A new study has concluded that consumers who adopt a plant-based diet save the lives of 105 animals per person each year. That’s a life saved every 3.47 days, or two per week.
The report, published by the non-profit organisation Animal Charity Evaluators, built its projections on data provided by the Food and Agriculture Organization of The United States (FAO).
It also discovered that of the 772 billion animals killed for food in 2018, almost 90 percent were fish. Of the last 10% 85.6 billion were chickens and 4.5 billion farmed animals like cows and pigs.
Of the 105 animals each individuals spared, 93 are wild-caught and farmed fish whereas twelve are farmed land mammals.
The study doesn’t however present a complete picture as it excludes animals lost in the agriculture supply chain. This includes animals killed as feed for other animals, bycatch, which is when unwanted fish are thrown back into the sea and animals killed by deforestation as a result of animal agriculture.
The Vegan Calculator, which uses Oxford University research as its starting point, says going vegan for a month, consumers save 30 animal lives, 620 pounds of harmful carbon dioxide emissions, 913 square feet of forest, and 33,481 gallons of water.
Photo by Todd Trapani from Pexels
