Plant based diets- can they be sustained without causing harm to animals?

[Snowy81]

This is not meat eater, versus vegetarian versus vegan argument, this is a question I would just like to know the answer too, because I’m struggling with it, and there is probably a simple answer I’ve over looked.

Many are saying to stop eating meat, and follow a plant based diet.

However I’ve just been watching a documentary (with Mr A), who says that many animals are losing their natural habitat, due to humans using the land to grow crops.

So surely if we (everyone) eat more plant based foods, we will need more land to grow it, therefore taking it away form animals? I should say this was spoken about regarding America, but surely that applied everywhere?

So how will this plant based diet, be beneficial to animals if we need their land to grow it? Isn’t that just as detrimental as us breeding animals for human consumption?

To optimise land use you need a combination which skews towards plants. A LOT of the land currently used to grow crops is to feed animals - and if you think about the energy lost in trophic levels, it takes more to feed animals for us to eat than it would to eat the feed ourselves.

But there are caveats - most of this animal feed is soy, rather than a variety of plants which should make up the human diet. I think we are rather less discerning about what we feed animals and it might be the case that some of this land only supports soy. The other is that some land used for livestock wouldn't support plants - sheep farming being the classic example. Animals can also survive in areas where crops won't grow at all like deserts.

Reduction in beef consumption seems to be key, which is annoying because it's the most delicious...

Animal agriculture is responsible for 91% of deforestation. It takes A LOT of space and a lot of crops to grow enough feed for the 56 billion land animals killed each year for food.

If you eat a healthy and balanced plant based diet you can easily get everything you need (I’m still thriving after 6 years) and the land needed to grow plant-based food is a fraction of the land needed to raise animals for those who eat animal products.

Additionally with over 1 billion people starving per day I can’t believe people justify the exportation of grain from these third world countries to feed animals so we can eat meat!! There is more than enough plant food to feed the world but we feed it to livestock.