Meat production causes an inefficient use of grain and resources that could go to directly feeding the world's hungry people. Animals raised for food have to eat as many as 16 pounds of grain to create just 1 pound of edible flesh! The more meat we eat, the fewer people we can feed. If everyone on Earth received 25 percent of his or her calories from animal products, only 3.2 billion people could be nourished. Dropping that figure to 15 percent would mean that 4.2 billion people could be fed.

Eighty percent of starving children live in countries that actually have food surpluses; the children remain hungry because farmers use the surplus grain to feed animals instead of people. Two-thirds of the grain that the U.S. exports to other countries is used to feed farmed animals instead of people.*

Water is also inefficently used in animal farming. Time Magazine reports that “1 lb. of feed lot beef requires 7 lbs. of feed grain, which takes 7,000 lbs. of water to grow. Pass up one hamburger, and you'll save as much water as you save by taking 40 showers with a low-flow nozzle. Yet in the U.S., 70% of all the wheat, corn and other grain produced goes to feeding herds of livestock. Around the world, as more water is diverted to raising pigs and chickens instead of producing crops for direct consumption, millions of wells are going dry."

*Jeremy Rifkin, "Commentary: There's a Bone to Pick With Meat-Eaters," Los Angeles Times, 27 May 2002.