Reasons to become a Vegan
Animal Rights – many people are vegan because they respect animals and believe in animal rights. They see it as a way of doing their share to reduce animal suffering and abuse. Being vegan is the most powerful and practical statement anyone can make against the oppression and exploitation of animals, wild and domestic.
Environmental – Vast tracts of land are needed to graze the world’s 1.25 billion cattle alone. Destruction of natural vegetation, including rain forests, and massive erosion of topsoil are just two of the many serious environmental problems associated with livestock grazing.
Meat and leather production also impacts very negatively on water supplies and causes serious pollution of natural waterways which leads to the die-off of aquatic ecosystems. Leather and hide processing uses a lot of environmentally harmful chemicals which end up in rivers, streams and lakes, making the water unfit for consumption and causing the death of fish and other animals using that water.
Whereas it takes 15000 litres of water to produce food for a meat eater for one day, and 5000 litres of water to produce food for a vegetarian for one day, it requires only 1500 litres of water to produce food for a vegan for a day.
Billions of cattle, sheep and other ruminating livestock animals produce vast quantities of methane gas that is a major contributing factor in global warming (greenhouse effect).
Human Health – People who do not consume meat and other animal products such as dairy and eggs are generally much healthier and live longer than those who do. Vegans have a far lower incidence of cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, strokes and many other common diseases associated with consuming animal protein.
Vegans rarely if ever suffer from food poisoning, and spare their bodies the chemicals, growth stimulants and antibiotics commonly found in the animal products that non-vegans so readily consume.
World Hunger – Almost a billion people across the world suffer from starvation or acute food shortage every day, and it is estimated that around 60 million of these people die each year. In a world that produces more than enough food to literally eradicate starvation, it is a crime that this situation should prevail.
Vast amounts of the world’s crop production, which includes just under 40% of the grain produced, is fed to animals which then get slaughtered to be eaten by a relatively small number of humans who can afford meat. Grain that is fed to livestock in the USA alone amounts to 135 million tons annually and could feed 400 million vegans.
Between 10 and 20 times more people can be fed on a plant based diet than on a meat based diet. There is no good reason why anyone, anywhere in the world should starve.