Illustration: Luo Xuan/GT

A life resolved to eating fruits and greens or one in which you enjoy juicy steak and hamburgers, which do you prefer?

Whether one chooses to live the life of a vegan or an omnivore is not just a question of religion, culture and social upbringing, it is not even a question of killing animals. Even a carrot dies when pulled out of the ground.

It is a matter of deciding whether one is pro-planet or against it. Has the thought ever occurred to anyone that our meat eating habits might be stressing our ecological system?

It's no longer "might;" we are destroying our planet.

Most of the meat that we eat comes from livestock, which is about 23 billion in population and causes major depletion of our natural resources. Every second of every day one football field size rainforest is destroyed, and much of it is used to farm and raise livestock.

Raising the animals also requires huge quantities of water, mostly to grow the grains fed to them.

It takes over 2,000 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef, which is equivalent to a seven-minute shower every day for a minimum of four months. Take your pick: four months without a shower or a burger.

Meat has to be cut, cleaned and processed. One doesn't just buy a cow and start gnawing on it.

According to David Pimentel from Cornell University, it takes 20 times more energy to produce beef than tofu, and both are an equally good source of protein.

In a world where we are constantly fighting the increasing price of fuel, do we really need to add to it by using our precious, limited fossil fuel to produce a steak or a burger?

The waste generated by these animals is one of the major causes of water and air pollution.

No, the animal waste cannot be sprayed on fields because it does not provide nutrient balance and can spread diseases to humans.

Manure lagoons, outdoor containers that are used to treat animal waste, are equally unsafe.

In 1995, 25 million gallons of animal waste spilled into the New River in North Carolina, killing 10 million fish and causing the closure of 364,000 acres of coastal wetlands.

In the Gulf of Mexico, there is a 7,000-square-mile "dead zone" where there is no aquatic life due to pollution from animal waste and chemical fertilizers.

Animal farming also produces large quantities of greenhouse gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide.

If your next Christmas is unusually hot or unbearably cold, blame the steak you ate the night before.

I am not saying that everybody needs to stop eating meat right this minute. No, I don't think we can produce enough crops, fruits, and vegetables for an entire vegan world.

I am just saying we need to cut our meat consumption, preferably to 70 grams per day (according to UN), that is, if we want normal weather, clean air and drinking water.

Instead of beef, why don't you chew on that for a moment?

This article was published on the Global Times Metropolitan section Two Cents page, a space for reader submissions, including opinion, humor and satire. The ideas expressed are those of the author alone, and do not represent the position of the Global Times.