well, it would be nice if they all did, but they don't and never will, no matter what. accidents happen, bags get loose, people get forgetful - whatever the reason is.
and even if they did manage to get them all in miraculously, there are toxic byproducts that leech out of plastic over its very very slow degradation process. it's basically not safe until it's broken down to the atomic level and that can take a ridiculous amount of time without burning. honestly i'm not sure how we can intelligently deal with the problem, some how reverse the process the chemical process of how plastic is made. 

Yes, a vegetable diet would be wonderful, but what does one do who is rather violently allergic to legumes, which include soy, among many other plants?

Julia, you don't have to eat legumes to eat a plant-based diet. It isn't necessary to worry about protein at all, for that matter.

What it really comes down to is, if there is a will there is a way. And the way is not difficult. There is probably no food that contains a needed nutrient that can't be found in another food.

Julia, a healthy vegetarian diet that includes a diverse array of plant based food, contains all the amino acids needed for protein. Quinoa is a grain that is a complete protein by itself. Nuts are another source of protein, but as long as you eat a diverse group of grains, veggies and fruits you should be fine without beans.

Yes, someone else has pointed this out to me as well!  
My mistake: I was posting this a bit too quickly, and didn't look at the numbers I found as carefully as I could have.  I'm looking around for some better data.

Ag subsidies, trade treaties, and the extremely intricate and illogical interactions of politics with economics around petroleum, all undercut the argument that whatever costs least energy to produce will also cost the least.
(Also, for the record, I find the the terms "pop culture cliches" and "public hysteria" pretty dismissive in this context.)
Concern for food miles can be taken beyond logic, but overall it's getting people to think a lot more clearly about where and how their food is being grown, the decline of family farms, and the very real ills of overprocessed foods.
The clearest message to take away may be that in the case of the foods we eat, carbon footprints are one part of a complex web of considerations, and how our choices affect the environment and the atmosphere.   

You make some great points.  The only one I disagree with is "not everyone has the power to switch immediately to cloth bags".  These bags are quite inexpensive.  I bought mine at the store for 50 cents a piece.  They don't have to be bought all at once.  Maybe one each time you visit the store.  Sure not everyone can afford this but the majority I'm sure can afford 50cents.

I agree - how can someone not be in a position to switch to reusable bags? They are widely available. I don't remember when plastic bags really became a staple at grocery stores, but it was definitely within my lifetime - and I'm only in my early 40s. Let's not forget that people once knew how to carry bags to the store. They can figure it out again.

Have a look at this editorial in Audubon Magazine:
http://www.audubonmagazine.org/features0901/viewpoint.html

The answer is it doesn't matter how the cattle are raised. The environmental effects are still devastating.

Raising cattle may be environmentally damaging than growing food crops (although some of that may depend on what methods you're comparing).

But choosing locally raised meat from local small or family farms generally is going to a better environmental choice than factory-farm meat.  Small/family farms are more likely to have their cattle grazing naturally, perhaps with supplemental feed, as opposed to the feedlot production with factory farms.  And any time you buy a local products opposed to one brought in from heaven only knows where, you're decreasing the impact from transportation.

I agree! We've been using cloth bags for over 20 years and they are still going strong. I keep them in the car and make myself go back and get them If I forget to bring them in. Now that the bags are only about 99 cents they are finally catching on in my neighborhood.
As for eating vegetarian - since making the switch 9 years ago I haven't looked back. The world is so beautiful (as I look out my window today), there is so much other food available besides meat why even consider it. 
Kudos to all vegetarians & cloth bag users!

To be vegan does not necessarily require soy. Nor does it require, if you do eat soy, that it be genetically engineered soy or that pesticides be used. About 10% of the soybeans out there are free of pesticides and not genetically engineered. Most soy is NOT used for human consumption - but to support the meat and dairy industry.

