Does anyone have any good arguments for becoming a vegetarian or vegan?!
Does anyone have any good arguments for becoming a vegetarian or vegan?
Answers:
Here are just a few:
1. Avoiding meat is one of the best and simplest ways to cut down your fat consumption. Modern farm animals are deliberately fattened up to increase profits. Eating fatty meat increases your chances of having a heart attack or developing cancer.
2. Every minute of every working day, thousands of animals are killed in slaughter-houses. Pain and misery are common. In the US alone, 500,000 animals are killed for meat every hour.
3.There are millions of cases of food poisoning recorded every year. The vast majority are caused by eating meat.
4. Meat contains absolutely nothing - no proteins, vitamins or minerals - that the human body cannot obtain perfectly happily from a vegetarian diet.
5. African countries - where millions are starving to death - export grain to the developed world so that animals can be fattened for our dining tables.
6. 'Meat' can include the tail, head, feet, rectum and spinal cord of an animal.
7. A sausage can contain ground up intestines. How can anyone be sure that the intestines are empty when they are ground up? Do you really want to eat the content of a pig's intestines?
8. If we eat the plants we grow instead of feeding them to animals, the world's food shortage will disappear virtually overnight. Remember that 100 acres of land will produce enough beef for 20 people but enough wheat to feed 240 people.
9. Every day, tens of millions of one-day-old male chicks are killed because they will not be able to lay eggs. There are no rules about how this mass slaughter takes place. Some are crushed or suffocated to death. Many are used for fertilizer or fed to other animals.
10. Animals who die for your dinner table die alone, in terror, in sadness and in pain. The killing is merciless and inhumane.
gives you smellier wind..
DONT YOU LOVE THE WAY VEGGIEMONGS COME ON HERE AND CONDESEND TO THOSE WHO ARE NOT AS PASTY FACED AS THEM?!?
YES ITS A CHOICE AND I LIKE MY FOOD HAVING A FACE.
ALSO, IT HAS BEEN SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN VEG AND FRUIT EMIT HIGH PITCHED SQUEALS WHEN PULLED FROM GROUND ETC..
YOU MURDEROUS VEGGIE AND CEREAL KILLERS WILL ROT IN HELL!!!
it's much easier to grow veg than a cow
McDonalds and Bernard Matthews are 2.
If you need any more, just ask
You get to meet likeminded, really interesting people.
Beacause of the many animals are treated in Dairys, etc.
Because eating something that once had a face is gross.
Because drinking thick white fluid from a cow or goat is disgusting.
By the way, I am not either vegan or vegetarian. I did not work this long and fight this hard to get to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian :P
Saving the animals would be the best argument - since we can grow crops to feed everyone. Long time ago, scarcity of food led humans to become meat eaters. We don't have the problem anymore, at least in the USA.
Just check out http://www.kentuckyfriedcruelty.co.uk/...
Have a look at the Pamela Anderson video (no, it's not that one).
not really, it's a very personal choice. some people see animals as a lower life form, some people don't see why the human species considers itself superior to others and therefore assumes it has the right to kill and eat animals. basically you get those who love animals and cant stand inhumane treatment of them, and those who couldnt give a monkeys (no pun intended!!) you're unlikely to be able to change the minds of either
from a health point of view, people who dont eat meat and dairy products tend to be slimmer, have lower cholesterol and get more nutrients from food as they eat alot of nuts, fruit, vegetable, soya etc.
Veganism or vegetarianism both take a lot of dicipline. Aside from the fact that both can contribute to a healthier lifestyle, there is also the question of morality towards what you eat. Yes, many turn to this solution for health but to go into without the question of what life you are saving could establish a bad diet. You need to make up for what youre not eating anymore. For instance, meat carries many of the main nutrients we need to survive, such as iron, you need to be able to healthily without swaying and sticking to junk foods.
Read Peter Singer's Animal Liberation. It is a pretty good argument.
That said, I am still having a crisis, as my question right before yours shows.
gives you pailer skin.
need to be on iron pills for the rest of your life.
also my moms friend polly has been a vegetarian for all her life and now she has to be on a iron duplement and now her body is regecting that and so now she is on the verge of dieing.
think about it would you like to die from doing that?
plus (I don't know if you believe in god or not) god made animals with hoofs and toes for us to eat. not to have as pets.
eat meat!!!
good luck!
No, I don't.
Humans are meant to be omnivores.
If we didn't eat meat, there would be no need for animals that currently provide us with it. Their by-products would disappear too. So it would have quite a devastating effect... Think about it. No milk - no dairy products. No leather. No glue.
The only thing wasted on a pig is the squeal...
No fertiliser for growing all those veggies...
Plus the health issues that have already been mentioned.
the only argument would be is to make sure u take vitamins daily mostly iron pills
It is healthier for you for several reasons.
1.)Animal fats are not good for your body.
2.)The meat industry does not raise animals in clean environments and they use antibiotics and hormones to alter the health of their animals.
