Feeding more people by being vegan

By Los Angeles Times

Much U.S. farmland is used for raising livestock like cattle, chickens, cows and pigs. What if that land was used to grow
plants instead? It could end hunger for millions of Americans, a new report says. More than 41 million Americans are at
risk of going hungry during the year, the U.S. government says.

The new report, released March 26, suggests the country could feed all 327 million Americans by focusing on plants. A
whole extra 390 million more could be fed, too. Sure, you might love burgers and bacon. Still, consider the argument
made by Ron Milo and his team. Sustainability researchers find ways to avoid waste so life can survive on earth. The
researchers examined Americans’ eating habits and farm production in the years 2000 to 2010. For their calculations,
they used a U.S. population of 300 million. That's less than the actual population of 327 million.

Using computers, they wanted to see what would happen if beef, pork, chicken, dairy and eggs were removed from the
American diet. They replaced them with plant-based foods that had similar nutrition. That means the replacement foods
had to provide the same amount of calories, protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals.

Plants Produce Most Protein On The Least Land

Protein is especially important to the human diet. Often people get protein by eating meat, eggs, and dairy like milk and
cheese. Vegans, people who eat no animal products, find ways to get protein from plants, but this is not always easy.

In the test, the researchers looked to see which plant-based foods could be produced using the smallest amount of land
possible. Imagine an area of land. Let's say it can produce 100 pounds of protein from plants. Then take that same
amount of land and use it to produce eggs instead. In that case, you would end up with only 60 pounds of edible protein.
That is four-tenths less than what the vegetable land would produce.

Making Twice The Amount Of Food

Let's say we cut out eggs and replaced them with plants that offer the same nutrition. That would make it possible to
feed 1 million additional people. So, imagine if beef, pork, chicken, dairy and eggs all were replaced by a combination of
potatoes, peanuts, soybeans and other plants. In that case, there would be more than twice the total amount of food
available, the researchers calculated.

Feeding All Hungry Americans

To get a better idea of what this means, we have to think about the amount of food that’s currently wasted. A huge
amount of food suffers from spoiling, for example. Up to four-tenths of all food farmers produce is wasted. Replacing all
this lost food with plants would, in effect, feed all hungry Americans, the authors say.

There are still a few downsides. Eating only plants could mean we miss out on vitamin B12 and a few other key nutrients
from meat, the study authors noted. Nutrients help the body function and grow. It's also unknown how businesses and
jobs would be affected. Still, people would likely be healthier overall. This would make medical costs cheaper
everywhere.