Michael Pollan's section on vegetarianism is the weakest part of his otherwise thoughtful book. He didn't want to know the facts so he did not learn them, unfortunately.

Marguerite,
Although I am a vegan, I can appreciate your commitment to locally-produced food. But I do find your soy comparison a little silly. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the vast majority of soy grown in South America produced for animal consumption? I have a hard time believing that the Amazon is being deforested on the account of a miniscule amount of vegans, and vegetarians. If a vegan has the option between foreign and local grown soy, I'm guessing he or she would pick the local. So, although your diet may be equal or superior to mine, assuming that I'm relying on soy which is grown in South America, in an ideal state (local soy vs. local animal products) my diet is still superior to yours (at least as far as the earth is concerned). I think it is important, when making comparisons, to compare apples to apples.

Thanks for the suggested reading material..."The Omnivore's Dilemma" was already on my 'To-Read' list, I'll be sure to add "The Whole Soy Story" as well.

Yes, currently most soy is for animal consumption (not a good thing, ruminants esp should not eat soy) BUT if we all became vegan the same amount of soy then would be used for human consumption.  Organic soy would not have the petrochemical input but can soy for mass human consumption be sustainable without animal fertilizers? (no, not that crap from the feed lots that is contaminated with God knows what). I think this argument about animals causing global waming becomes a convenient argument for vegans against omnivores and some people are willing to take it at face value. There is evidence that intensive polyculutre rotational grazing on grass leads to net soil building and carbon sequestration over time. I agree that factory animal farms are an abomination morally and ecologically.

Actually humans require way less soy than growing a cow, and thus way less land for the same amount of food.  Even if rotational grazing on grass could possibly sequester SOME carbon in the soil, it is completely insignificant compared to the sequestration provided by the complex ecosystem of the Amazon (or really any forest for that matter, but especially the Amazon).

It isn't necessary for humans to eat soy products at all.

For some of you this may come as news. No, vegans do not need some specialized form of protein. Protein - plenty of it, more than we need - is available in almost every food we eat. We have no biological need to find concentrated versions of it.

Nor do we need soy products for anything else. We may use them; we do not require them.

Most people who want to be vegetarian for humane reasons can still get plenty of protein by having a few chickens in the back yard. They are excellent companions and will produce fine, organic eggs, eat all your bugs, add to the compost pile, and save you money.

Craig, the problem with "a few chickens in the backyard" (aside from the fact that many of us live in urban areas without enough room for "a few chickens") is that it assumes all chickens are female. What is to be done with all the males?

Your ideal still relies on killing (the males). Your ideal still relies on forcing animals to live, breed, and die according to human whim. It's not "humane" at all.

Chickens are born at a sex ratio of about 50% males and 50% females, but even in the wild, one male has a harem of several hens, so the imbalance in the sex ratio is a "natural" problem. It is possible to sex chickens when they are very young. It takes relatively little space to keep bantams, and it is legal in the City of Austin.
It isn't a perfect solution, and I am seriously debating not getting more when these are gone (for the concerns you have mentioned), but in the meanwhile, these chickens were given to me, they are having good lives, and I am not forcing them to live, breed (they have infertile eggs), or die. It is also a great improvement to eating cows as far as global climate change pollution is concerned.
For that matter, the issue of keeping ANY animal as a pet that must eat some component of meat in its diet is an ethical issue, and this includes cats and (arguably) dogs.

These small family farms always seem to come up in debates about the environmental impacts of a meat-based diet, but in no way is this a panacaea.  First, it would be impossible to raise animals in this way and still support the amount of meat that people eat today.  There simply isn't enough land.  Also, this argument draws attention away from reality, making it seem like because this type of farming exists at all, meat-eaters' fears are assuaged and they won't have to worry about their environmental impact anymore.  The fact is, that most likely if you eat meat you are eating from a factory farm with an enormous impact on the land, air, and water.  For the amount of grain it takes to feed one person meat (because you need to feed this enormous animal before you can kill it), you could feed 10 people a vegetarian meal.  That means that if you sit at a table with a steak on your plate, you should pretty much imagine 10 people sitting there with nothing on their plate.  Also, cattle ranching is the number one cause of deforestation in the Amazon, which is the most rapidly deforested area in the world.  The second biggest cause is soy farming, which goes to feed the cattle.  It is MUCH harder to responsibly eat meat (if not impossible if you want to ever go to a restaurant or if you don't live near a place like polyface farms) than to just become vegan.

