Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret Page #9

Some people would say the problem

isn't really animal agriculture...

...but actually human overpopulation.

In 1812, there were 1 billion

people on the planet.

In 1912, there were 1.5 billion.

Then just 100 years later, our population

exploded to 7 billion humans.

This number is rightly given

a great deal of attention...

...but an even more important figure

when determining world population...

...is the world's 70 billion

farm animals humans raise.

The human population drinks

5.2 billion gallons of water every day...

...and eats 21 billion pounds of food.

But just the world's

1.5 billion cows alone...

...drink 45 billion gallons

of water every day...

...and eat 135 billion pounds of food.

This isn't so much

a human population issue.

It's a human-eating-animals

population issue.

Environmental organizations

not addressing this...

...is like health organizations trying

to stop lung cancer...

...without addressing cigarette smoking.

But instead of secondhand smoking,

it's secondhand eating...

...which affects the entire planet.

We're growing enough food right now

to feed between 12 and 15 billion people.

We only have 7 billion people.

We have roughly a billion people

starving every single day.

Worldwide, 50 percent of the grain

and legumes that we're growing...

...we're feeding to animals.

So they're eating huge amounts

of grain and legumes.

In the United States, it's more like closer

to 70, 80, depending on which grain it is.

About 90 percent of the soybeans.

Eighty-two percent of starving children

live in countries...

...where food is fed to animals

in livestock systems...

...that are killed and eaten

by more well-off individuals...

...in developed countries

such as the U.S. and Europe.

The fact of it is that we could feed...

...every human being on the planet today

an adequate diet...

...if we did no more than take the feed

that we're feeding to animals...

...and actually turn it into

food for humans.

And so somebody trying

to justify GMOs...

...that's like trying to give

a drowning man a drink of water.

You can produce, on average,

15 times more protein...

...from plant-based sources than

from meat on any given area of land...

...whether it's...

Using the same type of land...

...whether it's a very fertile area

in one area of the world...

...or it's an area that's depleted.

If we would reduce the amount of meat

we're eating, and dairy and eggs...

...we could allow

all these mono-cropped fields...

...of genetically-engineered

corn and soybeans...

...to revert back to forest again,

to be habitat for animals.

You know, any time somebody tells you

that we can't grow food for humans...

...on the land that we're growing

feed for animals...

...this is somebody that-

Evoking the number one crop

out in California.

The fact of it is if you can grow corn

to stuff down the throat of an animal...

...you can actually grow corn

and feed it to a human.

You encourage people to eat less meat,

for the resources required...

...and the toll on the environment.

- And on the animal.

- And on the animals.

And the workers in the system.

It's a brutal system at every level.

As the world population continues to grow

to almost 9 billion people...

...do you foresee someday

that we might just completely...

...have to stop eating meat altogether?

I don't know that we'll completely stop.

I think that the amount

of meat-eating will decline.

There's no way to support

9 ounces per person per day...

...which is what Americans

are eating now.

If the Chinese alone decide

they wanna eat that much...

And they've decided

they wanna eat that much.

We just can't...

We don't have enough world...

...to produce the grain

to generate that much meat.

I think a plant-based diet

is the most sustainable.

What do you recommend to see

for9 billion people can eat...

...for the planet

to not only sustain, but to thrive?

Would you throw out a numb...?

Like an ounce, one ounce?

- Oh, per meat?

- And including dairy.

Yeah, I don't think I know enough.

But, yeah, it would be on the order

of a couple ounces a week.

You know, it's not gonna be

the way we're eating it now.

We're gorging on meat.

We're eating huge amounts.

- Does that include cheese too?

- Yeah, yeah.

- Like, two ounces total?

- Yeah, cheese and milk.

- Like, two ounces total?

- Yeah, cheese and milk.

Only2 ounces a week

seem like nothing.

People could probably raise that

in their own backyard.

Maybe backyard farming

was a sustainable solution.

I have 42 ducks.

I started off with three ducks

three years ago.

And then those burdened

into a population.

I buy a 75-pound bag of seed...

...and that seed bag will last me,

right now, about two weeks.

The ducks now that we're gonna be

culling are about 2 years old.

When you're living with them,

they get used to you.

You know, they're not intimidated

or whatever.

And so they make all their

vocal sounds, like natural.

Slow down.

Easy, easy, easy.

Okay.

No, we're gonna keep you.

Ron, these two go first.

Being smart-wise?

Compared to a chicken,

they're probably the same.

- That one's nice, see?

- Yeah, he is.

Alrighty.

Okay.

Right there.

That's gonna be a little gruesome.

How could that still be alive?

How could that still be alive?

They're not.

That's nerves.

A nerve reaction.

Five years old or something like that,

I think it was...

...the first time my dad came out

and made us watch...

...as we did rabbits.

And we'd raise probably

a couple dozen rabbits each year.

And then we would take those rabbits

and skin them...

...and clean them up

and keep them for food.

As a young kid, I was kind of...

I don't want to say it was hard,

but it was kind of, from my memory...

Because some of the rabbits

I had named.

So I was kind of like going...

But after doing it a couple times,

you kind of just learned...

...it's just something that

has to be done.

Not the fingers.

I just can't do it.

I don't think I could have someone else

do it for me, if I can't do it.

If I can't do it, I don't want

someone else doing it for me.

And then sustainability...

For sustainability,

75 pounds is 2 pounds per-

So it's a pound per week per duck.

Fifty-two weeks, 110...

So it's 110 pounds of food...

...for I to 1.5 pounds of meat.

So on a sustainability issue,

it's 100to 1.

And that grain gets... You know,

who knows where that grain comes from?

But, I mean, when it gets to this point,

it's not even about sustainability...

...it was just...

You know, I don't feel real good inside.

It was the first time I've ever seen that.

So kind of...

Yeah.

I'd been so caught up in the destruction

caused by animal agriculture...

...I realized I'd never truly dwelled

on the obvious reality...

...that every one of these animals

was killed.

It was always a disconnected,

abstract fact of eating meat.

But when it became personal,

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