Five Non-Nutritional Reasons to Go Meatless
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

Julieanna Hever, Plant Based Dietitian
May 2014

Eschewing meat and choosing plants as the foundation for the most perfect diet is a decision supported in multiple dimensions, such as health, ecology, and sustainability. Nutritionally speaking, humans do not require animal products to survive. We, in fact, benefit from emphasizing plants as fuel, enjoying a reduced risk for obesity and most of the chronic diseases that plague society at all-time highs. All nutrients can be found – packaged better – in plants, save for the microbial-produced vitamin B12 and sun-inspired vitamin D.

But, in addition to these health-oriented advantages, there are at least these five crucial non-nutritional reasons for going plant-based…

1. Overuse of antibiotics has led to the proliferation of superbugs – bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics – resulting in the heightened risk of untreatable infections in humans. Click here to see Examples of How Antibiotic Resistance Spreads. Seventy to eighty percent of all antibiotics sold in the United States are sold for agricultural use. I previously wrote a more detailed analysis on the threat of antibiotic resistance here.

2. Livestock production is the most significant contributor to environmental destruction, more so than all transportation combined. Factory farming is incredibly energy-intensive, depleting our land, oceans, and fresh water and food supplies.

From The Vegan Society

We are using our planet’s resources at approximately 1.6 times the rate beyond what it can provide and we will require two full Earths to sustain our current eating behaviors, according to sustainability consultant, Dr. Richard Oppenlander.

3. Animal cruelty.

The only way to bring animals to the table at the rate at which humans are consuming them is to impose extraordinary conditions, invoking a lifetime of incessant torture, and then untimely, brutal slaughter to approximately 70 billion animals a year.

(See Earthlings trailer.)

4. Animal products are chemical cocktails. Hormones, toxins, pathogens, (more on foodborne illness), chemicals, and medications are all regularly found in meats, dairy, and eggs.

Cartoon by Dan Piraro, Bizarro

Worse, inspections by the government to regulate and protect us from these risks are flawed, failing, imperfect, and deceptive…

5. The consumption of animals costs us exorbitant amounts of money in healthcare by billions of dollars, since eating animals is associated with drastically increased risks of the most common chronic diseases and symptoms requiring long-term pharmaceutical and medical management.

Further, livestock production is heavily subsidized by the government primarily by supporting feed crop operations, saving farmers billions of dollars and helping consumers eat more harmful animal products at lower prices, but suffering the adverse health effects, nonetheless.

---

Return to Animal Rights Articles
Read more at Environmental Articles