I heard something to do with Nitrogen and …cow farts(?) I am really unsure of this and would like to learn more.

Answer -

4 Parts

  • Ethical reason for consuming animals
  • Methane produced by cows are a harmful greenhouse gas which is contributing to our current climate crisis
  • Health Reasons - there is convincing evidence that processed meats cause cancer
  • it takes a lot more calories of plant food to produce the calories we would consume from the meat.

Details about the answers are in the comments

  • BetoEnglish
    47•11 months ago
    • Ethical reasons: hundreds of billions of animals are killed every year (not counting fish), after living a miserable and short life.
    • Environmental: greenhouse emissions (CO2 and methane), deforestation for pastures, water pollution, are all caused by animal agriculture. If everyone went vegan we’d need only 25% of the land we currently use for agriculture.
    • Health: there is some evidence that meat causes cancer, and convincing evidence that processed meat causes cancer. Also, the use of antibiotics for animals can lead to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

    Cow farts are methane, which are a more aggressive form of greenhouse gas, though with shorter lifespan.

    Here’s more info about meat and the environment.

    • Neato
      19•11 months ago

      For the cancer risk, this is the pertinent info:

      An analysis of data from 10 studies estimated that every 50 gram portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by about 18%.

      That’s about half a hot dog. Seeing as the news isn’t exploding, this means that this is relative risk. Meaning your current chances of getting colorectal cancer is X. Eating a hot dog every other day continuously multiples your chance by 1.18. American Cancer Society states that over their lifetime, 1 in 23 men (4.35%) of men will develop colorectal cancer. This means if you ate 1 hot dog every other day continuously, a man’s odds of contracting colorectal cancer changes from 4.35% to 5.13% over their lifetime.

      • BetoEnglish
        7•11 months ago

        That’s just for colorectal cancer. It also affects other types of cancer (like breast cancer) and increases the chance of dying from heart disease considerably.

        • Neato
          3•11 months ago

          But there weren’t any good numbers on those I saw in there. Which is why I ignored the entire “meat” claim as it didn’t list useful metrics. “Might cause cancer” doesn’t really help anyone. There only seemed to be useful data about processed meat and colorectal cancer.