Health
Despite the common thought that vegetarians are sickly and malnourished, the truth is that vegetarians are the healthiest people on the planet. Studies have clearly shown over the years that vegetarians weigh less, have lower cholesterol, suffer from far less disease and generally live longer than meat-eating humans. Fruits, vegetables and other natural foods are unable to carry the many pathogens, bacteria and diseases such as e-coli that meat easily does. It is very clear that the absolute easiest move that you can make to increase your level of health is to stop consuming meat and animal byproducts.
The Environment
Most of us would never even consider the fact, but a diet that includes meat and other animal byproducts leaves a huge footprint on our one and only Earth. For example: the production of one pound of meat consumes 5,000 gallons of water in comparison to the 25 gallons of water needed to produce a pound of wheat. The same farm animals who consume 80% of the grown food in the United States produce nearly 150
times the natural waste (excrement) of the humans in the same country. Craziness!
Killing Animals & Consuming Their Flesh is Wrong!
Period. Even if we lived in an ideal world where farming was scaled way down to the family level and the animals in said farms were free range and lived full lives, destroying them in the end in order to eat their flesh, muscle and fat is awfully unethical and more than a little gross. Tack onto this fact the truth of the meat industry as it exists today and you have to open your eyes to the fact that these animals are raised, drugged, exploited and murdered en masse for nothing more than profit.
To consume a purely vegetarian diet is to say to the companies and individuals that benefit from these profits that you will no longer give them a reason to murder sentient beings and take your money for having done it. PETA estimates that the average vegetarian will save 95 animals every single year that they do not consume
animal byproducts; a large number and an obvious result that we can all sink our teeth into.
Being a Vegetarian is Cool
Yup, you heard me right! Vegetarianism is hawked by movie stars, educated young professionals and yoga moms all over North America and making the switch yourself puts you in league with them. This is not to say that you should stop consuming meat for this reason, but the recognition of your peers as being a conscious eater is an added bonus to the health benefits and lives saved by your choice.
Consciousness
A vegetarian diet is, in my opinion, 100% necessary for any individual who is interested in furthering themselves spiritually toward a better understanding and acceptance of the unity of all things in our universe. To be a Christian or Muslim who believes that God placed all beings on Earth by hand and then kill them to consume them is hypocrisy in its ugliest form. The same goes for Buddhists, Jews and every other member of
an institution that professes a belief in the unity of all things only to willfully and systematically destroy them.
Vegetarian Food is Easy & Delicious
Myths abound about unhealthy vegan eaters who consume too little in the way of vitamins and minerals but the truth is that eating a vegetarian diet is healthy, delicious and surprisingly easy. Food replacements abound in the form of tofu (not as bad as you think), soy beverages (can’t possibly tell the difference in a bowl of cereal) and restaurants and supermarkets are quickly catching onto the trend and making wide varieties of yummy vegetarian foods available to each and every one of us. If you are resisting the pull of vegetarianism for the sake of an enjoyable diet, don’t be fooled; making any major change can be difficult but proper research and creative cooking can ensure that you never go without something absolutely delicious to chew on!
- 0% of grain production in the U.S. is used to feed farm animals and it is not just the U.S. but many other countries are following this pattern. The amount of grains fed to the animals to produce the meat one time in the U.S. is sufficient to feed 7 times the population.
- It takes 22,000 litres of water to produce 1 kg of meat as compared to 200 litres of water needed to produce 1 kg of wheat. The water used to raise animals for meat is more than half the water used in the U.S.
- 1 calorie of soyabeans is produced by using 3 calories of fossil fuel whereas 1 calorie of beef is produced using 35 calories of fossil fuel.
- The number of farm animals is increasing at a fast rate as the demand of meat is increasing worldwide.
- 86 Mega tonnes of carbon dioxide is produced due to meat production as compared to 48 Mega tonnes of carbon dioxide produced due to cars in Australia.
- The fuel used for refrigeration and transportation of one day non-vegetarian diet per person is about 60 litres.
- For each hamburger that is originated from animals raised on rainforest land, approximately 55 square feet of forests have been destroyed.
