Veganism

In a world of increasing pollution and decreasing immunity, more and more people are turning to alternative, sustainable dietary lifestyles– the most dominant of which are veganism and organicity. Despite both addressing environmental sustainability, both also tackle two different aspects of food security and moral codes– the former of basic human ethics, and the latter of genetically modified foods. Veganism is a way of living that excludes all possible forms of animals products in not only food choices but also clothing and other purposes. Organic food on the other hand, is defined by the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) as food “produced by farmers who emphasise the use of renewable resources and the conservation of soil and water” by

It is estimated that over 41 million metric tonnes of CO2 is emitted in just the aforementioned two processes. Aside from this, land must be cleared for the rearing of both, the livestock and the cultivation of the crops necessary for it, which contributes another 2.4 billion tonnes of CO2 to the ever-growing carbon footprint of the meat industry. In the US alone, over 260 million acres of US forests have been razed to make more room for producing feed, and this number is

The past saw more small-scale animal/poultry rearing. Even as recently as 1954, there were over two million dairy farms in the US, each of which had only around 10 cows. However, these numbers have since reduced, as the meat industry has reached, in the past decades, levels of demand that can only be met by larger-scale industries. There is also the combined factor of the increase in pedantry in the part of consumers, when it comes to wanting their products to have had minimal human contact in production processes and the space efficiency of such large-scale livestock farms. All these factors combined lead to the evolution of a term called “factory farming”. Factory farming essentially is a system of raising livestock under highly controlled, strict environments. Although in an ideal world, factory farming would be an