3.) Mindful vegetarians usually consume more fiber, vitamins and nutrients than their meat eating counterparts.
It is better for the environment. It takes many more resources to raise meat and process it rather than to grow produce.
It is better for your soul.
Its a choice, no one needs to defend their dietary choice. (Remember not to nag your meat eating mates thought.)
most veggies do not have all the hormones and stuff that is in meat these days...
um.. plus the taste of meat is yucky
There are too many good reasons to list them all. So I'll start with a good Web Site to view. Meet your Meat.org narrated by Alec Baldwin. It's a real eye opener. It shows the deplorable conditions the animals are exposed to. The animals are diseased,left to die slow painful deaths. So the farmers turn to over use of antibiotics, and growth hormones. to speed production. (any wonder why the rise in cancer in humans,? or why preteens are going through puberty at such earlier ages than a few generations ago. or the average shoe size is 2-3 sizes larger than previous generations. could it be the growth hormones in our food?)This answered a alot of questions, as well as brought up other links re guarding better food choices. If you still think it's OK to eat meat after viewing this. at least choose animal meat that is raised "free range" or by organic farming practice.
No, you need B vitamins from meat and omega-3 oils from fish.
Despite the horrid animal cruely, if you educate yourself about meat, it just doesnt make sense. The same way you take in protein and B12 and iron from meat, you also take in blood, pus, urine, fecal matter, bacteria, parasites, growth hormones, steroids, antibiotics, cholesterol, fat, and all sorts of other gross stuff. Meat has to be cooked to a certain temperature, just to kill off the bacteria and parasites. I dont think dead parasites and bacteria are any better to eat. A veggie or fruit, on the other hand, only needs a quick rinse and can be eaten raw, or cooked. If you can all the nutrition you need from whole grains, and a plant based diet, why eat meat? Why should a harmless creature have to die in order for someone to satisfy their own greed and appetite, when Mother Nature gives us all we need. Cows give us the gift of milk, butter and cheese, and chickens give us the gift of eggs. Why do we have to kill them and take it all. Its selfish and cruel. Just my opinion
Reasons for becoming Vegan:
-The philosophy of animal rights is rational
It is not rational to discriminate arbitrarily. And discrimination against nonhuman animals is arbitrary. It is wrong to treat weaker human beings, especially those who are lacking in normal human intelligence, as "tools" or "renewable resources" or "models" or "commodities." It cannot be right, therefore, to treat other animals as if they were "tools," "models and the like, if their psychology is as rich as (or richer than) these humans. To think otherwise is irrational.
- The philosophy of animal rights is scientific
The philosophy of animal rights is respectful of our best science in general and evolutionary biology in particular. The latter teaches that, in Darwin's words, humans differ from many other animals "in degree," not in kind." Questions of line drawing to one side, it is obvious that the animals used in laboratories, raised for food, and hunted for pleasure or trapped for profit, for example, are our psychological kin. This is no fantasy, this is fact, proven by our best science.
-The philosophy of animal rights is unprejudiced
Racists are people who think that the members of their race are superior to the members of other races simply because the former belong to their (the "superior") race. Sexists believe that the members of their sex are superior to the members of the opposite sex simply because the former belong to their (the "superior") sex. Both racism and sexism are paradigms of unsupportable bigotry. There is no "superior" or "inferior" sex or race. Racial and sexual differences are biological, not moral, differences.
The same is true of speciesism -- the view that members of the species Homo sapiens are superior to members of every other species simply because human beings belong to one's own (the "superior") species. For there is no "superior" species. To think otherwise is to be no less predjudiced than racists or sexists.
-"Every person who goes vegan results in a decrease in demand for animal products.
Veganism is something that each of us can do now. No campaign, legislation, litigation, is required. You can just do it. It is completely within your control.
And it is easy. It's just a matter of really taking nonhuman animals seriously and not just saying that you take them seriously. It's just a matter of recognizing that whatever pleasure you get from a steak or ice cream cone, or wearing a leather coat, it cannot possibly justify inflicting pain, suffering, and death on an animal. Giving up flesh is not enough. There is no moral distinction that can be drawn between meat on one hand, and dairy, eggs, or other animal foods on the other. Animals used for dairy and eggs are treated horribly and end up in the same slaughterhouse as meat animals.
There is probably more suffering in a glass of milk than in a steak.
"Free-range" or "humanely raised" animals or animal products are not the answer. Those labels may make you feel better, but they don't do anything for the nonhumans you're exploiting.
" -Gary Francione (from: http://www.animal-law.org/govegan.html... )
Please visit http://animal-law.org and view the 4 slideshows to the right of your screen for more reasons to become Vegan.
-For health reasons please vist http://vegweb.com
And as always if there is anything I can do to help anyone go Vegan please PM me.
Good luck!
No
There are SO many good reasons for making a transition to a vegetarian/vegan diet.
