Are vegans and vegetarians destroying the planet?

they're everywhere they're multiplying there could be one already living inside your house it's the invasion of the vegans and vegetarians according to the vegan society the number of vegans in the uk quadrupled between 2014 and 2019. they now make up around one percent of the population even sainsbury's predicted that a quarter of the uk will be vegan or vegetarian by 2025. today we're going to be looking at one aspect of the vegan and vegetarian diet that's caused a lot of controversy as more and more people have gone meat-free sawyer since the 1950s global soybean production has increased 15 times over and almost 50 percent of those soybeans are produced in south america specifically in brazil paraguay and argentina what a thrilling time to be a soybean unfortunately this has come a huge cost massive areas of south american forests have been destroyed to make way for fields of soy this isn't just bad news for the wildlife living there it's bad news for the climate and pretty much our entire planet agriculture and deforestation make up a quarter of global greenhouse emissions because converting forests into fields to grow crops like soya releases greenhouse gases and removes trees that help rid the atmosphere of carbon dioxide in the first place sawyer imports represent a whopping 47 percent of europe's deforestation footprint and the soya industry is also linked to violence and human rights abuses in brazil where communities are being threatened and intimidated in attempts to seize their land to expand soya empires so who's the culprit why are we producing such large amounts of soya and who's eating it it's those damn vegans and vegetarians ain't it they love their tofu their soy burgers soy dogs soy milk tempeh tofutti what's tofu tea it's like a cream cheese best not to ask meat-free diets in the west east asia and southeast asia often tend to include soy products as a source of protein or as a meat replacement so there you go vegans and vegetarians are the cause of all this deforestation case closed don't look at that as it turns out ninety percent of all soya is grown for animal feed that's the food eaten by cattle chickens and pigs just six percent is grown for human consumption and the rest is used industrially for things from pet food to biofuels that animal feed is being grown in such large quantities because it's now estimated that 60 of all mammals on the planet are livestock 27 of the world's land is used for livestock that's for growing their feed and for them to graze on thanks to this handy chart from our world and data we can see that's the size of north and south america combined fun fact people often think that chicken is much more environmentally friendly than beef but global chicken consumption has doubled since 1990 and chickens are the ones eating most of the soya we import into the uk okay maybe that was more depressing than fun it takes an area the size of northern ireland just to produce the uk's annual soya demand and the thing is animal agriculture is actually a really inefficient way to produce enough food for all the people living on the planet for every 100 calories of grain crops fed to animals we get 40 calories of milk 12 calories of chicken and just 3 calories of beef imagine how much more efficient it would be to feed all that grain to people directly well not directly we'd probably turn it into something you'd actually want to eat first so as it turns out vegans and vegetarians probably aren't solely responsible for destroying the planet through their soya consumption bring the tofuti back i'm so sorry tofuti to stop this cycle from continuing we need to change the way we think about food and yes that means reducing our meat and dairy intake on a global scale and turning towards a more plant-based diet we need supermarkets and food companies to introduce meat reduction targets year on year and to make plant-based alternatives both appealing and affordable to make this possible find out more by visiting the links below and subscribe to our channel for more videos like this

Channel: Greenpeace UK

Views: 46,699

Keywords: greenpeace uk, greenpeace, environment, climate, activism, activist, forests, deforestation, vegans, vegetarians, tofu, soya, soy, milk

Id: ki9PoTWiMTk

Length: 4min 2sec (242 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 02 2020