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b'This event took place on the 31st of October at the Royal Institution in London.\\nCHAIR: Afua Hirsch - Writer and broadcaster\\nSPEAKERS FOR THE MOTION: AA Gill - The Sunday Times\\u2019s star restaurant and TV critic\\nAGAINST THE MOTION: George Monbiot - Guardian columnist, environmental campaigner and author of\\xa0Regenesis: Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet\\n\\nFancy a nice juicy steak? Most of us do from time to time, and we don\\u2019t trouble our consciences too much with the rights and wrongs of eating meat. Others, while vaguely aware that we ought to go vegan, just can\\u2019t face the rest of our lives denying ourselves bacon, beef, butter etc. But once we start looking into the arguments for veganism, it becomes difficult to justify the omnivore diet.\\nTake the environment for starters. Livestock farming has a massive impact on the planet, producing around 14% of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions according to the UN. That\\u2019s roughly the same as the total amount of global transport emissions. Animals are extremely inefficient processors of the maize and soya that farmers grow to feed them. If we ate those crops ourselves instead of feeding them to livestock, we could free up hundreds of millions of hectares of rainforests, savannahs and wetlands where wild animals could flourish instead.\\nAnd then there are the arguments about animal welfare. Recent scientific research indicates what many of us feel we already know \\u2013 that animals have complex emotional lives not dissimilar to our own. Intensive farming \\u2013 the kind that confines hens, pigs and cattle to squalid indoor pens \\u2013 thwarts their instincts to move around freely and build social bonds with their group. Tens of billions of animals exist in this way, and that\\u2019s before their short lives are ended in the horror house of the abattoir. As for those who say a vegan diet isn\\u2019t healthy, elite athletes who have made the switch, including world tennis No 1 Novak Djokovic, prove you don\\u2019t need animal protein to excel at the highest levels in sport.\\nOn the other side of the argument we developed as omnivores and every human culture has its culinary traditions, based on the taste and aesthetics of meat and dairy. Do we really want to live in a world where there is no beef Wellington or cheese souffl\\xe9? As for the environmentalist arguments, omnivores now have some serious eco-credentials behind them. A study at Cornell University shows that a diet that includes a few small portions of grass-fed meat a week may actually be greener than eating no animal products at all.\\nAnd when it comes to animal welfare, rather than abandoning animal products altogether, couldn\\u2019t we do more good by pressing for genuinely transparent labelling of our meat and dairy? If consumers really know what they are getting, fewer people might be willing to buy the \\xa33 chicken produced in the barbaric conditions of the agricultural industry. As for a vegan diet being healthier, we should stop giving airtime to self-appointed health experts and lifestyle bloggers. Some dieticians argue that there are nutrients we need that we just can\\u2019t get from plants alone. Yes, we can get calcium from kale and iron from beans, but the quantity, quality and bio-availability of such elements are far better when we get them from animal rather than plant sources.\\n\\u2014\\nWe\\u2019d love to hear your feedback and what you think we should talk about next, who we should have on and what our future debates should be.\\xa0\\nSend us an email or voice note with your thoughts to podcasts@intelligencesquared.com or Tweet us @intelligence2.\\xa0\\nAnd if you\\u2019d like to support our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations, as well as ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content, early access and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared today.\\n\\nJust visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.\\xa0\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices'