Alcott House, Surrey, England, 1847. This was the spiritual home for the founding of the Vegetarian Society at Northwood Villa, Ramsgate, on 30 September 1847. Vegetarians was a well meaning bunch. They defined the rules as the abstention from the flesh of animals rather than from all animal products; period writings stated that “milk and eggs may be termed animal products, but they are not flesh”, and the Society’s aim was “to induce habits of abstinence from the Flesh of Animals (fish, flesh, fowl) as Food.”.

They also invented the word /vegetarian/. A whole new word.

There was a parallel view, or more logically, an extension of vegetarianism. It didn’t have a word. However, as the English romantic fop Shelley wold write in ‘A Vindication of Natural Diet’ advocating “abstinence from animal food and spirituous liquors” there was an argument that “milk eating and flesh-eating are but branches of a common system and they must stand or fall together.”. All or nothing. 

The first known vegan cookbook was Asenath Nicholson’s Kitchen Philosophy for Vegetarians, published in 1849. The word ‘vegan’ as a truncated version of VEGetariAN, was not coined for another hundred years or so.

Right now, 2026, something in region of 75% [ +/- ] of the world’s agricultural land is used for livestock, which includes feed crops for animals in the meat and dairy industry. Only about 25% of agricultural production is directly intended for human consumption. This includes fruits, vegetables, grains, and other food products that are not used as animal feed.

Looking at it differently, around half of the world’s ice- and desert-free land is used for agriculture. Most of this is for raising livestock ; the land requirements of meat and dairy production are equivalent to an area the size of the Americas, spanning all the way from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.

Put these two places into a map on line and yo may not get a route, but it will show you just how far apart these places are.

The land use of livestock is so large because it takes 50 to 100 times as much land to produce a kilocalorie of beef or lamb versus plant-based alternatives. The same is also true for protein – it takes almost 50 to 100 times as much land to produce a gram of protein from beef or lamb, versus peas or tofu. We are told there is a food crisis, a cost of living crisis; that people can not afford to eat. And yet half the land we have and 75% of food that we produce is given to farm animals to eat. So we can kill them for food at point in the future.

So, If I Ruled the World, I wold do the following…..

• Cut Common Agricultural Policy subsidies for meat and dairy production to zero
• Add an Environmental Impact Tax for all animal based food, from milk , eggs, dead cow, dead pig , dead fish etc.
• Add a retail tax of €10 / kilo of all animal based food, from milk , eggs, dead cow, dead pig , dead fish etc sold, retail.
• Zero rate tax on all fruit, vegetables, beans, pulses etc grown and sold.
• Provide a Transition Fund for all animal based food producers to transition to plant foodds.
• For those who down want to transition to plant farming, some alternative can be found here and here .

I thank you.