If everyone became vegetarian, the varieties of animal bred for human consumption would die out, and that would be a thoroughly good thing, since they have been bred to have gross deformities that are convenient for us, but make life horrible for the animal.
Instead, there would be wild animals, who don't need humans to keep them alive, but can survive very well without us. And if humans decided to kill *these* animals, then they would starve, because the ecosystems that support our crops need animals.*
Also, WWF, RSPB and RSPCA are among the UK's most donated-to charities. People pay LOTS of money to keep animals alive because they like looking at them.
Animals are already 'between us and the food', and would become less so if everyone were veg*an. In the US (can't find UK figures to hand), 60% of the grain farmed is fed to animals. It takes much more land (about five times as much) to feed a human by growing crops, then feeding some of them to animals, then killing the animals for food than it does to simply feed the crops (only) to the human.
* And out of this you *can* make a pretty good argument against everyone becoming vegetarian, since manure is important in arable farming, and I can't quite see a sensible way of obtaining it from wild animals!
Another good argument is that not all land is suitable for arable farming: you can raise sheep on hills, but you can't grow corn there.
As far as I'm aware though, there aren't really any good arguments against any particular individual becoming vegetarian, or against everyone eating less meat.
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If everyone became vegetarian, the varieties of animal bred for human consumption would die out, and that would be a thoroughly good thing, since they have been bred to have gross deformities that are convenient for us, but make life horrible for the animal.
Instead, there would be wild animals, who don't need humans to keep them alive, but can survive very well without us. And if humans decided to kill *these* animals, then they would starve, because the ecosystems that support our crops need animals.*
Also, WWF, RSPB and RSPCA are among the UK's most donated-to charities. People pay LOTS of money to keep animals alive because they like looking at them.
Animals are already 'between us and the food', and would become less so if everyone were veg*an. In the US (can't find UK figures to hand), 60% of the grain farmed is fed to animals. It takes much more land (about five times as much) to feed a human by growing crops, then feeding some of them to animals, then killing the animals for food than it does to simply feed the crops (only) to the human.
* And out of this you *can* make a pretty good argument against everyone becoming vegetarian, since manure is important in arable farming, and I can't quite see a sensible way of obtaining it from wild animals!
Another good argument is that not all land is suitable for arable farming: you can raise sheep on hills, but you can't grow corn there.
As far as I'm aware though, there aren't really any good arguments against any particular individual becoming vegetarian, or against everyone eating less meat.