Vegan lifestyle articles that discuss ways of living in peace with humans, animals, and the environment.
As of 2019, around 70 billion farmed animals every year are conceived, born, fed, slaughtered, and replaced in order to feed the planet’s 7.8 billion humans. Sustaining 70 billion farmed animals requires more than one third of Earth’s total habitable land and 16 percent of its freshwater....
The farmed animal protection movement could define the 2020s. This is your chance to stand against animal cruelty and environmental destruction by choosing to eat only plants.
At the end of 2018, The Economist declared 2019 “The Year of the Vegan.”
This prediction has turned out to be valid. In March, 37 leading scientists
announced that, in order to feed a future population of 10 billion people,
plants need to become our new main course. In September, a 3D-printer grew
meat in space. In November, the United States’ biggest milk producer filed
for bankruptcy. Throughout 2019, food chains like Burger King, Greggs, and
KFC premiered vegan burgers, sausage rolls, and chicken wings. On the first
day of 2020, a record number of 300.000 people signed up for Veganuary, and
on the sixth day, a vegan menu was served at the Golden Globes.
Vegans take a stand against animal cruelty by eating plant-based diets and
avoiding products like leather, silk, wool, and cosmetics tested on animals.
Vegans also abstain from activities that involve animal exploitation like
horse racing, circus shows, and taking animal selfies. Veganism, for vegans
and non-vegans alike, increases and shapes consumer awareness of the
preventable harm endured by many species of animals.
Are you a non-vegan feeling remorseful about eating animals? Toying with the
idea of ditching meat and dairy? The reasons to adopt a plant-based diet in
2020 are plentiful and varied, ranging from ethical and environmental
aspects to health and economic concerns.
The first reason to become vegan is ethical. In the 2010s, an increasing
body of research confirmed that farmed animals are sentient and social
beings with distinct personalities. Pigs perceive time, pregnant cows cope
better with challenging situations when they have pen-mates, and chickens
can deduce social status by watching other chickens. Animals of all kinds,
including fish and crustaceans, are capable of feeling pain. Turning a part
of an animal’s anatomy into food for human consumption undeniably causes the
animal to suffer. Especially in an economic system that demands
ever-increasing productivity, farmed animals endure short-lived existences,
rife with disease and overcrowding, during which bodily mutilation, physical
restriction, and human abuse are exceedingly common.
Farmed animals suffer, and not only in the places where they are reared.
During their transport to slaughter, on trains, trucks, or ships, farmed
animals endure days of overcrowded and unsanitary conditions without food,
rest, or water. During the heat waves of the late 2010s, animals faced the
additional burden of enduring record-breaking temperatures, with millions
arriving dead at their destinations. Elevated ambient temperatures may also
cause more animals to die in barn fires. At least 4.7 million animals died
in barn fires in the U.S. since 2013.
Many farmed animal species, to maximize their economic potential, have been
bred to the point of physical dysfunction over the last several decades.
Breeding sows, female pigs that have been selectively bred to carry minimal
body fat, often die prematurely because their bodies are unable to cope with
giving birth to an average of 23.5 piglets each year. Some beef cows are
forced to routinely give birth by cesarean sections because they carry a
muscular mutation that maximizes their slaughter weights but precludes the
possibility of vaginal births. Many breeds of factory-farmed chickens grow
so quickly that they lose the ability to walk.
Vegans abstain from consuming all animal-based products, even those labeled
as “humane.” Undercover investigations show that animal cruelty takes place
on allegedly ethical farms, too. All animals, even those “humanely” treated
during their lives, release cortisol and adrenaline just prior to slaughter
and during other stressful situations. Stress responses are routinely
observed in dairy cows when calves are separated from their mothers. Animals
living on small, local farms are exploited and slaughtered, just like
animals inside large factory farms.
Factory farming poses significant health hazards, which makes health—your
own and that of the farmed animals—the second reason to become vegan. The
unsanitary conditions of animal agriculture are known to cause the spread of
E.coli, salmonella, and other illnesses. The extensive use of antibiotics in
factory farming, even in healthy animals, is increasing the risk of
antimicrobial resistance. Mutant bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites
that resist antibiotic treatment caused 160,000 deaths in the U.S. in 2017.
At current infection rates, antibiotic-resistant strains are expected to
kill 10 million people per year by 2050.
