There is no reason not to believe Albert Einstein when he says that "nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet". I am personally convinced that a vegetarian diet can improve the living conditions at the level of the individual, the societies, as well as the whole mankind.
Here are the four main drivers for my being a vegetarian:
1) Personal Health
It has been widely demonstrated by nutrition experts that a properly planned vegetarian diet is healthful, nutritionally adequate, and can help preventing and treating some diseases at all stages of life (including infants, children, and pregnant women!). Vegetarian people less suffer from heart diseases, diabetes, breast, colorectal and prostate cancers...They also tend to be thinner, to have lowers levels of cholesterol and blood pressure and even have a lower incidence of Alzheimer's disease. Besides, they are less prone to osteoporosis than meat-eaters, since they have a greater bone mineral density.
Vegetarian diets offer lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal proteins. They offer higher levels of carbohydrates, fibre, magnesium, potassium, folate, and vitamins C and E. The most common questions I have to answer to are: where do you get your proteins? so you have to take iron supplements, since iron is to be found only in red meat? To which I reply: don't worry, both my daughter (whom I am trying to raise as a vegetarian child) and I get enough proteins and iron in our diet. We eat plenty of proteins in dairy products, cereals, hummus, soya products and equivalents. Iron is to be found in enough quantities in all green vegetables, oats, millet, amaranth, pumpkin seeds, nuts and almonds, lentils and other legiminous plants. My physicians are always surprised when they see how much iron is to found in my blood!
Going vegetarian is a healthy choice for yourself!
2) Animals
According to PETA Germany, an average of 48 animals yearly die in Germany for the consumption of one meat-eater. More than 717 million animals have been slaughtered for the whole population of Germany in 2009. Animals are conscious living beings and nowadays suffer a lot from the crazily increasing demand of meat in the world (especially because Chinese are now eating much more meat than they did in the past out of financial reasons). Factory farming has become a standard farming in many societies, and especially in the USA, where more than 99% of the whole chicken consumed is battery chicken. Most of farmed animals do not have a decent life - even some that might be labeled as "organic food". The living conditions of animals there is so bad that they cannot reproduce by themselves because of genetic mutation. Most of the animals slaughtered there are ill or handicapped. And you ought how the animals that become your meat are slaughtered! All the stress they got when they live and die in terrible conditions is to be found in the food you eat, including the milk you are drinking. I won't extend myself on this subject, because each person shall make an introspection about his/her own ethics and reflect about the rights of animals on a greater scale.
Going vegetarian is a personal choice to respect the rights of animals as conscious living beingsand not to cause any unnecessary harm to animals .
3) Environment
Factory farming is environmentally unsustainable. According to a 2006 United Nations initiative, the livestock industry is one of the three largest contributors to environmental degradation worldwide, and modern practices of raising animals for food contribute on a "massive scale" to air and water pollution, land degradation, rain forest destruction, climate change, and loss of biodiversity. It takes 3 to 15 times as much water to produce animal protein as it does to produce plant protein. Just think about it: the amount of water you use for your shower during one year is less than the water consumed for the production of one kilo beef - which is about 15,500 liters! As a comparison, about 924 liters water are necessary to produce one kilo tofu.
Besides, farmed animals worldwide produce more greenhouse gases than the whole transport system. You may also never imagine that soya produced in Kenya travel all the way down to Brazil for raising cattle extensively for the meat consumers of Europe - instead of feeding people from the region around Kenya. Sometimes, you may believe you are eating beef produced in France or Germany, but if animal carcasses brought from Brazil are cut and transformed in Europe, you may label them as local products.
Not only the demand for meat has been tremendously growing in the last decades, but the exponentionally increasing demand for fish and seefood is literally depopulating the oceans.
Going vegetarian is an easy, healthy, and sustainable way to lower your environmental impact. Especially if you essentially eat organic, seasonal and locally-produced food.
4) Humanity
Considering today's demographic situation, it is mathematically and rationally not possible to support a meat-based diet and to fight starvation, without simply letting the poorest die. Today, about half of the world's total wheat production and around 90% of imported soya in Europe are used for farm animals. If you consider that 8 kilos of wheat are necessary for the production of 500 g of mear and that the same amount of wheat can feed 10 people for a whole day, you may think that something is going wrong in our way of consumption. 30% of the earth’s entire land surface (70% of all agricultural land) is used for rearing farmed animals. A smarter agriculture based on market gardening and growing of cereals may produce enough healthy food for the whole population living on earth and the generations to come.
