Meat-vs-Environment-

Meat vs Environment


Meat vs Environment
Published on

Diet, it is something that determine some major things of our daily schedule and plays significant role in our culture and wellbeing. As we are growing, now we have a huge range of products to choose how and what we eat but still the fact is that growth requires more resources. If we look at today’s meat industry and its impact on planet it can have a good argument whether meat is good or not for environment. We can make some argument that are there some good alternatives for meat or not.

In the History

There have been many researches by archeologist and anthropologists regarding structure of human teeth and cut marks on bones of herbivores just to know how long our ancestor have been eating meat. Experts suggest that we are consuming flesh around 2.7 million years ago. It is believed that this protein rich diet played an important role in our evolution. This energy rich protein helped our brain to get much required energy to evolve and that is the reason that our ancestor search for meat instead of hunting for it. Along with brain evolvement it played an important role in shaping our digestive system. Although after cooking was invented, the meat become more digestive for us. With human emerging around 3 lakh years ago hunting and eating meat with plant and fruits was common until introduction of agriculture around 10 thousand years ago. Which made us shift to some narrow diet like wheat, rice, corn, etc. With time meat become a luxury and was consumed either by limited people or only on some special occasion. But now as we see, it can be found in abundance with majority of people consuming meat.

Is Meet really good?

Though the number of people who prefer animal product are getting increased but the question arises is that right? There is a considerable reason who prefer to go vegan and not consume any kind of meat like fish, chicken or goat. Talking about developed countries like UK there were about 1.5 lakh people in 2019 who were not consuming meat items.

There are plenty of reasons which questions that is meat really good for environment.
  • 1. Animal welfare: Movement towards low-cost meat is taking us to intensive farming. Animal are kept in limited space with cost saving methods restricting their behavior from natural habitat. This compromises their health and welfare.

Meat-vs-enviornment
  • 2. Sustainability: Land required for animal farming is extremely higher in ratio, the farms and gazing lands etc. According to studies the land used for livestock production is nearly 77% yet when it comes to calory consumption it is just 17% from animals.


  • 3. Environmental damage: The grazing animals eats grass from soil which leads to soil erosion that have numerous side effects like flood, soil losing its fertility, land slide in hilly regions and even floods. Livestock production is main driver of environmental damage which include climate change and biodiversity loss.

  • 4. Deforestation: Cattle farming need space. In order to get that space forests are cleared and habitats are created where grazing land are made. Generally, these forests are cleared using fire, that means more damage is added. Firstly the forests are cleared that decrease oxygen production secondly fire produced CO2 that leads to global warming and heating effect.

Meat-vs-enviornment

Meat-vs-enviornment


  • 5. Greenhouse effect: Consumption of non veg is highly responsible for greenhouse effect. Cattle animal release methane while digesting food, animal produce and fertilizers that are nitrogen based (produce nitrous oxide). These gases trap heat causing temperature rise and further several serious issues.

Meat-vs-enviornment
  • 6. Biodiversity loss: It is not just that trees are destructed due to land requirement but many animal species loose their home and might face extinction or get under serious threat due to lose of natural habitat. Researchers suggest that half of worlds habitable land is used for agriculture of which nearly 77% is used for cattle grazing which means that this portion of land can’t be use to give habitat to endangered animal or plant species.


  • 7. Water problem: Production of animal product such as beef, pork or meat takes up about four times water than any other alternative source of protein. It is very clear that these are water intensive production. Beside this the manure used for production of soyabean (animal feed) pollutes water worldwide and contaminated underground water is for sure unsafe at high rate.

  • 8. Soil degradation: Grazing land for animals leads to bare soil that gradually gets lost due to rain or high wind. Resulting in conversion of fertile land into barren fields and create either drought like situation or increasing flood risk.

Meat-vs-enviornment
Is eating meat bad for planet?

From the above evidence we can clearly conclude that eating meat products do cause harm to nature. It ultimately ends up at your personal choice, looking at cultural, ethical and environmental factors that you want to take up animal product or alternative source of protein as your diet at risk of our earth. It highly depends on personal choice that what a person consumes but other factors such as choice of a farmer, Government factors and local shopkeepers either they want to promote animal products or normal goods.



Comments

No Comments..

Leave a comment

Suspendisse a ante in neque iaculis lacinia

Frequently Asked Question

यदि जानवर ना काटे जाए तो चमड़ा, दवाई, और अन्य सैकड़ों काम की चीजें कहां से मिलेगी ?

