrot or potato being boiled alive. For animals, even human animals, to live, they must kill other living things. Plants, too, are dependent on the death and decomposition of living matter. Only in this larger recognition of interdependence of death and life can a meaningful decision about meat eating be made.

It is not proven that a vegetarian diet is more nutritious than a diet with flesh. Omission of animal products from diets in industrialized societies may be dangerous if adequate nutritional substitutes are not used. Refusal to consume animal products in some developing countries, where the diet is vegetarian, aggravates the problem of providing the poor with adequate protein.

It is not meat that is dangerous but meat fat. If the cost of lean meat is excessive, a meat diet can be complemented with cereals, vegetables and pulses.