[Gate]

The American Dietetic Association states that vegetarian diets have nutritional benefits
with lower levels of saturated fat & cholesterol & higher levels of fibre, antioxidants & potassium.
Similar studies show vegetarianism helps keep weight under control. (this is made-up)

'Vegetarian Diets' - Journal of the American Dietetic Association 103, 748-765
'American Dietetic Association Position Statement on Vegetarian Diets' - Journal of the American Dietetic Association 97, 1317-1321
'Mortality in British Vegetarians: review and preliminary results from EPIC-Oxford' - The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 533-538 (accessed 1050 21/07/07)

Meat is more expensive than vegetables & cereals, therefore eating less meat would save money (vegetarians cannot survive on vegetables and cereal alone; meat is a lot cheaper than equivalent vegetarian protein sources)

However, eating less meat will generally save money. The majority consume more than is required; what gluten, eggs, dairy and limited meat & fish should be able to provide sufficient protein.

Vegetarianism is linked with higher IQ. Vegetarianism may become a fashion or social aspiration. (lol)

Research suggests that successful parts of society can become role models for others to aspire to; the work of Levitt into child naming for example.

The IQ correlation has been observed, although this is not strong evidence for causality.

Meat requires far more land & other inputs than plant foods. 1kg of pork requires over 8kg of feed to produce. Meat reduces food production and drives up food prices for the poor, contributing to famine. (this seems based on a misunderstanding of economics, but meat is dirt cheap anyway).

The way I understood it is that if demand for land were to fall due to lower meat consumption, the least efficient producers would drop out first, suppressing overall prices.

Equivalent of a left shift of the demand curve, providing a lower quantity & lower prices.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not an economist.

Meat is one of the largest human contributors to global warming, responsible for about 90% as many greenhouse gases as the US or China. (this one I'm not sure about admittedly but it doesnt sound like the sort of thing that would be true [and will probably involve a broken window fallacy somewhere along the line])

'Livestock's Long Shadow' by the LEAD initiative (supported by the EU, World Bank, US & UN). States figures of 6.9bn tonnes CO2 equivalent in terms of NOx, CO2 & CH4, including land use. Minus land use, the figure is 4.56bn tonnes.

Neither the US nor China exceeded 6bn tonnes over the last recorded years;
'Global and regional drivers of accelerating CO2 emissions' - PNAS 104, 10288-93, M Raupach et al