I don't think you really checked it out, because it isn't a small family farm.

The idea of polyface, is diversity, in that the same land has multiple uses, and each animal is complimentary to the next. The factory farm model is the problem, not eating meat, per se.

Robert,
The problems with your ideal are:

a) Factory farming exists. Pandora's box has been opened. So long as people continue to eat animal flesh, someone will produce animal flesh through extremely cruel methods that pose threats to public health and the environment. You can't just wish that problem away, it is fundamentally linked to the "demand" for animal flesh and secretions. So... you promote your ideal and some rich people support it. That does NOTHING for the rest of the population or for the environment. Greedy capitalists will still factory farm where ever they can whenever there is a demand.

b) It's not about "eating meat per se" it's about forcefully controling the existence of another, living, thinking, feeling being. The issue isn't what you eat, it's WHO.

A couple reasons this argument is ridiculous:

1. Immigrants exist. If they were not in this country they'd be in another. Whatever effect they have on the planet based on their existence is already there.
2. It isn't the number of persons that matters; it's the consumption! Simple but seems so hard to grasp. We all know that Americans consume far more per person than any other citizens on earth. That's the problem.

Umm, this county is made up of immigrants. Today people look at immigrants as a dirty word but back when all the Europeans were immigrating to America they were looked upon as heros who built this county. Now that all the non-Europeans, non-whites want to immigrate to America its now a close door policy. Yeah they have built this country alright and what a county we have become.

The argument about immigration only carries weight (which is questionable at best) if you are only looking at the US, and not the world population.  And when it comes to environmental issues, you really have to take the entire world population into account.

I walk, ride the bus, or ride a bike to the store every time I go, and I carry ChicoBags (which fold down to like 3 inches) and a backpack.  It's so ridiculously easy.  Seriously, there isn't an excuse to use paper or plastic just because you're using public transportation.

High five for shopping on a bike! I do that, too, and I use my backpack to pack the groceries in. I have a backpack designed for "backpacking," so it's large and meant to carry a lot of weight. I'm just one person, so I don't have to buy too many groceries. However, if you need more space, here's my suggestion: if you have a rear bike rack, you can attach a milk crate to it. Then, you can stow additional stuff either right in the milk crate, or in a bag which you put in the milk crate, and you can use your bungee cords as needed to secure things. Happy shopping! =D

When I lived in Portland, I used two saddlebags to carry my groceries home on my bike.  They worked pretty well: waterproof, tough, easy to stabilize.  
The only problematic thing was their shapes -- made for bicycle camping, when you can just cram stuff in without worrying about crushing anything. But I think there are some styles now that are intended specifically for city shopping -- squarer shapes, more like regular shopping bags with frames.

Thanks, DC!  I'm glad it's sparked so much good debate and conversation.

 Your info is extremely powerful and persuasive, but I sense that you preaching to the choir on this blog. I  wonder if you have any suggestions for convincing the people with the opposing lifestyles.  It is obvious that logic and rational data aren't going to significantly change the consumption habits of most habitual meat-eaters. It is the frustration of many Third World peoples with the over-consumption of Western societies and the general sense of entitlement to world resources among Western societies causing such phenomena as Al Queda and other acts of rebellion against Western values and culture.  Hopefully, the world can change peacefully, I personally am not very hopeful in this area.  Unfortunately or perhaps not so unfortunately, some oppositional forces have decided that the best solution for this problem would be systematic reduction of Western peoples and their supporters on this planet with their wasteful consumption patterns and asocial behaviors.      

