One of the more interesting spins that I have heard on vegetarianism came from a guru who laid it out in terms of his biological theory of matter. There are, I was told, five elements that "life depends on" : the earth, water, air, ether and fire. The bones, I was informed, were made up of earth. What got me cracking up was the contention that brain matter, or the mind, was made up of "space". I have always been really interested in vegetarianism. I was vegetarian once, and a lot of my friends are vegetarian. Rationales for a vegetarian diet range from religious reasons to ethical ones to politicophilosophical ones. Among my friends too, motivations for vegetarianism and veganism seem to range across the spectrum. A friend of mine turned vegan after reading "A Diet for a New America". Another turned vegan because of his Berkeley-acquired political beliefs. Many of the vegetarians I know are vegetarian for religious and ethical reasons, but many of them have remained vegetarian because they just never acquired a taste for non-vegetarian food.
There have been some new arguments about vegetarianism in terms of minimizing land use. The argument is that a low-fat vegetarian diet is more efficient in terms of land use than a typical non-vegetarian one. This line of reasoning is, no doubt, sound. New research conducted in the state of New York has, however, indicated that while "a low-fat vegetarian diet is very efficent in terms of how much land is needed to support it", it may possible that in certain cases the efficiency of a vegetarian diet may be improved. The numbers quoted are applicable only to the state of New York. The argument, however, might be fairly globally applicable.A low-fat vegetarian diet is very efficient in terms of how much land is needed to support it. But adding some dairy products and a limited amount of meat may actually increase this efficiency, Cornell researchers suggest.
This deduction stems from the findings of their new study, which concludes that if everyone in New York state followed a low-fat vegetarian diet, the state could directly support almost 50 percent more people, or about 32 percent of its population, agriculturally. With today's high-meat, high-dairy diet, the state is able to support directly only 22 percent of its population, say the researchers.
The reason is that fruits, vegetables and grains must be grown on high-quality cropland, he explained. Meat and dairy products from ruminant animals are supported by lower quality, but more widely available, land that can support pasture and hay. A large pool of such land is available in New York state because for sustainable use, most farmland requires a crop rotation with such perennial crops as pasture and hay.