The consumable products of animal farming—meat, seafood, milk, and
eggs—endanger human health as well. Meat consumption is associated with
heart disease, high cholesterol, and gastrointestinal cancers. Seafood,
according to a new study, contains increasing levels of mercury due to
overfishing and climate change. Milk consumption has been linked to skin
conditions like acne and is unsuitable for 5.4 billion humans. (A reported
70 percent of the world’s population is lactose intolerant—or lactose
normal, since 70 percent is a clear majority.) Studies of egg consumption
have produced conflicting results—perhaps because the poultry industry
itself from the 1970s onward has funded research on the health effects of
eating eggs.
A plant-based diet, by contrast, offers many health benefits. Vegans avoid
all the health hazards associated with animal product consumption; eating
just plants can even lower the risks of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and
cognitive decline. In the late 2010s, both U.S. and Canadian expert
nutrition associations gave their approval to plant-based diets. A vegan
diet provides all essential nutrients except for Vitamin B12, which
consumers can supplement in capsule, spray, or liquid form. (Contrary to
popular belief, most farmed animals do not themselves produce Vitamin B12;
they too receive it in the form of a supplement. The delivery method for
Vitamin B12 is ultimately a choice between consuming the vitamin directly
and channeling the vitamin indirectly through the body of an animal.)
The third reason for going vegan is environmental sustainability. Animal
products are highly resource-intensive foods because animals, as sentient
beings, need ample food and water to produce muscle, fat, milk, eggs, and
offspring. Cropland, one third of which farmers globally use to grow farmed
animals’ feed, occupies an area roughly the size of South America.
Pastureland for the animals themselves globally covers an area about the
size of Africa.
As of 2019, around 70 billion farmed animals every year are conceived, born,
fed, slaughtered, and replaced in order to feed the planet’s 7.8 billion
humans. Sustaining 70 billion farmed animals requires more than one third of
Earth’s total habitable land and 16 percent of its freshwater. Yet, animal
agriculture contributes only 17 percent of calories to the global diet.
Plant-based foods growing on less than 12 percent of the Earth’s surface
provide the remaining 83 percent of humans’ calories. This disproportion is
especially concerning when considering that, in 2018, 820 million people
suffered from hunger and 1.1 billion people lacked access to freshwater.
Plants consume water, too, but considerably less than animals. A 150-gram
beef burger requires 620 gallons of water, while a soy burger of the same
size requires only 41 gallons. Because of its resource intensity, animal
farming is responsible for a whopping 14.5 percent of annual global
greenhouse gas emissions.
The production of meat, despite its inefficiencies, more than quadrupled
between 1961 and 2013. Animal agriculture has consequently become a major
driver of deforestation. If the human appetite for animal products continues
to increase unabated, as the global population grows to a projected 10
billion people by 2050, all of the world’s remaining forests could disappear
to make way for farmland. By requiring increasingly more land, animal
agriculture is destroying the natural habitats of many species, such as
elephants, jaguars, and other primates, all of whom face the threat of
extinction.
Animal agriculture further strains the environment by contributing to local
air and water pollution. Buying local products, often presented in positive
terms, can mean that consumers are directly contributing to the pollution of
their home regions. In Germany, for example, buying local meat increases the
already illegally high nitrate levels in the groundwater.
The fourth and final reason to become vegan is social justice. Animal
agriculture is part of an industrial production system that is riddled with
social inequities. The noisy and smelly conditions of factory farming cause
physical and psychological harm to both factory farm workers and adjacent
communities. Factory farm workers are often members of vulnerable groups,
including minorities, undocumented immigrants, refugees, prisoners, and
people lacking education. Without better job prospects, factory farm workers
spend ten or more hours per day in environments filled with knives, saws,
grinders, and other machines designed to cut, kill, and dissect.
In 2019, high-speed industrial machines in U.S. slaughter plants killed
approximately 140 birds per minute. Workers are required to “process”
thousands of animals, many of whom are actively fighting for their lives,
each working day. A 2017 study estimates that in the U.S. alone, 27 factory
farm workers daily require hospitalization as a result of amputations and
other workplace injuries. Factory farm workers are paid exceedingly low
wages and endure unsanitary working conditions and the constant threat of
job loss due to aggressive productivity requirements.
With this new decade ahead, you have the opportunity to join a movement that
could conceivably define the 2020s. The climate crisis became more acute
during the 2010s and is, unfortunately, worsening every year. Animal rights
also deserve to take center stage based on the undeniable evidence that
animals, just like humans, are sentient beings capable of suffering.
Veganism is a highly effective and necessary response to humans’ and
animals’ many predicaments because it tackles climate change and animal
exploitation simultaneously. Go vegan in 2020 for your health, your planet,
and a more compassionate world for all sentient creatures.
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