आज के इस वैज्ञानिक युग में बनावटी चमड़ा कृत्रिम दवाइयां और अन्य अनेकों सुविधाएं सर्व सुलभ हो चुकी हैं| प्राकृतिक चिकित्सा की विभिन्न शाखाएं बड़ी लाभदायक सिद्ध हुई है| प्राणी पदार्थ के बिना भी आज का मनुष्य अपना काम चला सकता है, प्राणी वध बंद करने से प्राकृतिक संतुलन सुधरेगा और मांसाहार संबंधित रोग नहीं होंगे| जिसे दवाओं की जरूरत घट जाएगी| हिंसा से निर्मित सौंदर्य पदार्थों को बनाते समय जानवरों के साथ जो अपमान व्यवहार किया जाता है उस पर रोक लगेगी| हम आपसे पूछते हैं कि जब सारे जानवर मार डाले जाएंगे तब इन आवश्यक चीजों की प्राप्ति कहां से होगी?

क्या शाकाहार अपनाने से कसाई की रोजी रोटी नहीं चली जाएगी?

रोजी रोटी कमाने के हजारों तरीके हैं कसाई भी औरों की तरह अपनी आजीविका चला सकता है| प्राणी वध किए बिना उसे भूखा मरना पड़े ऐसा नहीं है, हम शाकाहार का प्रचार करने वाले कसाईओ का अहित नहीं चाहते कुछ संस्थाओं ने हिंसा छोड़ने वालों को आर्थिक सहयोग भी दिया है भलाई की ओर उठाए गए कदम आदमी काल में लाभदायक होते हैं| लॉटरी का धंधा करने वाले से मध्य प्रदेश सरकार की दुश्मनी नहीं थी फिर भी उसे दुष्परिणाम एवं लोगों की भावनाओं का ध्यान रखते हुए उसे बंद करना पड़ा|

मांसाहार का विरोध क्यों किया जाता है?

निशकारण किसी चीज का विरोध करना समय की बर्बादी है| मांसाहार से जुड़ी कुछ बुराइयां है, जो विरोध करने को विवश करती है स्वयं देखिए-

1. जो हरगिस मरना नहीं चाहता, उस असहाय प्राणी को क्रूरता पूर्वक जिंदा काट डाला जाता है|
2. बूचड़खानो में करोड़ों लीटर पानी बर्बाद होता है|
3.प्राणी हिंसा से जलवायु बहुत प्रदूषित होती है|
4. पशु हिंसा से अर्थ तंत्र का भी कत्ल होता है|
5. मांसाहार से भयंकर बीमारियां फैलती है|
6. प्राकृतिक संतुलन बिगड़ता है, इत्यादि|

मांसाहार का प्रचलन बहुत प्राचीन समय से है उसे एकदम कैसे छोड़ दें?

पुरानी वस्तु अच्छी ही हो यह बात नहीं होती यूं तो चोरी, जारी, रहजनी, डकैती, जुआ और वेश्यावृत्ति भी काफी प्राचीन है क्या इन्हें भी अपनाए रहें| हमने कई पुरानी प्रथाओं यथा-सती-प्रथा, पर्दा-प्रथा, देवी दासी प्रथा, दास प्रथा आदि को अनुपयोगी व हानिकारक समझकर नकारा है| 1947 से पूर्व भारत वर्ष में राजतंत्र था, पर उनको समाप्त कर हमने एक स्वतंत्र गणतंत्र की स्थापना की|

अपने खानदानी भोजन को कैसे छोड़ा जा सकता है ?

यदि मनुष्य अपनी खानदानी परंपरा पर हमेशा अटल रहा तो यह तर्क अनुचित नहीं पर ऐसा होता कहां है? मनुष्य स्वार्थवश पुरानी परंपराओं को हमेशा तिलांजलि देता आया है|
उदाहरण देखें:-
1. किसी खानदानी रोग का उपचार मिलने पर कोई मना नहीं करता|
2. खानदानी निर्धन व्यक्ति धनी बन्ना सहर्ष स्वीकार कर लेता है|
3. मधुमेह होने पर खानदानी हलवाई भी मिष्ठान को छोड़ देता है भले ही उसके बाप दादा मिष्ठान प्रेमी रहे हो|
4. अनपढ़ खानदान के लोग भी पढ़ लिखकर होशियार बनना पसंद करते हैं तथा इस पर किसी को भी कोई आपत्ति नहीं होती|
5. किसी के दादा कातिल थे, फिर पिता ने भी एक जान ले ली| इस खानदानी परंपरा को तोड़ना ही सराहनीय प्रयास समझा जाएगा निभाना नहीं|