Ben Dolnick Quotes

I've learned so much about what you can do to help animals, the environmental issues around meat production.

Every time we consume meat, eggs or dairy foods, we contribute to ecological devastation and the wasteful misuse of resources on a global scale.

It's time to face facts: Most people stop being environmentalists when they sit down to eat.

The way to make the world a better place, through your eating, is simply to eat a bit less meat. Local is sometimes good, sometimes bad. But even when it's good, its environmental impact is relatively small compared to other possible improvements.

Meat is a mighty contributor to climate change and other environmental problems. The amount of meat we're eating is one of the leading causes of climate change. It's as important as the kind of car you drive - whether you eat meat a lot or how much meat you eat.

Veganism is an answer for almost every problem facing the world in terms of hunger and climate change.

Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world's resources. A vegetarian diet is better.

If one of the arguments against eating meat is to do with cruelty and animal intelligence, then lab meat avoids that. There's also the environmental argument for it.

The health of the planet is at stake, because the cruelty and the waste that accompanies the slaughter of billions of animals each year literally infects us all. We could consume healthy plant-based food produced at almost infinitely less cost. What does that say, really, about us and what we're doing... to animals and to ourselves?

There's so many issues tied to the meat industry. I mean, social, environmental, humanitarian - all of them. I know that when I'm eating that I'm not hurting the planet, I'm not hurting other people on this planet, I'm not hurting animals... and I'm not hurting nature.

If people learned what they were contributing to every time they ate meat, eggs, or dairy, surely they would be just as motivated as I was to change.

The true cost to the world of a burger is far greater than the money you hand over to buy it.

Meat is undoubtedly an environmentally expensive food.

Eating is an environmental act.

If we gave up eating beef we would have roughly 20 to 30 times more land for food than we have now.

There is no 'need' for us to eat meat, dairy or eggs. Indeed, these foods are increasingly linked to various human diseases and animal agriculture is an environmental disaster for the planet.

If people are prepared to eat locally and seasonally, then they probably do pretty well in terms of environmental impact.

We should eat less meat - all of us - and we should use less leather. I mean, that's reality.

India is mostly vegetarian, and I think that will be crucial to changing the world. I think the United States is lost.

And check this out: If every American had one meat-free day per week, it would be the same as taking eight million cars off American roads in a year.

The kind of funny irony is that a lot of people talk about ethical meat eating as if it's a way to care about things, but also not to alienate yourself from the rest of the world. But it's so much more alienating than vegetarianism.

I only eat meat if I go to a nice restaurant and there is an exceptional dish, or if I'm at somebody's home for a dinner, I'll eat whatever is in front of me. Otherwise, I don't eat anything that walks around and has a face.

Vegetarians have been around for a very long time - Pythagoreans forbade eating animals more than 2,500 years ago - but even as the environmental evidence mounted, they didn't appear to be winning the argument.

It is all very well for 2% of the population to live in a monastic state of meatlessness while everyone else gorges their way towards environmental meltdown or the nearest heart clinic. Vegetarianism is good for the willing minority, but not much use as a campaign tool.

Don't even get me started. I'm not against all vegetarians. But if you're a vegetarian for ethical reasons, you may be causing more harm.