1.It takes an average of 2500 gallons of water to produce a single pound of meat. According to Newsweek, “The water that goes into a 1000 pound steer could float a destroyer”. In contrast, it takes only 25 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat.

2.Feeding the average meat-eating American requires 3-1/4 acres of cultivated farm land a year; supplying a person who eats no food derived from animals only 1/6 acre per year.

3.Meat contains no essential nutrients that cannot be obtained directly from plant sources. By cycling grain through livestock, we lose 90% of the protein, 96% of the calories, 99% of its carbohydrates, and 100% of the fibre.

4.It is estimated that live stock production accounts for twice the amount of pollution as that produced by industrial sources in the US.

5.Animal protein… is one of the most toxic nutrients of all that can be considered. Risk for disease goes up dramatically when even a little animal protein is added to the diet. Unlike fat and cholesterol, you cannot remove animal protein from flesh and dairy products.

6.Meat-centered diets are linked to many kinds of cancer, most notably cancer of the colon, breast, cervix, uterus, ovary, prostate and lung.

7.Calorie for calorie, spinach has 14 times the iron of sirloin steak. Iron requires vitamin C for absorption, of which animal products are totally deficient.

8.The National Cancer Research Institute found that women who eat meat on a daily basis are almost 4 times more likely to get breast cancer than those women who eat little or no meat.

9.The milk from a nursing woman who eats a diet rich in animal sources is so high in toxic substances that were it to be sold across state lines it would be subject to confiscation and destruction by the FDA.

10.Fish are living magnets for toxic chemicals. According to Consumer Reports (Feb 93) a notable incidence of unacceptable levels of PCBs and mercury were found in certain species of fish that were tested. Ingesting PCB's is considered a chief reason for the sperm count among American men to be 70% of what it was 30 years ago. Today, half the world's fish catch is fed to cattle.

11.The common cold, as well as allergies to dust, cats and pollen, are more likely to go away when milk is taken out of the diet. No other mammal in nature drinks milk after weaning, nor drinks the milk of other species, as do humans.

12.Factory-farmed animals contain as much as 30 times more saturated fat than yesterday's free-range, pasture-raised animals.

13.Nearly half the fish tested in a 6 month investigation by Consumers Union were found to be contaminated by bacteria from human or animal faeces, suspected to be result of poor sanitation practices in one or more points along the fish handling process.

14.Meat contains approximately 14 times more pesticides than plant foods; dairy products contain 5 ½ times more pesticides than plant foods.

(Source: World Foundation on Reverence for all life, The Viva Vegie Society, New York)

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