In a Vegetarian World, What Happens to the Cows?

A ridiculous question, you might say, yet it's one I get asked all the time. As if we're doing cows a favor by eating them.

Come on now. The world's 1.5 billion cattle didn't appear by their own doing, and most don't roam free enough to decide to reproduce on their own. The factory farms that produce most of our meat and dairy depend on unnatural reproduction and growth rates, employing tactics like artificial insemination (classes available!) and injections of growth hormones that are making even humans develop faster.

In addition to the health effects of such chemicals on the cows and the people who eat them is the impact that the whole system of production has on the environment. The chemicals work their way into our water supply, the hormones into our own bodies, and then there's the methane emissions—tons and tons of a gas 25 times worse for the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Kind of a problem. Some efforts are being made to harness that methane as an energy source instead of a pollutant, but a much better situation for the earth is if we turn to a plant-based, or at least plant-dominated, diet.