Land is not a problem if vegetables come to reign, hydroponics and aeroponics will easily substitute the inefficient land-use.

Tom et al. (2015) [1] also show that in the US the switch to a vegan diet would be less efficient. But it's natural, from an economic perspective, that existing processes are optimized for efficiency and low costs and given the high demand for vegetables and fruits there would obviously be a huge incentive to optimize the production processes and lower the prices.

Vanham et al. (2013) [2,3] show that EU would benefit from a vegan diet when it comes to water usage.

Overall, it's quite obvious that the medical costs of today are extremely large mostly due to overconsumption of animal products. It is unfortunate that they can be easily overconsumed and thus cause health issues. Diet that includes animals is much more destructive when it comes to dead ocean zones, rainforest destruction, species extinction and water pollution, being the biggest factor in mentioned issues.

[1]: Energy use, blue water footprint, and greenhouse gas emissions for current food consumption patterns and dietary recommendations in the US http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10669-015-9577-y

[2]: The water footprint of the EU for different diets http://temp.waterfootprint.org/Reports/Vanham-Bidoglio-2014....

[3]: Potential water saving through changes in European diets http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412013...

user:	hoggleboggle
created:	August 14, 2016
karma:	6
about:	left this hateful place. bye!