Environment- Raising animals for food uses vast quantities of natural resources, including, water, land, and oil. It uses about 860 million acres of land in the US and creates huge amounts of water and air pollution. Livestock produce 130 times the amount of waste that people do. With the amount of land and resources it takes to raise livestock for one meat eating person, you could support enough crops for twenty vegetarians.
Health- Vegetarian diets contain less overall fat, especially saturated fat, are lower in cholesterol (cholesterol free if vegan), include huge amounts of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, are higher in fiber which is protective against diseases like cancer, diabetes, and coranary artery disease, and contain phytochemicals (plant chemicals) which are believed to help prevent and fight disease. Vegetarians typically have clearer skin, improved digestion, and better overall health than their meat eating counterparts.
Compassion- The vast majority of animals raised for human consumption are raised on huge factory farms. These are not the small family farms where you picture the animals spending their days grazing in an open field. Many never set foot outside until it's time to be loaded on the truck for the slaughter house. They are overcrowded, given as little care as possilble, and continually given loads of antibiotics to keep them alive under these conditions. In order to fatten them up quicker they are also given so many growth hormones that it's common for their legs (especially chickens)to break under their own weight. At the slaughter house many animals are hung upside down and boiled, skinned, and/or slaughtered while fully conscious.
Personally I am still a "newbie" vegetarian. (1 year) It is the best thing I have ever done...for myself, animals, and the Earth. I will not go back to a meat based diet again. With all the improvements on my health (there have been many!) and the more I do research and learn, the more it just confirms that I have made the right choice.
Animals are, for the most part consious. Especially pigs and chickens. There is loads of research on that subject. Also cows, and things associated with cattle ranching have a giant impact on the generation of greenhouse gasses (namely methane). If there were no cattle farming we wouldn't have as big a problem with Global Warming.
A vegetarian/vegan lifestyle is very heathy, you can avoid many kinds of cancer and have a lower risk of heart attack, amoung other things.
About the first poster: I always here meat-eaters say "plants feel pain, it's been scientifically proven" Does anybody have any idea what they are refering to?
Show somebody a picture of a lamb or something cute and tell them how they're brutally slaughtered!!
Or tell people of how a lot of animals are treated when they're being 'harvested': like chickens; chickens are kept in huge sheds, with barely any room to move around as they are so close to each other, and when they are mass produced, they are force fed form when they're young, so they're extremely 'obese', and their bones haven't matured yet, so their legs break, and they get trampled on by other chickens, and the ammonia from the s*** burns their legs...so the next time you see a chicken in the supermarket, look for the chickens and look at their legs...
Lovely..
Take a good look at the animals that are in the slaughter house. You can see the fear in their eyes because they know what is going to happen to them.
We would hate to see the same look of fear in the eyes of our cats and dogs so why do we subject cows, sheep and pigs to that terror.
Reasons for being vegan:
Animals killed for food suffer huge amounts of fear at abbatoirs and despite what is claimed they are usually not killed humanely.They are also often very young-pork,chicken,duck and lamb all routinely come from juvenile animals and veal comes from cattle that are literally babies.
Most farm animals are fed a diet full of additives and routinely given drugs such as antibiotics-many of which are still in meat you buy from the store.
Dairy cows are kept pregnant,their calves are taken away at a few days old which causes huge distress to mother and calf.Females are reared for milk but male calves are killed as they will never produce much milk compared to beef breeds.The cows are killed as soon as their milk production decreases-usually about 7 yrs old when they could naturally live a lot longer.Their meat is poor quality and usually ends up in pet food.
Egg-laying hens are often battery farmed.Barn and free range are also usually kept in unhealthily crowded conditions.They are never allowed to incubate their eggs and rear chicks so they lay eggs constantly.This leads to calcium deprivation and they are killed for very cheap chicken as soon as this affects their health too much.Of the eggs that are fertilised and used to produce the next generation of egg-layers some of course produce male chicks.These are worthless as like the male dairy calves they will never grow as fat as meat breed poultry so they are gassed and sold as the 'day old chicks' people buy as snake food.
Honey bees make honey to feed their colonies during the winter and dry periods when flowers are unavailable.They try-and fail of course-to defend it from bee-keepers and many die by getting their stings caught in the protective suit and being disembowled.Also honey is nectar bees have swallowed and removed the water from and then vomitted back up-yuck.
Your body can be perfectly healthy on an animal product free diet.
Its all about equal rights of living on this earth. It doesn't mean that if we are human beings we only have the superior rights of living on this earth. If an animal kills a human being we group together to kill it. What about those helpless animals which we kill everyday to satisfy our appetite. Our mother nature has given plenty of vegetarian options.
Finally remember one thing ....that the blood and remains of countless slaughtered animals is polluting the environment and it will raise its head in the form of a deadly disease one day....for sure....
Most animals which we eat are vegetarians. Why put your food through a vegetarian first and then eat it? Eat the vegetables directly from the plant without processing them.
That being said, why do we have incisors for cutting through meat if we were intended to be vegetarians?