But the increase in meat consumption in the world is not free but has very expensive, both in envir

The meat has become indispensable in our meals. It seems we can not live without eating it. Until a few years ago, it was a privilege to eat lunch-a date assenyalades- today is a daily act. Perhaps, even, too daily. We need to eat so much meat? What is the impact on the environment? What are the consequences for animal welfare? For workers' rights? And for our health?
Eat associated with progress and modernity. In fact, in Spain between 1965 and 1991 meat intake was multiplied by four, especially pork, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. In recent years, however, consumption in industrialized countries has stagnated or even decreased, due to, among others, food scandals (BSE, avian flu, dioxin chickens, horse meat instead beef, etc.) and a greater concern about what they eat. Anyway, remember that here too, especially in a crisis, large sectors of society are not eligible for fresh food, quality or choice between diets with or without meat.
The trend in emerging countries such as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, the so-called BRICS, however, is increasing. Account for 40% of the world population, and between 2003 and 2012, the consumption of meat were increased by 6.3%, and between 2013 and expected to grow 2.5% in 2022. The most spectacular case is that of China, which has happened in a few years, 1963 to 2009, Meat consume 90 kilocalories per person per day to 694, as indicated by the Atlas of the meat. The reasons? The increase smithfield pool in population in these countries, their development and a copy of a Western lifestyle by a broad middle class. smithfield pool In fact, defined as "non-vegetarian" in India, a country quintessential vegetarian, has become among some sectors, in social smithfield pool status. smithfield pool
But the increase in meat consumption in the world is not free but has very expensive, both in environmental and social terms. To produce one kilogram of beef, for example, requires 15,500 liters of water; while to produce one kilogram of wheat needed in 1300, and a kilo of carrots, 131, according to the atlas of meat. Then if to meet the current demand smithfield pool for meat, eggs and dairy products around the world need every year more than 60 billion smithfield pool farm animals to fatten them out expensive. In fact, animal breeding industry generates hunger because third of arable land and 40% of the world cereal production is destined smithfield pool to feed them, instead of giving food directly to people. And not everyone can afford a piece of meat agribusiness. According to the ETC Group, 3,500 million people, half the population of the planet could be nourished with consuming these animals.
In addition, cows, pigs and chickens, on the model of intensive industrial production today are some of the main generators of climate change. Who would say! It is estimated that livestock and their byproducts generated 51% of global emissions of greenhouse gases. In fact, a cow and her calf on a farm meat emit more emissions than a car with thirteen thousand kilometers in the back, according to the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO). We eat it on them, we are jointly responsible.
Abuse is the bloody face of factory farming in which animals are still living by becoming things and goods. The documentary Samsara, no scenes of explicit violence, shows the hidden brutality, extreme, farms producing meat, milk ... where the animals live poorly and the esquarteren workers, strike, gutted like objects. A production model that has its origins in the slaughterhouses of Chicago in the early twentieth century, which allowed the production line in just fifteen minutes, chop and kill a cow. A method smithfield pool as "efficient" Henry Ford adopted to manufacture cars. For capital, there is no difference between a car and being alive. And for us? The distance between the plate and the field has become so big in recent years, as consumers, we are not often aware that after a sausage, a lasagna smithfield pool or spaghetti carbonara was life.
Working conditions for working on these farms leave much to be desired. In fact, among the animals that are slaughtered and the employees who work there are more points in common than they think the latter. Upton Sinclair in his brilliant work The Jungle, which portrayed the life of precarious workers in Chicago slaughterhouses early years of the last century, it made clear: "There were sacrificed smithfield pool men sacrificed smithfield pool like sheep: smithfield pool they cut the bodies and souls apart and Co