As Christians, we take seriously Jesus’ command to feed the hungry and care for those who are sick, yet thousands of children still die of hunger each day around the world. Billions of dollars are spent annually on food aid, which feeds only a fraction of the world’s hungry.
Yet globally, humans produce enough life-giving food to nourish every single human being on the planet.
So where does all that food go?
©iStock.com/BahadirTamriover | ©iStock.com/DebbiSmirnoff76765 | ©iStock.com/TsekhmisterTo make this:
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For more than two decades, we’ve known that a plant-based diet can feed the entire world, while a diet that includes meat, milk, and eggs can feed fewer than 3 billion people. Yet the church has failed to sound a clarion call to curb our meat and dairy consumption.
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In other words, “the other half” is dying while we chow down on burgers and wings and send a check at Christmas.
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While she starves, 40 percent of corn and 67 percent of soybeans in the U.S. are fed to farmed animals:
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It takes 13 pounds of grain (fed to an animal) to produce just 1 pound of meat.
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It takes more than 8,500 gallons of water to produce a single pound of meat. A person on a vegan diet is sustained on just a few hundred gallons of water per day, while a person on the standard American diet uses more than 4,000 gallons … well over their fair share.
©iStock.com/luchshen | ©iStock.com/diane39A single acre of land can produce 20 pounds of meat … or 365 pounds of soybeans. Which will feed more people?
We are already using half of the entire planet’s land surface for food production, yet because much of that is used to graze animals or grow crops to feed animals, hundreds of millions of people starve.
Does that seem like an efficient use of resources when there are hungry people in the world?
If we Christians are serious about feeding our brothers and sisters around the globe, our path is clear: We must adopt a vegan diet today and encourage our congregations and communities to do the same.
