Under the realm of social justice how does a vegetarian diet help the world when the majority still eat meat?

It is logical that food grown for animal consumption in the meat industry could be used for human consumption and therefore help world hunger, but how does my individual vegetarian diet help the world community when the majority of people still eat meat and therefore still support the meat industry?Under the realm of social justice how does a vegetarian diet help the world when the majority still eat meat?
You would be amazed at the difference one meat free day can make to the world.



Carbon dioxide savings if everyone in the US replaced one chicken-based meal per week with a vegetarian meal: the equivalent of taking more than 5 million cars off the road.



Total percentage of greenhouse-gas emissions produced by all transportation in the world:13

Total percentage of greenhouse-gas emissions produced by thr farming of chickens,cows, pigs,and other animals for food: 18



The average vegetarian spares the lives of over 50 animals each year.

Think of it like this you may only save one dog when you go and adopt a dog but for that one dog you have changed his/hers life forever.



Don't think of animals as them, think of them as individuals, as they don't share lives. Sadly food animals all share the suffering.
I'm not sure of the number, but I've read that the average person eats 50+ animals a year. You may not be changing the world but you are saving numerous animals. That's a big deal in my book.



Plus, you may not know it, but you may be planting the seeds of vegetarianism in some one else's mind. If I didn't know any vegetarians to tell me whhy they made this choice and how they didn't I probably wouldn't have thought about it enough to stop eating meat.



So, YAY to you!Under the realm of social justice how does a vegetarian diet help the world when the majority still eat meat?
One person can make a difference.



Just because the majority does one thing, it doesn't mean that the minority has no effect.
To be honest, it doesn't do a whole lot. But, than again, think of all of our injustices in the past. They all start with one person doing a tiny little thing that really didn't change anything right then, but in the long run, those tiny little contributions add up and grow and influnce the world to follow.



So, no, you not eating meat isn't going take down the meat industry, but its going make others want to follow, growing the population of non-meat eaters and eventually, hopefully, most, if not all, the world will understand.



You are one piece to a puzzle that takes a very, very long time to finish.Under the realm of social justice how does a vegetarian diet help the world when the majority still eat meat?
You have to think a little further... one person saves over 100 animals per year. 1 million vegetarians save over 100,000,000 animals per year...



If everyone takes the "how would I as one person help" attitude, then no one would do anything and society wouldn't have got anywhere.
a little, over time, makes a huge difference.

it is like me, when i was a cashier, things will be $1.98 and people would leave their change and within 1 hour, I'd have about 2bucks for lunch.



i am sure that 10% of the people who call themselves vegetarians make a huge difference.
Considering the amount of grain and soybeans that is cycled through livestock to produce meat, and the fact that meat production produces more greenhouse gases than all forms of transportation combined, everyone who adopts a meatless diet makes a difference.
It does more than you think.



One person can make a difference.



I personally have made a difference with my consumer choices. I refuse to buy certain products, and therefore, such companies producing such products just lost a little money. I educate others, and they too start altering their consumer choices, and exponentially, there is a ripple effect that I'm producing. One person tells another and so on. I joined EarthSave and helped spread the word through that organization too.



In the early 90s is was very difficult to find the food which I wanted to eat; the consumer products which I wanted to purchase. I had to go out of my way, or just refuse to purchase at all. Nearing 20 years later (and time does go by fast), I can literally go to pretty much any grocery store and find all sorts of things which only 15 years before were only found in speciality or health food stores etc. I haven't been to the local grocery store for 15 years because 99% of the items in the store were just inedible for me; low quality highly processed junk foods, for the most part. I just visited for the first time last week and the store has completely altered. It it now roughly 40% quality health foods, with organic produce, and all sorts of great stuff in there. People are demanding it. Things are changing rapidly. Every single vegan/vegetarian restaurant around here has always been located in or near down town. In the last few years, a couple have opened in the suburbs, and to my surprise, are still open. I tried to open one further away in another town, but apparently I ventured too far. "Build it and they will come" it total complete 100% bull. Unfortunately it's the city people that are most interested in all that organic health food stuff. They are so separated from anything to do with nature, that they crave it... starting community gardens, farmer's markets, organic restaurants, etc. etc., but in the suburbs, there are no gardens, only green lawns full of chemical fertilizers and herbicides.

In N. America, yes, people eat a lot of meat, but that is not how it is in the rest of the world. Meat is still an expensive food item for most people, and is either only eaten on occasion, or eaten in small portions. Few people just sit down and eat a plate of meat, it's usually cut up and mixed in a dish of vegetables or rice, or whatever. In N. America, meat and dairy products are very highly subsidized with tax money. Vegan or not, if you pay taxes, you are supporting the consumption of meat -- our tax money is going to these meat producers to help them survive, because the meat production business cannot survive on it's own. Why? Without subsidization, a pound of regular ground beef would cost over $40 dollars (that's what they used to say in the 1980's). I read somewhere that this amount has gone way up in recent years. Just imagine how very cheap vegetables would be if they were subsidized instead of meat and dairy products and eggs and such? Ten cents would be enough to feed your family for a day. But, I do not think that we should subsidize, we should pay the real costs of products. It's unfair that meat producers receive subsidization and other farmers do not.
There is already enough grain, beans, and other non-meat foods to feed starving people. The problem is one of distribution. They don't have the money to buy the food, and nobody is going to send it to them for free.
It takes a small group of committed individuals to change the world. More and more people are becoming vegetarians every day. The meat eaters will die of cancer and heart disease and the vegetarians will take over.