“The generally accepted computation is that 2½ acres of land are required to provide a minimum adequate diet for each person, by Western standards anyhow. On a vegetarian diet it has been estimated that 1½ acres per head may provide enough. The reason for this difference is that animals grazed for meat-eating purposes require about 15 times more land than is necessary to raise an equivalent amount of nutrition in the form of grains, vegetables and fruit for human consumption. This means that India, on a vegetarian diet, is living far more wisely within its own land resources than are the meat-eating peoples.”

— Richard Gregg (social philosopher)

Which Way Lies Hope? An Examination of Capitalism, Communism, Socialism and Gandhiji's Programme (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1952), p. 8 https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.54786/2015.54786.Which-Way-Lies-Hope#page/n15/mode/2up.

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“If 22 bushels (1,300 pounds) of rice and 22 bushels of winter grain are harvested from a quarter acre field such as one of these, then the field will support five to ten people each investing an average of less than one hour of labor per day. But if the field were turned over to pasturage, or if the grain were fed to cattle, only one person could be supported per quarter acre. Meat becomes a luxury food when its production requires land which could provide food directly for human consumption. This has been shown clearly and definitely. Each person should ponder seriously how much hardship he is causing by indulging in food so expensively produced.”

Masanobu Fukuoka book The One-Straw Revolution

Source: The One-Straw Revolution (1975), Chapter 3, pp. 103-104

“Political economists tell us that the produce of an acre of land in wheat, corn, potatoes, and other vegetables, and in fruits, will sustain animal life sixteen times as long as when the produce of the same acre is converted into flesh, by feeding and fattening animals upon it.”

William Alcott (1798–1859) American physician and author

Source: Vegetable Diet (1838), p. 252

“Some yoga teachers say that a vegetarian diet is not necessary.
[Pattabhi Jois]: [laughing] Oh … a new method!
Many Indians and Westerners eat meat.
[Pattabhi Jois]: They are not practicing yoga. Meat eating makes you stiff.
What is the most important yogic practice in this time?
[Pattabhi Jois]: Vegetarian diet is the most important practice for yoga.”

K. Pattabhi Jois (1915–2009) Indian yoga teacher

Interview in Sharon Gannon and David Life, Jivamukti Yoga, Ballantine Books, 2002, p. 83 http://books.google.it/books?id=D_9oFtc1ZLMC&pg=PA83.

“The central question about vegetarian diets used to be whether it was healthy to eliminate meat and other animal foods … Now, however, the main question has become whether it is healthier to be a vegetarian than to be a meat eater. … The answer to both questions, based on currently available evidence, seems to be yes. A properly planned vegetarian diet can provide all the essential nutrients, even for growing children … And, on the whole, vegetarians are less likely to be afflicted with the chronic diseases that are leading killers and cripplers in societies where meat is the centerpiece of the diet.”

Jane E. Brody (1941) American writer

"Personal Health; New Research on the Vegetarian Diet", in The New York Times (12 October 1983) http://www.nytimes.com/1983/10/12/garden/personal-health-new-research-on-the-vegetarian-diet.html

“I am amazed when I see young people eating meat. It seems to me so much thing from other times! The carnivore youth is not with the times, it has a stomach of the nineteenth century, who carnivorized Europe… Eating pieces of slaughtered animals is an anomaly, out of a vegetarian diet there is no real youth. Meat is mostly an anguished habit of old people. Requiring meat dishes, talking about it, remembering it, it's a thing of old people, old and unable to rejuvenate with a decidedly alternative diet.”

Guido Ceronetti Insetti senza frontiere

Mi stupisco, quando vedo gente giovane mangiare carne. Mi sembra talmente cosa d'altre epoche! La gioventù carnivora non è coi tempi, ha uno stomaco da secolo XIX, che carnivorizzò l'Europa... Cibarsi di pezzi di animali macellati è un'anomalia, fuori della dieta vegetariana non c'è giovinezza vera. La carne è per lo più un'angosciata abitudine dei vecchi. Richiedere piatti di carne, parlarne, ricordarli è cosa da vecchi, e da vecchi incapaci di svecchiarsi con una dieta decisamente alternativa.
Insects without Borders: Thoughts of the Unknown Philosopher (Insetti senza frontiere: Pensieri del filosofo ignoto), Milan: Adelphi, 2009, § 34.

“Diet and nutrition advice is often focused on how much we ought to eat, and misses the point: More important than how much, how often, and when we eat is what we eat. Different kinds of animals require different types of diets. We humans are built to thrive on starch. The more rice, corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and beans we eat, the trimmer, more energetic, and healthier we become.
Starch? Really? Isn't that for laundry? Yes, but it's also the key to optimum health and satiety. We hear a lot about carbohydrates and whether or not we should eat them, but we don't hear enough about the most valuable type of carbohydrate, starch.”

John A. McDougall (1947) American physician

The Starch Solution (Rodale Books, 2013), Ch. 1, p. 6 https://books.google.it/books?id=if9YAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA6.

“Common sense is the great thing in all this. You eat what you find through a minimum requirement keeps your body healthy. Each individual and each group finds for itself the diet which suits its purposes, climate, tradition and background.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Source: The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom (1980)

“When people are eating meat, I think of it as a bit like smoking. It’s sort of Russian roulette. You may not get diabetes, but your chances of getting diabetes, about 1 in 3. You may not get cancer, but, your chances, if you’re a man, about 1 in 2. A woman, 1 in 3. Your chances of gaining weight, 2 out of 3. It’s not all diet, but, most of it is. The best thing that you can do to make sure that you empty all those bullets out of the chamber and not taking a risk with your health is to get the animal products out of your diet and eat healthy foods.”

Neal D. Barnard (1953) American physician, author, and clinical researcher

Interview in the documentary-film What the Health by Kip Andersen (2017).

“Growing up, my diet was pretty easy and simple — I was raised on a vegetarian diet. … When I was 15, I watched the documentary Glass Walls [by PETA] and read The China Study [by T. Colin Campbell], and then it became quite clear to me why I wanted to be vegetarian and why I wanted to adopt a vegan lifestyle. After doing my research, I chose to go vegan and have been dedicated to a vegan diet for four years now. … I feel healthier on a clean, whole foods diet that is very simple — especially during competition. And since a plant-based diet is less calorically dense than other diets, I need to make sure I’m eating enough food so I up my portions a lot. I think of veggies as nutrition and water, not a food where I can get energy so I don’t even count veggies when I’m counting calories and nutrition. For energy, I go to potatoes, whole grains, and starchy veggies. I’m obsessed with carrots and sweet potatoes.”

Tia Blanco (1997)

"Why Surfer Tia Blanco Is Vegan" https://web.archive.org/web/20170315222610/http://www.mensjournal.com:80/health-fitness/articles/why-surfer-tia-blanco-is-vegan-w471552, interview with Men's Journal (March 2017).

“A diet optimally designed for adult humans would naturally be ideal for the children of that species, too. There are no special needs children have that would make them require a different diet. Even at the time of rapid growth and brain development, the optimal supply of energy and essential fats can be met by an appropriately planned vegetarian or vegan diet.”

Joel Fuhrman (1953) Family Physician and author

Source: Disease-Proof Your Child (2005), Ch. 4, p. 157

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