Would the threat of global hunger be enough to convince the other side?  See below:

"Global hunger could be directly attributed to meat-eating."

---Chrissie Hynde

Half the world's population does not receive an adequate amount of food to eat.  Ten to twenty million die annually of hunger and its effects.  The Institute for Food and Development Policy reports that, "Forty thousand children starve to death on this planet every day," or one child every two seconds.

The livestock population of the United States today consumes enough grain and soybeans to feed over five times the entire human population of the country.   We feed these animals over 80% of the corn we grow, and over 95% of the oats.   Less than half the harvested agricultural acreage in the United States is used to grow food for people.  Most of it is used to grow livestock feed.

Ronald J. Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, in his 1977 book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, pointed out that 220 million Americans were eating enough food (largely because of the high consumption of grain-fed livestock) to feed over one billion people in the poorer countries.

The world's cattle alone, not to mention pigs and chickens, consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people.  It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef.  According to Department of Agriculture statistics, one acre of land can grow 20,000 pounds of potatoes.  That same acre of land, if used to grow cattlefeed, can produce less than 165 pounds of beef.

In his book, The Hungry Planet, Georg Bergstrom points out that protein-starved underdeveloped nations export more protein to wealthy nations than they receive.  He calls this "the protein swindle."  Ninety percent of the world's fish meal catch, for example, is exported to rich countries.  One-third of Africa's peanut crop winds up in the stomachs of European livestock.  Half the world's cereal crop is fed to livestock and the United States annually imports one million tons of vegetable protein from Third World nations--just to feed its farm animals.

Bergstrom writes: "Sometimes one wonders how many Americans and Western Europeans have grasped the fact that quite a few of their beef steaks, quarts of milk, dozens of eggs, and hundreds of broilers are the result, not of their agriculture, but of the approximately two million metric tons of protein, mostly of high quality, which astute Western businessmen channel away from the needy and hungry."

Jeremy Rifkin, author of a dozen influential books and President of the Foundation on Economic Trends, writes in his 1992 bestseller Beyond Beef:

"Cattle and other livestock are devouring much of the grain produced on the planet.  It need be emphasized that this is a new phenomenon, unlike anything ever experienced before.

"Contrary to popular belief, the poor are getting poorer each year...Increased poverty has meant increased malnutrition.  On the African continent, nearly one in every four human beings is malnourished.  In Latin America, nearly one out of every seven people goes to bed hungry each night.  In Asia and the Pacific, 28 percent of the people border on starvation, experiencing the gnawing pain of a perpetual hunger."

"In the Near East, one in ten people is underfed.  Chronic hunger now affects upwards of 1.3 billion people, according to the world Health Organization--a statistic all the more striking in a world where one third of all the grain produced is being fed to cattle and other livestock.  Never before in human history has such a large percentage of our species--nearly 25 percent--been malnourished.

"The transition of world agriculture from food grain to feed grains represents an...evil whose consequences may be far greater and longer lasting than any past examples of violence inflicted by men against their fellow human beings."

In the 1970s, the United Nations Secretary General said that the food consumption of the rich countries is the key cause of hunger around the world.  The United Nations has recommended that the wealthy nations cut down on their meat consumption.

The Worldwatch Institute has released a remarkable report entitled Taking Stock: Animal Farming and the Environment, which lists nation after nation where food deprivation has followed the switch from a grain-based diet to a meat-based one.

Most of the nations that now import grain from the United States were once self-sufficient in grain.  The main reason they aren't is the rise in meat production and consumption.

In Taiwan, for example, per capita consumption of meat and eggs increased 600 percent from 1950 to 1990.  With this change, vastly increased amounts of grain have gone to livestock, raising the annual per capita grain use in the country from 375 pounds to 858 pounds.  In 1950, Taiwan was a grain exporter; in 1990 the nation imported, mostly for feed, 74 percent of the grain it used.

