[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Pavel Alasheev

I am asking for advice from my vegetarian/vegan forum-mates.


Well the problem is there are no results. According to Steve (and other vegetarian/vegan people) becoming vegetarian should greatly boost your energy. I didn't experience anything like that. In fact i possibly had a decrease in energy, cause i noticed that i need more sleep now than i used to before this experiment.

So now i'm in doubts whether to stay on this route, or go vegan, or go back to eating meat. Has anybody had similar experience? Any help is appreciated.

Hi Pavel

Keep at it. I would certainly encourage you to go vegan as dairy and humans dont mix. Cows milk is for calves as they say!

The energy boost you talk of comes not from one source but from many. You could be a vegan but unhealthy and live on gresy french fries evryday, afterall.

I think to get a clear picture of what your new lifestyle is generating is your best way forward.

#1) A vegan balanced diet is by far the most probable way (amongst the alternatives) to achieve a greater bodily well being, self healing, drug free body. (Read the The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health by T. Colin Campbell)



#2) A vegan lifestyle is one of the most compassionate and unselfish ways to avoid cruelty to non-human animals. (Read Animal Liberation by Peter Singer and/or The Case for Animal Rights by Tom Regan)

#3) A vegan lifestyle is perhaps the only way we are going to avoid the world climate change disaster that is facing us. Here are a few facts about veganism and meat eating and their impact on the environment.

It takes 2,500 gallons of water, 12 pounds of grain, 35 pounds of topsoil and the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline to produce one pound of feedlot beef.



5 million acres of rainforest are felled every year in South and Central America alone to create cattle pasture.



One-half of the Earth's land mass is grazed by livestock.[1]

35 pounds of topsoil are lost in the production of one pound of grain-fed beef.[5]

64% of US cropland produces livestock feed.[6]

Only 2% of US cropland produces fruits and vegetables.[7]

Pounds of edible product that can be produced on an acre of prime land:
Apples 20,000
Carrots 30,000
Potatoes 40,000
Tomatoes 50,000
Beef 250
[8]


Water Consumption

The number of gallons of water needed
to produce one pound of edible product:
Apples 49
Carrots 33
Potatoes 24
Tomatoes 23
Beef 2,500
[9,10]





Meat, poultry and dairy products contain the major source of pesticide residues in the western diet.[25]

95% of human exposure to the potent carcinogen dioxin comes from consuming meat, poultry and dairy.[26]

The EPA issued more than 1,000 warnings against eating fish from chemically-contaminated waters in one year.[27]

Nearly half of all fish sampled by Consumers Union was contaminated with bacterial from human or animal feces.[28]

99% of US non-vegetarian mothers' milk has significant levels of DDT. Only 8% of US vegetarian mothers' milk has significant levels of DDT.[29]



Resource Distribution

Resources used in the production of livestock:

33% of world's fish catch [30]
38% of the world's grain harvest [31]
50% of all the water used in the US [32]
60% of Brazil's grain harvest [33]
70% of US grain harvest [34]
80% of US corn harvest [35]
Almost half of all energy expended in US agriculture [36]
14% of all cattle are fed back to cattle as part of protein-fortified feed.[37]
Approximately 8 million pounds of poultry manure are fed annually to California's beef cattle.[38]

50% of all the antibiotics used in the US are fed to animals, and 80% of them are used to promote growth, not to treat disease.[39]

12-16 pounds of grain and soy are needed to produce one pound of grain-fed beef.[40]

All 17 of the worlds major fishing areas have reached or exceeded their natural limits due to overfishing.[41]

$3.7 billion subsidized animal feed grains in 1995. They are the USÕs most heavily subsidized crop.[42]


World Hunger

5 million children in the US go hungry every month.[43]

Approximately 40,000 people die each day worldwide due to hunger or hunger-related causes.[44]

If Americans reduced their intake of meat by merely 10%, 100,000,000 people could be fed using the land, water and energy that would be freed up from growing livestock feed.[45]

10 billion people could be sustained from present croplands if all ate a vegetarian diet.[46]







