Since I’ve been writing about veganism, I notice that the two major arguments that people make the most are that veganism is best from the point of view of animal cruelty (which to me is indisputable, despite the fact that many will make vegans out to be bleeding hearts for having empathy), and that veganism is best from an environmental perspective. The latter point is arguable, as seen here:
To me, this seems a little bit biased because everyone agrees that animal products taste good and are fun to eat, so it’s easy for people to be biased in favor of defending it; whereas vegans have nothing to gain unless they really believe that they’re helping the environment.
However, all that aside, I feel like there is another critical point, which was first brought up to me in 2009 when I was on study abroad to Central America. One of my professors said that by eating fewer animal products, we could help to reduce global hunger. Now, looking into it a bit more, I see that this is agreed upon both by vegan activist groups, but also by sources such as the Borgen Project, which exist specifically to combat poverty. Sentient Media, a vegan organization, put out this article:
https://sentientmedia.org/could-veganism-end-world-hunger/
The Borgen Project put out this:
And, of course, I found a couple of YouTube videos:
These sources all seem to say pretty much the same thing: meat is inefficient. If we just ate plants rather than feeding them to animals and then eating the animals, we would have more food available. When we slaughter an animal, we have meat, which provides a certain number of calories. But the amount of calories we get from making meat out of an animal is dramatically less than the number of calories that animal will have eaten in its life. This becomes even more important when we consider that the global population is expected to continue to rise. If I want to have children someday (and I do), then I will be contributing to this growing population and it’s my responsibility to be part of the solution.
Veganism alone won’t end world hunger. But it will help. And, when adopted as part of a lifestyle of empathy and compassion, it’s probably the most effective thing that an average person in the first world can do to help end food insecurity.
References
Mashable India. (2022, April 14). Veganism is as unsustainable as meat consumption | Sustainably Yours [YouTube video]. Retrieved October 28, 2022 from https://youtu.be/-Q32GW3RWiw
Hussain, G. (2022, September 23). Could Veganism Solve World Hunger? Sentient Media. Retrieved October 28, 2022, from https://sentientmedia.org/could-veganism-end-world-hunger/
Maharaj, S.-M. (2021, November 11). Moving Toward Veganism to End World hunger. The Borgen Project. Retrieved October 28, 2022, from https://borgenproject.org/moving-toward-veganism/
mercyforanimals. (2018, December 10). World Hunger and Veganism [YouTube video]. Retrieved October 28, 2022 from https://youtu.be/ExrUHmzQNiM
Mic the Vegan. (2017, April 9). A Solution to World Hunger? [YouTube video]. Retrieved October 28, 200 from https://youtu.be/Hvdgz536ZLE
1 thought on “Global Hunger: The Other Reason to be Vegan”