Re: What effect does the vegetarianism have on a food chain?

If all people became vegetarians the human food chain would just be simplified 
from plant-animal-human and longer chains to just plant-human. This would have 
many beneficial effects for both people and the environment. People now often 
eat too few fruits and vegetables and get too much saturated fat from animal 
sources, which is a leading cause of heart disease. There are also problems of 
contamination of animal food sources, such as E. coli, Salmonella, and Mad Cow 
Disease. Diets rich in fruits and vegetables contain phytochemicals which may 
help slow the aging process and reduce the risk of many diseases, including 
heart disease, cancer, stroke, high blood pressure, anemia, cataracts, 
osteoporosis, and urinary tract infections. 

Raising livestock for food generates a lot of animal wastes that cause major 
water pollution problems and fly and odor problems for people living near 
animal feed lots. It also causes massive loss of rainforests for grazing land. 
Animal grazing also leads to trampling of native plants, soil compaction, and 
erosion. Eating meat is also inefficient. You can feed about ten times more 
people with the same amount of plants in a plant-human food chain than in a 
plant-animal-human food chain.

Most people in the world are closer to vegetarians than in the industrialized 
nations because animal protein is expensive and in short supply in poorer 
nations. Humans are omnivores meaning they eat both plants and animals. 
However, recent research has shown that human diets high in animal products 
have many negative effects on human health.  

Given the shortages of food and cropland in poor nations, it might be difficult 
for them to become completely vegetarian unless they received more food aid. 
The biggest downside of everyone going vegetarian in nations such as the USA 
might be that lots of people, such as butchers, ranchers, meatpackers, etc. 
would have to retrain for new jobs.

References


Plant Phytochemicals


Health and Safety Dangers of Eating Meat 



Dangers of Meat Consumption