The trouble with most people writing is that they have very little knowledge of most fields besides their own tiny specialty or interest. This results in writing nearly intolerable to read as there is always an elephant in the room that is about to step on their head they can’t even see, and usually can’t even imagine.

Like this, for instance, and its complete lack of economics knowledge.

How many animals does a vegetarian save each year?

Not a one, really.

The reason is that the demand for meat is price-constrained – that is, as the price of meat falls, people will consume more of it in a nearly-linear relation. A vegetarian consuming less meat does nothing to change the number of animals consumed. It just means the vegetarian lacks for yummy hamburgers and such.

A better and more insightful question is, and one that actually has academic relevance would be, How many new vegetarians do there have to be before meat production is reduced significantly (say, 20%+) from its current state? Let’s restrict that to the US only, as countries are vastly different.

As a complete wild-ass guess, I’d say that more than 20% of the US population would have to become vegetarians for this to occur –- I’d guess around 35%, as long as it included at least half of the affluent consumers (those who consume the most meat).

Of course, this is very complicated and imprecise, and would be very, very hard to model.

However, my point is that a vegetarian saves no animals at all in a world where the demand for meat is price-constrained for so much of the population (which it is).