The Cost of Cows

Cow Juliette bought me the wagamama cookbook for Christmas this year. For North Americans who have never eaten at a wagamama restaurant, let me just say that the food is absolutely amazing. It is one of the things that I miss most about England. As I was checking out the great recipes in the book and remembering the great food, I actually considered adding a bit of meat back into my diet.

Luckily, I found a quote today that made me re-evaluate why I gave up meat. I always knew that producing meat is resource intensive, but I never realized just how intensive.

It takes 8 acres of land, 12,000 pounds of forage, 125 gallons of gasoline & other petroleum derivatives for fertilizer, 2,500 pounds of corn, 350 pounds of soybeans, 1.2 million gallons of water & 1.5 acres of farmland (to grow the crops for feed), plus various insecticides, herbicides, antibiotics & hormones to grow one cow from an 80 pound calf to its full size.

I guess I am just going to have to get creative with the recipes and come up with some vegetarian goyoza.

14/02/07 Rob Environment Comments [RSS]

3 Responses to “The Cost of Cows” »»

elise

Comment by elise | 04/15/07 at 4:08 pm

Along the same lines, the real price of cotton, the “natural” fibre!
http://www.ota.com/organic/environment/cotton_environment.html
Rob Kelly

Comment by Rob Kelly | 04/22/07 at 8:21 pm

Hey - good idea. Lets just stop taking care of all that livestock, let them all die, and think of the natural resources we will save. Brilliant!
Mary Clive

Comment by Mary Clive | 05/25/07 at 12:52 pm

…also found on the web “Isn’t man an amazing animal? He kills wildlife - birds, kangaroos, deer, all kinds of cats, coyotes, beavers, groundhogs, mice, foxes, and dingoes - by the millions in order to protect his domestic animals and their feed. Then he kills domestic animals by the billions and eats them. This in turn kills man by the millions, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative and fatal health conditions like heart disease, kidney disease, and cancer. So then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases. Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals. Meanwhile, some people are dying of sad laughter at the absurdity of man, who kills so easily and so violently, and once a year sends out a card praying for ‘Peace on Earth’.”

C. David Coats
NG Old MacDonald’s Factory Farm

The Cost of Cows

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