Vegetarians help world become better place
By Staff Writer: Tricia Tucker
Vegetarianism has become the most popular diet among the younger generation. This has many factors but the main reason is because of the cruelty to livestock. However, people become a vegetarian for a variety of other reasons as well, such as for their health and for the environment.
Meat-eating diets cause pollution of our environment, including our water and air. All of the livestock in the world produce large mounts of manure and urine, both of which pollute our natural resources. Over 2.7 trillion pounds of manure are produced each year by livestock in the U.S, ten times more than the waste produced by all American people. The question is, what are they doing with this large excess of manure? Actually, many farmers use lagoons as a “safe” place to store animal waste. According to the The Vegetarian Times, in 1995 25 million gallons of animal waster spilled into the New River in North Carolina from a hog farm lagoon. Immediately, 20 million fish were killed.
The gases emitted are thought to be a major cause of global warming. According to the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, around 51% of global greenhouse-gas emissions are caused by animal agriculture. A meat-eater’s diet emits seven times more greenhouse gases into the air than a vegan’s diet. Rainforests are beautiful, colorful habitats that are home to a variety of animals. The Vegetarian Times reports that an entire football field is destroyed every second every day due to farming and raising live stock. According to the Rainforest Action Network, 55 square feet of rainforest is demolished in order to produce one fast-food hamburger. Thus, 300 different plant species, 100 different insect species and dozens of birds, mammals and reptile species are destroyed.
Health is the number one individual and governmental concern. Many believe that without the consumption of meat, your body won’t receive the amount of protein it needs. Well, this belief is incorrect. Vegetarian foods are actually a major source of nutrition for the majority of the world. Vegetarians generally consume protein from grains, beans, vegetables, and low-fat foods.
Globally, there are more than one billion overweight adults, while over 300 million of them are clinically obese, according to Worldometers. A vegetarian diet could greatly decrease this outrageous number. A vegetarian diet actually has many health benefits because of its high content of fiber, frolic acid, vitamin C and E, potassium, and magnesium. Vegetarian diets are also generally low in fat and high in fiber.
In the long run, vegetarians are at a lower risk for developing heart disease, breast cancer, diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure. (Health Education) Being a vegetarian keeps your fat intake lower and allows your weight to be more manageable, thus a healthier life.
When chickens are born as livestock, they are immediately placed in a box on a conveyor belt. Each day they are injected with hormones to cause them to grow at an unnatural rate. They are then transported to chicken farmers who place the chickens in coops void of daylight. Here, they consume chemically based chicken food on a self-feeder that causes them to be ready for consumption in 21 days. They are also injected with chemicals turning over 90% of their meat to white meat. This is the conclusion chicken farmers came to when people showed a larger interest in buying white meat. When nearing the end of the 21 days, the chickens are so large that they are incapable of moving at all. They never walk, see the grass of see any source of light at all. However, this doesn’t just go for chickens though; all animals that are born into livestock are unable to live a life at all. Animals go through a great deal of suffering and abuse just to satisfy human needs. By purchasing livestock meat, you are condoning this behavior and approving this abuse toward animals.
Man needs food to live, I get that. But this “food” can be categorized into two groups, vegetarian and non-vegetarian. If man could have the ability to eat food made in a humane, benevolent way, then why don’t they? It’s because they are selfish. Well, being a vegetarian has both moral and health benefits. Not only does it increase health status, but it helps the environment as well as contributing to the help of the environment by decreasing the amount of livestock being equipped for consumption. By being a vegetarian, you disapprove the right to abuse, neglect, and torture trillions of animals each year. Furthermore, vegetarians help the world become a better place.
The unhealthy facts about being a vegetarian
By Staff Writer: Kate Bauer
Most vegetarians or vegans stick to a strict diet for the environment or because they don’t like the idea of killing or mistreating animals. While this may seem like a noble cause, this lifestyle isn’t healthy for the earth or the human body. Drastically altering your diet and disrupting the natural food chain hurts both your health and the health of the planet.
Most people who commit to a vegetarian lifestyle do so in the belief that it is healthier. Unfortunately, not eating animal products produces an array of deficiencies of nutrients that are essential to health. Although it is true that the careful combining of plant sources of protein can provide all fundamental amino acids (the building blocks of protein), the amount of protein is likely insignificant and not necessarily enough to thrive on a vegetarian diet. Vegans and vegetarians have to get a bulk of their calories from sources other than meat, and end up eating larger portions of soy, wheat or other grain based products. Products such as tofu, soy milk, breads, pastas and others are toxic and lead to a high carbohydrate load which could lead to chronically high insulin levels, weight gain and diabetes in the long run.
Most herbivores, such as cows or horses, have to eat slowly all day long and have a digestive system to digest cellulose by a fermentation process, which often requires more than one stomach. Our digestive system is too short to digest cellulose, but like other carnivores, we can eat more infrequently and remain well fed for a longer period of time, giving us more energy.
Some people convert to vegetarianism because they believe it is better for the environment, but actually what is destroying the environment are industrial farming practices, especially on farms that produce wheat, corn, and soy.
Top soil is one of the key factors of all life, and without us to destroy it, the earth produces more and more each year from all the organic matter that dies and decomposes. Knowing that, it’s not wise to eat grains and grain derived products because most of the production of those grains is actually killing the top soil instead of feeding it, and the soil becomes less and less fertile every year.
Animals cannot adapt to an ecosystem change as easily as humans can. Most of the animals we eat consume grass. Humans cannot eat grass; therefore, we receive our energy through meat that was fed something we can’t consume. But by cultivating the land to grow crops of corn, wheat, or soy, where there is normally grass, we are destroying the animal’s feeding grounds in larger and larger portions. Therefore, eating lots of soy, wheat or corn based products indirectly kills more animals and top soil than eating a diet with lots of meat.
So even though vegetarianism may seem like a healthy lifestyle for all, it is actually quite damaging. Thankfully, there are other ways to alter your diet that are better for the health of your body, the animals you eat, and the earth. Eating animals that have been well-treated, well-fed, and let free to graze on pastures all day long, such as livestock from a local farm, will be better for your health because the fat content will be much higher in Omega-3. The consumer will get the best quality protein without the traces of hormones and antibiotics of factory raised animals. Also, tending a home garden and producing your own fresh vegetables is an eco-friendly way to help preserve the natural feeding lands of animals.
