Explain the difference between a meat-centered diet and a vegetarian diet in terms of:?

fossil fuel usage, land usage, carbon emissions, percent of grain eaten by people verses livestock.



Vegitarians like to talk about how much grain is used to feed cattle for slaughter. The thing is, they are fed grain only about the last 60-90 days of their life. The rest of the time, they and their mommas eat grass, something humans can't eat. Grass converts sunshine into energy which cattle eat and we eat the cattle. Many places where cattle are born and raised before being sent to be finished at a feedlot are too dry, rocky or cold to raise food crops humans can eat. This allows production of food (meat) for humans in areas where it would be impossible to grow vegetable or grain crops fit for human consumption.





In addition, some of the grain fed to animals is typically not eaten by humans (milo to hogs for example). Other times livestock feed consists of grain by products left over after processing for human consumption. (Soybean meal after oil extraction, bran after making white flour, cottonseed meal after the fiber is ginned.)





As far as fossil fuel, a cow grazing mountain rangeland uses no fossil fuels whereas it would require a massive input of fossil fuel to grow non-forage, human food.