Going vegetarian is a sustainable way to help ensure worldwide food security.
Here are the four main drivers for my being a vegetarian:
1) Personal Health
It has been widely demonstrated by nutrition experts that a properly planned vegetarian diet is healthful, nutritionally adequate, and can help preventing and treating some diseases at all stages of life (including infants, children, and pregnant women!). Vegetarian people less suffer from heart diseases, diabetes, breast, colorectal and prostate cancers...They also tend to be thinner, to have lowers levels of cholesterol and blood pressure and even have a lower incidence of Alzheimer's disease. Besides, they are less prone to osteoporosis than meat-eaters, since they have a greater bone mineral density.
Vegetarian diets offer lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal proteins. They offer higher levels of carbohydrates, fibre, magnesium, potassium, folate, and vitamins C and E. The most common questions I have to answer to are: where do you get your proteins? so you have to take iron supplements, since iron is to be found only in red meat? To which I reply: don't worry, both my daughter (whom I am trying to raise as a vegetarian child) and I get enough proteins and iron in our diet. We eat plenty of proteins in dairy products, cereals, hummus, soya products and equivalents. Iron is to be found in enough quantities in all green vegetables, oats, millet, amaranth, pumpkin seeds, nuts and almonds, lentils and other legiminous plants. My physicians are always surprised when they see how much iron is to found in my blood!
Going vegetarian is a healthy choice for yourself!
2) Animals
According to PETA Germany, an average of 48 animals yearly die in Germany for the consumption of one meat-eater. More than 717 million animals have been slaughtered for the whole population of Germany in 2009. Animals are conscious living beings and nowadays suffer a lot from the crazily increasing demand of meat in the world (especially because Chinese are now eating much more meat than they did in the past out of financial reasons). Factory farming has become a standard farming in many societies, and especially in the USA, where more than 99% of the whole chicken consumed is battery chicken. Most of farmed animals do not have a decent life - even some that might be labeled as "organic food". The living conditions of animals there is so bad that they cannot reproduce by themselves because of genetic mutation. Most of the animals slaughtered there are ill or handicapped. And you ought how the animals that become your meat are slaughtered! All the stress they got when they live and die in terrible conditions is to be found in the food you eat, including the milk you are drinking. I won't extend myself on this subject, because each person shall make an introspection about his/her own ethics and reflect about the rights of animals on a greater scale.
Going vegetarian is a personal choice to respect the rights of animals as conscious living beingsand not to cause any unnecessary harm to animals .
3) Environment
Factory farming is environmentally unsustainable. According to a 2006 United Nations initiative, the livestock industry is one of the three largest contributors to environmental degradation worldwide, and modern practices of raising animals for food contribute on a "massive scale" to air and water pollution, land degradation, rain forest destruction, climate change, and loss of biodiversity. It takes 3 to 15 times as much water to produce animal protein as it does to produce plant protein. Just think about it: the amount of water you use for your shower during one year is less than the water consumed for the production of one kilo beef - which is about 15,500 liters! As a comparison, about 924 liters water are necessary to produce one kilo tofu.
Besides, farmed animals worldwide produce more greenhouse gases than the whole transport system. You may also never imagine that soya produced in Kenya travel all the way down to Brazil for raising cattle extensively for the meat consumers of Europe - instead of feeding people from the region around Kenya. Sometimes, you may believe you are eating beef produced in France or Germany, but if animal carcasses brought from Brazil are cut and transformed in Europe, you may label them as local products.
Not only the demand for meat has been tremendously growing in the last decades, but the exponentionally increasing demand for fish and seefood is literally depopulating the oceans.
Going vegetarian is an easy, healthy, and sustainable way to lower your environmental impact. Especially if you essentially eat organic, seasonal and locally-produced food.
4) Humanity
Considering today's demographic situation, it is mathematically and rationally not possible to support a meat-based diet and to fight starvation, without simply letting the poorest die. Today, about half of the world's total wheat production and around 90% of imported soya in Europe are used for farm animals. If you consider that 8 kilos of wheat are necessary for the production of 500 g of mear and that the same amount of wheat can feed 10 people for a whole day, you may think that something is going wrong in our way of consumption. 30% of the earth’s entire land surface (70% of all agricultural land) is used for rearing farmed animals. A smarter agriculture based on market gardening and growing of cereals may produce enough healthy food for the whole population living on earth and the generations to come.
Going vegetarian is a sustainable way to help ensure worldwide food security.