In mainland China, the situation is similar.  Increased meat consumption has meant less grain available to feed people.  Since 1978, meat consumption has more than doubled, to twenty-four kilograms.  The share of Chinese grain fed to livestock rose from 7 percent in 1960 to 20 percent in 1990.

Over half Of Latin America's beef production is exported, and the rest is too expensive for any but the wealthy to purchase.  From 1960 to 1980 beef exports from El Salvador increases over sixfold.  Meanwhile, increasing numbers of small farmers lost their livelihood and were pushed off their land. Today, 72 percent of all Salvadoran infants are underfed.

In Brazil, major portions of the Amazon tropical rain forests have been destroyed so that wealthy multinational corporations can produce beef for the wealthy.   Corporations such as Volkswagen, Nestle, Mitsubishi, Liquigas, King Ranch, and Swift-Eckrich have bulldozed and burned literally hundreds of millions of acres, replacing the world's oldest and richest ecosystems, home to two million or more species of plant and animal life with a single crop--pasture grass for cattle.  And here, the beef produced has not gone to feed hungry Brazilians; it has been primarily exported to Western Europe, the Middle East, and North America.  In 1987, the United States imported three hundred million pounds of meat from countries in Central and South America.

With the help of international lending institutions, Brazil has mounted an enormous effort to increase agricultural production, but this has been primarily meat-oriented production and for export.  In the late '60s, soybeans were almost nonexistent or Brazil.  Today, this crop is the nation's number one export--but almost all of it goes to feed Japanese and European livestock.  Twenty five years ago, one third of the Brazilian population suffered from malnutrition.  Today, the figure has risen to two thirds.

Oxfam, the international charity, reports that in Brazil huge cattle ranches take up some of the most fertile soil in the whole country, yet 60 percent of Brazilians are malnourished.  Oxfam estimates that in Mexico, 80 percent of the children in rural areas are undernourished, yet the livestock are fed more grain than the human population eats!  The livestock are exported of course, to satisfy the developed nations' craving for cheap hamburgers.

In the early '60s, sorghum was almost unknown in Mexico.  But by 1980, it covered literally twice the acreage of wheat.  Sorghum isn't grown for humans.   It is fed to livestock.  In the late '60s, livestock consumed only 6 percent of Mexico's grain.  Today, the figure is over 50 percent.  This is a trend throughout the Third World.  Copying the United States' meat-oriented diet, these poor countries devote increasing percentages of their resources to meat production.

In Guatemala, 75 percent of the children under five years of age are undernourished.  Yet, every year Guatemala exports 40 million pounds of meat to the United States. It borders on the criminal!

In Costa Rica, beef production quadrupled between 1960 and 1980, but almost all this beef is exported to the United States, and what does stay in the country is eaten by a tiny minority.  Though more and more Costa Rican land is being turned over to meat production, the population is not eating more meat for the change.  The average family in Costa Rica eats less meat than the average American housecat.

Throughout Latin America, land availability is a prominent social issue.   Revolutionaries as well as reform-minded moderates have made land reform a major issue.  Yet in many Latin American countries, forests are being leveled in order to create pastures for cattle grazing land.

In a region where land availability is a central social issue, existing land is being gobbled up by livestock agriculture.   The resulting social tensions have resulted in civil wars, repression and violence.

Hunger is really a social disease caused by the unjust, inefficient and wasteful control of food.  Our food security is not being threatened by the prolific, hungry masses, but by elites that profit by the concentration and internationalization of control of food resources.

In country after country the pattern is repeated.  Livestock industries are consuming feed to such an extent that now almost all Third World nations must import grain.  Seventy-five percent of Third World imports of corn, barley, sorghum, and oats are fed to animals, not to people.  In country after country, the demand for meat among the rich is squeezing out staple production for the poor.