[1] Lester Brown, et al., Vital Signs 1994 (Washington, DC: Worldwatch Institute, 1994), pg. 32.
[2] Robert Repetto "Renewable Resources and Population Growth," Population and Environment 10:4 (Summer 1989) pg. 228-29 cited in Rifkin, Beyond Beef (New York: Dutton Press, 1992).
[3] Myra Klockenbrink, "The New Range War Has the Desert as Foe," New York Times,Aug. 20, 1991, pg. C4.
[4] Ibid., pg. 3.
[5] Ibid., pg. 3.
[6] US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Statistics 1989; p. 390, table 554, "Crops: Area, Yield, Production and Value, United States, 1986-99" (Washington, DC: GPO, 1989).
[7] Ibid.
[8] Tom Aldridge and Herb Schlubach, "Water Requirements for Food Production," Soil and Water, no. 38 (Fall 1978), University of California Cooperative Extension, 13017; Paul and Anne Ehrlich, Population, Resources, Environment (San Francisco: Freemna, 1972), pg. 75-76.
[9] Ibid., pg. 13-17.
[10] Georg Borgstrom, presentation to the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1981, cited in John Robbins, Diet for a New America (Walpole, NH: Stillpoint, 1987), pg. 367.
[11] Losos, et al., The Living Landscape (Washington, DC: Wilderness Society and Environmental Defense Fund, 1993), pg. 20.
[12] Ibid, pg. 10.
[13] Norman Myers, The Primary Source: Tropical Forests and Our Future, 1992, cited in Brown et al. as per note 7.
[14] Lewis Scott, The Rainforest Book (Venice, CA: The Living Planet Press, 1990).
[15] Alan During and Holly Brough, Taking Stock, Worldwatch Paper #103 (Washington, DC: Worldwatch Institute, 1991), pg. 25.
[16] Jim Mason, "Fowling the Waters," E Magazine, Sep/Oct 1995, pg. 33.
[17] EPA workgroup report 1994, cited in Jim Mason, note 15.
[18] Natural Resources Defense Council and International Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture, Hog Wash: Factory Farm Giveaways in Clean Water Act Proposals, July 1995.
[19] Ibid.
[20] San Jose Mercury News, Sept. 6, 1994.
[21] Pimental, et al., Handbook of Pest Management in Agriculture, 2nd ed. (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 1990).
[22] David Pimental, Cornell University, as quoted by Lisa Y. Lefferts and Roger Blobaum, "Eating as if the Earth Mattered," E Magazine, Jan/Feb 1992, pg. 32.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Environmental Working Group and Physicians for Social Responsibility, "Tap Water Blues," Oct. 1994.
[25] Lewis Regenstein, How to Survive in America the Poisoned (Herndon, VA: Acropolis Books, 1982), pg. 173.
[26] EPA study cited in USA Today, Sept. 13, 1994.
[27] RachelÕs Environment and Health Weekly, #450, July 13, 1995.
[28] Ibid.
[29] "A Brief Review of Selected Environmental Contamination Incidents with a Potential for Health Effects," prepared by the Library of Congress for the Committee on Environment and Public Works, US Senate (Aug 1980), pg. 173-174.
[30] Carl Safina, "The WorldÕs Imperiled Fish," Scientific American, Nov. 1995.
[31] Lester Brown and Gary Gardner, State of the World 1996,W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 1996 pg. 93
[32] Frances Moore Lappe, Diet for a Small Planet, 10th Anniversary edition (New York: Ballantine Books, 1982), pg. 69.
[33] Brown, Lenssen and Kane, Vital Signs 1995, Worldwatch Institute, 1995, pg. 137.
[34] USDA, Economic Research Service, "World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, WASD-256," July 11, 1991, tables 256,-7, -16, -19, -23.
[35] USDA, Agricultural Statistics 1989; pg. 31, table 40, "Corn: Supply and Disappearance US, 1974-1988."
[36] USDA, Economic Research Service, "World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, WASD-256," July 11, 1991, pg. 17.
[37] Amended Petition Requesting the Food and Drug Administration to Halt the Feeding of Ruminant Animal Protein to Ruminants, The Foundation of Economic Trends, Washington, DC, June 3, 1993.
[38] James W. Oltjen, "Potential Sources of Water Contamination from Confined and Grazing Animal Operations," Animal Agriculture: Impacts on Water Quality in California,University of California, Davis, October 1994, pg. 10.
[39] Gurney Williams III, "Swearing Off the Miracle," Vegetarian Times, Feb, 1994.
[40] USDA figures as cited in Frances Moore Lappe, op. cit. note 35, pg. 70.
[41] Lester Brown, op. cit, note 1.
[42] "Eating into the deficit," US News and World Report,March 6, 1995, pg. 73-78.
[43] Colin Greer, "Something is Robbing Our Children," Parade Magazine, March 5, 1995.
[44] Patricia Allen, "The Human Face of Sustainable Agriculture," Issue Paper No. 4, Nov. 1994, University of California, Santa Cruz, Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems.
[45] Lester Brown, as quoted by Resenberger, "Curb on US Waste Urged to Help the Worlds Hungry," New York Times, 14 Nov. 1974, adjusted using 1988 figures from USDA, Agricultural Statistics 1989, table 74, "High Protein Feeds," and table 75, "Feed Concentrates Fed to Livestock and Poultry."
[46] Council for Science and Technology, How Much Land Can Ten Billion People Spare for Nature?, Feb. 1994, pg. 13.
[47] Lester Brown and Gary Gardner, op. cit. note 34., pg. 4.


If that doesnt make you feel better as a vegan, then I'm not sure what will!