littlelightx:

• Animal farming is an efficient use of land. Much of the land used for animal farming, cannot be used for arable farming. With a rapidly expanding world population, a large proportion of whom are already starving, how can taking this land out of production help?

Actually, the vast majority of our arable land is used to grow feed for livestock raised in factory farms.  This is the most inefficient use of land possible.  Also, most of the rainforest loss is due to feed production and livestock grazing.

Following food web energy dynamics, the amount of calories received from the meat is only about 10% of the amount of calories that went into the animals, calories that could feed far more people.  And that only counts the calories in the grain, not the energy inputs to plant, irrigate, harvest, fertilize, spray pesticides on, and transport that grain. 

It is true that sustainable levels of livestock grazing on marginal land is an efficient use of those resources, namely because large ruminants can turn the calories in grass into something we can digest.  However, almost no beef is raised in the US this way due to corn and soy subsidies.  Cattle born on ranches and are then transferred to CAFOs and switched to an unnatural diet of grain.

• The killing of animals for food is morally wrong. Some animals are born to hunt, others to be hunted. This is natural. Does the lion have a moral right to kill an antelope? What are an antelope’s ‘rights’ not to be eaten by a lion? Such questions are meaningless.

I agree with this somewhat.  In a hunter-gatherer sense, it is natural for humans to kill animals for food, just as many other animals would.  What is morally wrong, however, is not just the treatment our livestock are subjected to.  It’s also the loss of habitat to make way for feed, the use and pollution of land that could be used to grow far more efficient crops, the diversion of water to irrigate feed crops and water livestock in water deficient areas, the abuse of undocumented workers in slaughterhouses (even free range, organic cattle must be slaughtered in the same slaughterhouses; beef butchering is still done by hand and is one of the most dangerous jobs in the US—see Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation), the contribution of animal farming to climate change (the livestock industry is a greater anthropogenic source of greenhouse gases than all our forms of transportation combined), etc.  So, even for those who remain unconcerned with the impacts of omnivorous diets in developed countries on animals, the impact of meat consumption on human populations is becoming difficult to ignore.

• If killing animals is wrong, what about fish? Four-fifths of the Earth’s surface is covered in ocean. Could the world’s rapidly growing population be sustained if we did not farm it?

Again, even if we argue that the sustainable harvest of animals is not morally wrong, there would still be far more food to feed a rapidly growing population if people stopped feeding it to animals instead.

• Vegetarianism is healthier. Many become vegetarians because they believe that such a lifestyle is healthier. But vegetables, fruit and salads are not as healthy as we are told. They are contaminated with sewage sludge, viruses, polluted irrigation water, pesticides and herbicides. Lettuce is the worst of all.
      Comparisons of the health and longevity of cultures with different dietary habits confirms that meat eaters can expect to live longer than vegetarians and don’t need to visit their doctors as often as vegetarians. And, by the way, vegetarians have exactly the same risk of colon cancer as meat eaters.

While true that vegetables are contaminated with pesticides and polluted water, the feed that is fed to livestock is also contaminated with these things, and they eat far more of it.  Perhaps this doctor doesn’t know much about food web ecology or biomagnification, but any pollutants become concentrated at higher trophic levels.  This is what the recommendation to “eat low on the food chain” refers to.  Aquatic food webs are far more lengthy and complex, which is why pregnant women are discouraged from eating fish out of the Great Lakes.  This is becoming an increasing problem in factory farmed livestock.  Cattle, for example, are herbivores that normally eat very low on the food chain.  However, they are frequently fed the remains of other animals, including fish meal, in CAFOs.  EPA studies have shown that breast milk of most meat eating women in the US exceeds drinking water standards for many pesticides and contaminants.  The average contamination of vegetarian breast milk is much lower, and even less for vegans.

As for disease statistics, the link at the bottom provides references.  However, other studies have shown a significant increase in disease risks associated with omnivorous diets when all other factors are controlled for: heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, uterine cancer, prostate cancer, obesity, etc. are all less frequent in vegetarians (see Diet for a New America by John Robbins, former ice cream heir turned vegan, for chapters on health data with references).  Some of these are likely linked to the way animals are now raised.  

• Vegetarianism — a form of child abuse. Many aspects of vegetarianism are harmful, particularly to growing infants. An infant’s nutrient needs are great but it has a small stomach. Nutrient-dense foods are essential. Most foods from vegetable sources are nutrient poor. Doctors have suggested that vegetarian fad diets should be classed as a form of child abuse.

Of course, vegetarians have to be careful when selecting foods for themselves and their children.  Vegetarians don’t just survive on salad, and careful selection of nutrient-rich foods is sufficient.  There are plenty of cultures around the world that are entirely vegetarian, so this statement is just misinformation.

• The vegetarian’s dilemma. Being a lacto-ovo-vegetarian (those who eat milk and eggs) carries little or no health risk for its adult adherents. But while these vegetarians don’t kill animals for food, they rely on the rest of us to carry that burden of guilt for them — for a cow to produce milk a calf must be born each year. What are we to do with those calves? They cannot all be kept and fed. They must be killed — there is no other option. Isn’t it a waste not to eat them?

What a compelling argument for veganism!  While I’ve argued above that meat consumption in itself is not morally wrong and is natural, dairy consumption remains completely unnatural.  In fact, the majority of humans have some degree of lactose intolerance, but most of us just put up with the minor cases.  Yes, dairy cows must have calves every year to continue producing milk.  Milk that is for their calves.  Humans begin on a diet of breast milk, but at some point they are weaned.  No other species steals the milk meant for another species offspring in order to fulfill its own desires.  Kind of perverse, if you think about it.

The Western vegetarian at the moment is in a very privileged position. So long as not too many join him, he can afford to indulge his naïve dietary fads in a way that is denied to most of the people of this Earth. While he ponders on this fact, he might also apply himself to Kant’s Categorical Imperative which may be rewritten: What would be wrong for all, is wrong for one

http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/naiveveg.html

Again, far more healthy and environmentally friendly foods would be available if wealthy Western societies quit indulging their selfish, destructive tastes.  It isn’t an easy switch for many, due to the food subsidy structure in the US.  However, both the UN and the IPCC have begun urging people to adopt vegetarian and vegan diets in order to combat global environmental destruction and climate change.  Even just a reduction in animal product consumption would do far more for human health and the environment than probably any other individual consumer choice.