The same trend can be found in the Middle East and North Africa--increases in grain-fed livestock require more imported feed.  In the early '70s, Egypt was self-sufficient in grain.  Then, livestock ate only 10 percent of the nation's grain.  Today, livestock consume 36 percent of Egypt's grain.  As a result, Egypt must now import eight million tons of grain every year.

In the late '60s , Syria was a barley exporter.  But in the intervening years, livestock has consumed increasing amounts of the country's grain.   Now, despite a phenomenal 1,000 percent increase in the land area devoted to producing barley, Syria must import the cereal.

According to Buckminster Fuller, there are enough resources at present to feed, clothe, house and educate every human being on the planet at American middle class standards.  The Institute for Food and Development Policy has shown that there is no country in the world in which the people cannot feed themselves from their own resources.

Moreover, there is no correlation between land density and hunger.   China has twice as many people per cultivated acre as India, yet less of a hunger problem.  Bangladesh has just one-half the people per cultivated acre that Taiwan has, yet Taiwan has no starvation, while Bangladesh has one of the highest rates in the world.  The most densely populated countries in the world today are not India and Bangladesh, but Holland and Japan.

Many of us believe that hunger exists because there's not enough food to go around.  But as Frances Moore Lappe' and her anti-hunger organization Food First! have shown, the real cause of hunger is a scarcity of justice, not a scarcity of food.

Vasu, I would also like to ask you to create comments that are more concise.  

You'll find that people are better able to engage with your ideas when you are not piling on with dozen points at once.

Mr. Vasu,I am very impressed with your info, but I don't think that meat-consumers are responding the over-whelming logic in material. My major question for you still remains how will you convince the majority to adopt a lifestyle more advantageous to the overall welfare of the planet?  I still insist that most people on this blog will not debate the legitimacy of your info, but it is another thing convincing entrenched meat-eaters that their meat-consumption habit is generally destructive to the planet. Imagine that you are in a position of power how would you convince this population of people to change their nutritional without a barrage of info from your personal books and magazines?  

"Imagine that you are in a position of power how would you convince this population of people to change their nutritional without a barrage of info from your personal books and magazines?"

I'm not Vasu but here's what I would do:

a) Forget about the "entrenched meat-eaters" and focus on the children, young adults, and veg-wannabes.

b) Work on making it easier to make the choice to go veg:  develop veg community, develop more veg options in restaurants, schools, hospitals, prisons, grocery stores...

c) Use any and all ethical means to promote veganism.

Thanks Ms. Vigneault,I appreciate your suggestions for the change of meat-eaters. Your methods, I am sure, could effect some change in the those carnivore-centered  lifestyles over a period of time. I have read the majority of comments on this blog, and the majority of comment writers don't need the rationale and logic behind vegan diets, but it is more helpful to discuss the implementation of healthier lifestyles on our planet. I don't think that most people actually respond to preaching from anyone.  Ghandi said that one should be the change that one wants to see in the world. In other words, people learn best from demonstration and doing rather than reading and logical discourses from teachers or authors.  I hope that Mr. Vasu has an opportunity to read your suggestions!!  Peace and Blessings!

With all the water it takes to supply cows with their food and water there won't be enough water on the planet for to much longer to let both  cows and humans live with the number of cows it takes to feed the more and more meat eating humans.So shortly either cows will go extinct or humans will go extinct. Take your choice.  Hopefully if it is humans that go towards extinction  and the vegans will be the ones left on the planet since their lifestyle is one that can be lived in harmony with the planet.  Ahhh what a peaceful world we'll have then. I just can't wait.  Just think, no money spent on nuclear bombs.  The only fight we'll have then is to see if the human species can continue on this planet with very few of us left.  I find it amazing that the biggest battles being fought right now in the world aren't battles using the military, but just to keep common sense from going extinct.  

Are you saying humans with vegan diets won't find a hundred other reasons to fight with each other?  That would be...inhuman!

