Vegetarian Star

Author Kathy Freston, the lovely lady who inspired Oprah Winfrey to do 21 days of vegan, recently blogged at the Huffington Post on the statistics of the effects going vegetarian has on the environment.

Fun facts to take with you to the party tonight:

If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would save:
100 billion gallons of water, enough to supply all the homes in New England for almost 4 months

1.5 billion pounds of crops otherwise fed to livestock, enough to feed the state of New Mexico for more than a year

70 million gallons of gas–enough to fuel all the cars of Canada and Mexico combined with plenty to spare

If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would prevent:
Greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 1.2 million tons of CO2, as much as produced by all of France

3 million tons of soil erosion and $70 million in resulting economic damages

But Kathy’s favorite statistic of all is this:

“According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads.”

Vegetarians normally want others to refrain from meat altogether, forgetting the improvements that can occur when omnivores “meat” them halfway. A flexitarian diet not only holds bonuses to the dieter, but every living thing on the planet.

So what are you waiting for, potential flexitarians? Don’t be a chicken, put down that chicken!

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