Are you a MORAL Vegan or a HEALTHY vegan?!
Answers: Which one? And why? Please don't give me a link to some ecowhacked video potraying animal cruelty. TELL ME WHY!
Are you saying that you can't be moral AND be healthy?
I'd say I am both. I'm vegan for dozens of reasons. For instance, 80% of the plants on this planet are grown and harvested for animal consumption, so that we can raise them for slaughter. And yet they produce far less food in return - 16 pounds of grain to raise a single pound of meat, and 2500 gallons of water per pound of meat on top of it. Such wastefulness just doesn't seem right - not when you have a choice at the dinner table to partake in it or not. Obviously not everyone can (but those are the people that would benefit from more vegetarians in the planet - more food, more water, where it is needed, not where it is craved and wanted).
Besides, people like to believe that the animal cruelty videos are filmed in a foreign country, staged, old, or pure propaganda. I have personally been to a cattle farm and seen absolutely abhorrent stuff (you can email me if you want to know the nitty gritty details). My friend worked for 1 1/2 years on a pig farm in Southern Illinois, one of the largest pork suppliers in the MidWest, and he quit because he couldn't take it anymore - part of his job was bludeoning to death piglets that were born weak or deformed because they were a waste of money.
:edit:
OK I saw your additional details; when I first became vegan I was already a vegetarian; it was when I did in-depth research for a paper on nutrition, lobbyist involvement in what the government tells you to eat (Food Pyramid) and why the Nutritional Guidelines are as they are in America. The stuff I uncovered (this was for a 60-page term paper for class) reviled me. So I guess those are both moral and health reasons. I realized I couldn't go on supporting some companies or industries. The research I did was more involved than most people do (I had to dig deep to find medical articles, court documents, congressional testimonies... but it was worth it, changed my life).
I'm definitely a moral vegan.
Being healthier had no affect on my decision. Report It
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