War and abortion are the karmic reaction for killing animals:

"When we turn to the protection of animals, we sometimes hear it said that we ought to protect men first and animals afterwards...By condoning cruelty to animals, we perpetuate the very spirit which condones cruelty to men."

---Henry Salt

The fate of the animals and the fate of man are interconnected.  (Ecclesiastes 3:19)  A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada said in 1974:

"We simply request, 'Don't kill. Don't maintain slaughterhouses.'  That is very sinful.  It brings a very awkward karmic reaction upon society.  Stop these slaughterhouses.  We don't say, 'Stop eating meat.'  You can eat meat, but don't take it from the slaughterhouse, by killing.  Simply wait (until the animal dies of natural causes) and you'll get the carcasses.

"You are killing innocent cows and other animals--nature will take revenge.  Just wait.  As soon as the time is right, nature will gather all these rascals and slaughter them.  Finished.  They'll fight among themselves--Protestants and Catholics, Russia and America, this one and that one.  It is going on.  Why?  This is nature's law.  Tit for tat.  'You have killed. Now you kill yourselves.'

"They are sending animals to the slaughterhouse, and now they'll create their own slaughterhouse.  You see?  Just take Belfast.  The Roman Catholics are killing the Protestants, and the Protestants are killing the Catholics.  This is nature's law.  It is not necessary that you be sent to the ordinary slaughterhouse.  You'll make a slaughterhouse at home.  You'll kill your own child--abortion.  This is nature's law.

"Who are these children being killed?  They are these meat-eaters.  They enjoyed themselves when so many animals were killed and now they're being killed by their own mothers.  People do not know how nature is working.  If you kill you must be killed.  If you kill the cow, who is your mother, then in some future lifetime your mother will kill you.  Yes.  The mother becomes the child, and the child becomes the mother.

"We don't want to stop trade, or the production of grains and vegetables and fruit.  But we want to stop these killing houses.  It is very, very sinful.  That is why all over the world they have so many wars.  Every ten or fifteen years there is a big war--a wholesale slaughterhouse for humankind.  But these rascals--they do not see it, that by the law of karma, every action must have its reaction."

Similarly, in his purport to the Srimad Bhagavatam 6.10.9, Srila Prabhupada writes: "One cannot continue killing animals and at the same time be a religious man. That is the greatest hypocrisy. Jesus Christ said, 'Do not kill,' but hypocrites nevertheless maintain thousands of slaughterhouses while posing as Christians. Such hypocrisy is condemned..."

And:

"If one kills many thousands of animals in a professional way so that other people can purchase the meat to eat, one must be ready to be killed in a similar way in his next life and in life after life.  There are many rascals who violate their own religious principles.  According to Judeo-Christian scriptures, it is clearly said, 'Thou shalt not kill.'  Nonetheless, giving all kinds of excuses, even the heads of religions indulge in killing animals while trying to pass as saintly persons.  This mockery and hypocrisy in human society brings about unlimited calamities; therefore occasionally there are great wars.  Masses of such people go out onto battlefields and kill themselves.  Presently, they have discovered the atomic bomb, which is simply waiting to be used for wholesale destruction."

(Chaitanya Charitamrita, Madhya 24.251, purport)

Also:

"To be nonviolent to human beings and to be a killer or enemy of the poor animals is Satan's philosophy.  In this age there is enmity towards poor animals, and therefore the poor creatures are always anxious. The reaction of the poor animals is being forced on human society, and therefore there is always the strain of cold or hot war between men, individually, collectively or nationally."

(Srimad Bhagavatam 1.10.6, purport)

"In human society, if one kills a man he has to be hanged.  That is the law of the state.  Because of ignorance people do not perceive that there is a complete state controlled by the Supreme Lord. Every living creature is the son of the Supreme Lord, and He does not tolerate even an ant's being killed.  One has to pay for it."