The thought experiment: What would happen if everyone on the planet suddenly went vegan? (2024)

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The thought experiment: What would happen if everyone on the planet suddenly went vegan? ›

Emissions. Food production is responsible for a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from cows burping methane. Methane is such a potent greenhouse gas that a global switch to plant-based diets would cut emissions from food production by 28 per cent – that's the equivalent of India going carbon neutral.

“It would be a huge net win for the environment,” Dutkiewicz said. By one estimate, a complete phaseout of meat over 15 years would cut as much as one-third of all methane emissions and two-thirds of all nitrous oxide emissions. Water use would fall drastically. Biodiversity loss would slow.

Vegan eaters' low-density lipoprotein — bad cholesterol — dropped on average by 15.2 milligrams over eight weeks; omnivore dieters' fell by 2.4. Vegan eaters on average shed 4.2 more pounds than omnivores, and their insulin — which regulates blood sugar — dropped by roughly 20 percent more.

The world would save $1483.8 billion if everyone went vegetarian and $1636.5 billion if everyone went vegan (Davis). These numbers are significantly large. There are many ways to measure the economic value of the animal agriculture industry.

If every person on Earth adopted a vegan diet—one without milk, meat, honey, or any other animal products—the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the food system in 2050 would fall by more than half compared to baseline levels in the early 2000s.

If we all gave up meat, around eight million fewer people would die each year, as a result of lower levels of heart disease, strokes and cancer. But most crops have lower levels of micronutrients per calorie than meat – especially vitamins A, B12 and D, and some essential fatty acids.

In a more vegetarian world, the diversity of life on Earth would probably also improve. In fact, the use of land for livestock farming, either for direct grazing or for producing animal feed, is one of the main causes of loss of habitat and a threat to biodiversity.

Billions of farm animals would no longer be destined for our dinner plates and if we couldn't return them to the wild, they might be slaughtered, abandoned or taken into sanctuaries.

While studies have shown that a vegan diet (VD) may be associated with improved health outcomes [6,7], the negative health repercussions of these food preferences, on the other hand, are rarely highlighted, and veganism may be associated with negative health effects due to nutritional deficiencies.

At the start of a change to a vegan diet, you could experience a variety of differences to your body. These may include being hungrier, getting gassier, a change in your skin or body odor, weight loss or gain, better or worse sleep, headaches, tiredness, or having more energy.

What happens if humans stop eating meat? ›

When you follow a meatless or limited plant-based diet, you might miss out on important vitamins and minerals. Supplements can boost your levels of vitamin B12 (only found in animal-based foods), iron, calcium, and vitamins A, B, and D. Talk to your doctor about which supplements are best for you.

The production of plant-based foods requires less land, fewer resources, and produces vastly fewer greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, research shows that the carbon footprint of a vegan diet can be as much as 60% smaller than a meat-based one, and 24% smaller than a vegetarian diet.

The upshot is that a world entirely without meat would require about one-third more cropland — and therefore, more energy-intensive fertilizer, pesticides and tractor fuel — to feed everyone, says Hannah van Zanten, a sustainable food systems researcher at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

While there is some scientific research to suggest that going vegan and eating less animal protein can help to prevent diseases, the evidence is still lacking in terms of cold, hard numbers on longevity in particular. However, this doesn't mean that a vegan diet won't help you live longer.

Even though meats provide certain nutrients that plants don't, eating meat isn't necessary for your health or survival. With appropriate planning and supplements, plant-based diets can provide the nutrients your body needs.

When done safely, going vegan is safe, whether you plan on doing it for three days, three years, or for an entire lifetime. There are lots of people who embark on a vegan diet only to find themselves suffering from just as many health problems as those who consume a diet rich in meat, dairy, and other animal products.

The world's hungry would no longer be hungry

A staggering 97 per cent of the world's soya crop is fed to livestock. It would take 40 million tons of food to eliminate the most extreme cases of world hunger, yet nearly 20 times that amount of grain is fed to farmed animals every year in order to produce meat.

Shifting to more plant-based foods is essential to combatting climate change, soil, air and water pollution, ocean dead zones, and myriad other problems caused by industrial livestock production.

If humankind went vegan, animal cruelty would become less common — not just in industries where animals are killed for meat but also within the egg and dairy industries where animals experience overcrowding, inhumane treatment, poor hygiene, disease, and a lack of medical care.

Even though meats provide certain nutrients that plants don't, eating meat isn't necessary for your health or survival. With appropriate planning and supplements, plant-based diets can provide the nutrients your body needs.