Vegan lifestyle articles that discuss ways of living in peace with humans, animals, and the environment.
Animal Place Sanctuary
July 2014
Help Other Animals
One obvious benefits of veganism is how it helps other animals being exploited. The more vegans there are, the less demand there is for meat, dairy, and eggs and fewer animals will need to be killed to meet that demand. This supply and demand theory works for the leather, wool, silk, down, fur, animal testing, and animal entertainment industries as well. If an animal is being used and you decide to buy alternatives, you’ll help reduce the number of animals being exploited, tortured, abused, and killed daily.
Fight Climate Change
According the United Nations, 20% of greenhouse gas emissions are a product of livestock, resulting from feed production, animal “emissions”, deforestation for cattle grazing, transport of livestock and end product. Other studies estimates 50-80% of ozone warming gases are caused by animal farming. More carbon emissions come from the meat industry than the world’s transportation combined. Producing one calorie of meat releases more than ten times as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than does producing one calorie of plant protein. Choosing what you put on your plate for every meal, you are actively choosing to combat or add to our world’s quickly growing amounts of greenhouse gases.
Save Water
The meat, dairy, and egg industries are a primary source pollutant of our world’s rivers, ponds, lakes, and aquatic ecosystems. 75% of the United States’ waterways are polluted due to animal farming. Not to mention that it takes more than 95% less water to produce a pound of any vegetable than it does to produce a pound of meat. By going vegan, you could save more than 300,000 gallons of water in just one year.
Feed Everyone
In the United States, more than 80% of all corn 50% of soy grown is fed to farmed animals. Globally, approximately 50% of grain crops are fed to farmed animals. Currently the world produces enough plant-based foods to feed every single person in the world. Despite this reality, few efforts are being put into creating food oases and accessibility of affordable food. All the land used to grow “animal feed” could be used to grow diverse crops for human consumption.
Save the Rainforest
Raising livestock uses more land than growing plant-based crops. If the animals are grass-fed, rather than grain-fed, this uses even more land because they need a much greater area for grazing. The Amazon rain forest alone is being cleared at a rate of approximately 20,000 square miles per year, that’s 150 acres a minute, and 80% of that is to make room for cattle ranching operations and to grow soy fed to cattle across the globe. Destroying forests at this rate is resulting in the loss of more than 50,000 plant, animal, and insect species per year in the Amazon alone. These figures don’t include the deforestation and species devastation happening across the globe.
Fight Human Health Crisis
Animals on farms are given subtherapeutic (not enough to treat disease) levels of antibiotics, several of which are important to fighting human diseases. Between 50-80% of all antibiotics in the United States are given to farmed animals to promote growth instead of treating actual disease. Industrial farming creates a perfect breeding area for contagious viruses. This same situation is what caused the emergence of many epidemics, including wide spreading bird flu and swine flu. With the practice of industrialized farming growing, the threat of a global pandemic is higher than ever.
Help Personal Health
Adopting a vegan diet has been linked to a great deal of health benefits. Switching to veganism is often accompanied by reduced headaches, loss of allergy symptoms, loss of indigestion, gas, bloating, and IBS, clearer skin, lowered cholesterol. The biggest benefits though, according to the documentary Forks Over Knives, are the prevention and reversal of heart disease, high blood pressure, type II diabetes, and greatly reducing risk of cancer. Consuming meat, dairy, and eggs has been shown to be significantly detrimental to human health. Healthier people will make for a healthier planet, and a healthier planet, will of course, lead to healthier people.
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