Why Become A Vegetarian?

If you actually set your mind to it, what would be your grounds for becoming vegetarian? Would you become vegetarian to:

Reduce Cruelty to Animals - Improve Your Health? - Improve the Environment?

The medical evidence to substantiate the belief that meat is bad for you is compelling. However, there are natural vegetarian dishes, that will more than compensate for the meat that is alien to a vegetarian diet.

Vegetarians are a lot less likely to get cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, or diabetes.

Vegetarians are a lot less likely to be fat, or classed as obese.

Vegetarians do not ingest germs carried by dead animals, or remnants of the drugs that were perversely used to keep them alive.

Food scandals have occurred in numerous countries, but the bigger scandal is when they are covered up. There was a British Health Minister, who was forced to resign and discredited, for telling the truth about salmonella and eggs. Can't really say whether the person concerned is vegetarian or not! However, it isn't only the eggs that are responsible for disease, but the chickens themselves. There has been much advice about not allowing them to come into contact with other foodstuffs, to avoid cross contamination. Vegetarians do not buy the chickens, so they avoid the risk.

There are other grounds for becoming a vegetarian, than defending yourself from disease. What about the animals themselves? Can we have been put on this earth to pack chickens into wire cages, with hardly any room to move about? Then shorten their beaks to stop them pecking one another, and fill them with drugs, to try to stop them from getting diseases, from the filthy conditions imposed on them.

Vegetarians know that it's not just poultry, but lots of other animals that are subjected to the horrors of factory farming. We can be grateful to the oft-criticized media, because they do sometimes draw notice to these matters, and point attention to problems that governments would much prefer to stifle.

There has been a great deal of attention focussed on global warming, which is undoubtedly of serious concern, as much to vegetarians as anybody else. But, it is not generally understood that animal waste is a significant contributor. It is estimated that US farm animals turn out 250,000 pounds of waste per second. That is twenty times as much as people. This effluent is a gaseous substance, that adds to the methane passing into the atmosphere from both ends of these animals. It is true that if more people were vegetarian, fewer animals would be required. It is clear that there are environmental reasons - as well as humane reasons - as well as health reasons - for becoming a vegetarian.

For your health's sake, For the animal's sake, For the planet's sake - Stay a Vegetarian.

The content of the article is only for advisory purposes and is not intended for use as a medical source of information. Please use your own judgement to decide whether a vegetarian lifestyle is appropriate for you. Anyone unsure about taking a particular food or preparation, be it vegetarian or otherwise, should obtain the advice of their doctor, or other suitably qualified professional person.

The author cannot accept any liability whatsoever, for any consequences arising from or thought to be arising from using this article.