I became a #vegetarian (aspiring #vegan) almost exclusively to contribute to reduce animal #suffering.

With time, I realised that the _other_ reasons to avoid animal-based foods are surprisingly strong, too.

🧵

1️⃣ Land usage:

[Crops for human consumption make up only 23% of all agricultural land worldwide, and yet they provide 83% of all calories](http://hannahritchie.com/convergence-nutrition-sustainability/).

Plant-based calories (and proteins) are much more efficient and require way less land and water than meat and dairy.

@tripu This misses a very important point... While almost all land suitable for crops is also suitable for animals the reverse isnt true. In fact it is quite often the case animals are raised on land explicitly not suitable for crops. I dont know the exact breakdown, and that would be important to evaluate this fairly. But I know from my interaction with farmers that a great many of them raise their livestock on mountainous land not suited for crops and use fertile farmland mostly for crops.. Even when the land is flat and not mountainous it is often unsuitable for crops due to the makeup of the soil (too rocky, no good drainage, etc)

@freemo @tripu I would guess the real answer to this would be "we should try, but profits as a measure are preventing that".
Measuring something is often a problem, but especially if those measuring are profiting from it.
Full disclosure: i am eating animals, and aware i am doing something wrong here.
I would like to improve, but everything feels like fighting windmills. If i recycle, how many rich people commission a ride to space for fun, rendering it useless? This is not the only thing i would critizise, but it is endemic at this stage.