SHOULD PEOPLE BECOME VEGETARIAN?

In 2012 the United States Department of Agriculture
(USDA) estimated that Americans ate an average of
52.3 pounds of beef, 57.4 pounds of chicken, and 43.5
pounds of pork, per person. [ 126] Vegetarians, about 5%
of the US population, do not eat meat (including poultry
and seafood). [ 127] The USDA includes meat as part of
a balanced diet, but it also states that a vegetarian diet
can meet "the recommended dietary allowances for
nutrients."
Many proponents of vegetarianism say that eating meat
harms health, wastes resources, causes deforestation,
and creates pollution. They often argue that killing
animals for food is cruel and unethical since non-animal
food sources are plentiful.
Many opponents of a vegetarian diet say that meat
consumption is healthful and humane, and that
producing vegetables causes many of the same
environmental problems as producing meat. They also
argue that humans have been eating and enjoying meat
for 2.3 million years. [ 14]
In Western culture vegetarianism dates back to Ancient
Greece. The mathematician Pythagoras (570 BC - 495
BC) advocated vegetarianism; a meatless diet was
commonly called the "Pythagorean diet" until the term
vegetarian became popular during the 1800s. [120 ] The
philosopher Plato (428 BC - 348 BC) described a
vegetarian diet as "divinely ordained." [70]
Other well-known vegetarians include Leonardo da Vinci
(1452-1519), George Bernard Shaw (1712-1778), Leo
Tolstoy (1828-1910), Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948),
and Franz Kafka (1883-1924). [ 71] [81 ] More recent
vegetarians include César Chávez (1927-1993), Jane
Goodall, Paul McCartney, Ellen DeGeneres, Carl Lewis,
Russell Brand, Pamela Anderson, and Dennis Kucinich
(D-