Reasons to be vegan are free!






  




  • No animals are killed (or murdered - if you prefer that word).
  • The environment will be better (after energy creation, an/ag* is the biggest polluter).
  • People will become more healthy (carnism is now known to be unhealthy).
* Animal agriculture (An/Ag) “Livestock’s contribution to environmental problems is on a massive scale. The impact is so significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency.” - United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation 2006

Top 12 reasons to be vegan 

 25 More Reasons for Being Vegan

1. It's cruel to support the enslavement, forced impregnation, torture and slaughter of innocent animals. This includes intense suffering for animals used for dairy, eggs, honey, etc.
http://www.nationearth.com/earthlings-1/ , see also https://www.landofhopeandglory.org/ https://befairbevegan.com/

2. We can easily thrive on a vegan diet, see scientific references I collected here:http://bloganders.blogspot.com/2013/08/humans-can-live-and-thrive-on-healthy.html?m=02
How can we justify killing animals who want to live for our taste buds in a violent process that reduces them to a product?

3. "I only eat organic, we are carnivores". There are many excuses answered here: http://bloganders.blogspot.com/2013/08/arguments-for-veganism-and-counter.html 

3b. The largest study ever conducted on farming and the environment, which was published in the journal Science in 2018, analysed almost 40,000 farms in 119 countries and covered 40 food products that represent 90% of all that is eaten. It assessed the full impact of these foods, from farm to fork, on land use, climate change emissions, freshwater use and water pollution (eutrophication) and air pollution (acidification).

The result?

"A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use," said Joseph Poore, at the University of Oxford, UK, who led the research. ”lt is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car,” he said, as these only cut greenhouse gas emissions.

4. Species Extinction: the World Wildlife Fund concluded that meat-based diets are responsible for the loss of 60% of global biodiversity.
https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/appetite-for-destruction

4b According to Greenpeace Brazil, animal agriculture is the leading cause of Amazon Rainforest destruction.
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/cattle-mapping/

4c. Yale University agrees. They concluded that 80% of Amazon Rainforest destruction is caused by animal agriculture.
http://globalforestatlas.yale.edu/amazon/land-use/cattle-ranching

5. The World Bank disagrees. They concluded that animal agriculture is actually responsible for 90% of Amazon Rainforest destruction.
https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/15060

6. The animal agriculture industry grows grains, vegetables and soy to fatten up farm animals destined for slaughter. The U.S. alone could feed 800 million people with the food grown to fatten up farm animals.
http://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat

7. Worldwide, we could feed 11 billion people if we use the food grown to fatten up farm animals instead of farming animals:
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034015/meta

8. According to a 2006 study by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, animal agriculture is responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.htm

More about environmental impact:http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2018-06-01-new-estimates-environmental-cost-food

9. The World Watch Institute reported that animal agriculture is actually responsible for 51% of greenhouse gases.
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6294
If you do a correction related to their used methane gas number, it is 42%.

10. Animal agriculture is so water-intensive, it takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef.
http://www.earthsave.org/environment/water.htm

11. It takes 896 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of cheese.
https://www.ewg.org/meateatersguide/interactive-graphic/water/

12. At the rate in which humans consume fish, we may see fishless oceans by 2048:
https://gelr.org/2015/10/23/a-leading-cause-of-everything-one-industry-that-is-destroying-our-planet-and-our-ability-to-thrive-on-it-georgetown-environmental-law-review/

13. The largest group of nutritional professionals in the world concluded that we can get all our nutrients from a vegan diet and prevent many diseases.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27886704

14. Harvard also concluded we can prevent many diseases with a vegan diet.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/nuts-seeds-beans-are-good-steps-toward-a-plant-based-diet
Watch The Game Changers on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81157840

Convert UK farmland to woods:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/31/convert-farmland-to-nature-climate-crisis?fbclid=IwAR1CgRadakrqrLD-nCeiUfQqb9gTARBwFSceqQBqTtJKUR83FMAZmumdwmI

Extinction
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/05/red-list-thousands-of-species-at-risk-of-extinction-due-to-human-activity

The human race has destroyed over 80% of wild mammals :
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-study

More resources:
Watch Cowspiracy on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80033772
www.befairbevegan.com

It is due to our lack of respect for animals that we kill them for tusks, meat, dairy and eggs, etc. The solution is to stop exploiting animals for all purposes and be vegan.

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100  MORE REASONS TO GO VEGAN
  1. Every year in the UK we feed our livestock enough food to feed 250,000,000 people while in the world 30,000,000 people die of starvation
  2. 20 vegans can live off the land required by one meat eater
  3. Every 3 seconds a child dies of starvation somewhere in the world
  4. If Americans reduced their meat consumption by 10% it would free 12,000,000 tons of grain - enough to feed 60,000,000 people (the population of Great Britain)
  5. If all Americans became vegan, it would free enough grain to feed 600,000,000 people (the population of India)
  6.  Intensification in animal farming has displaced 1,000,000's of people from their traditional lands - eg. indigenous people in south & central America, native Americans in north America & crofters in Great Britain - this is continuing today
  7. People displaced from their lands into cities succumb to dietary deficiency, diseases, parasites & opportunistic diseases
  8.  In third world countries 1 in 10 babies die before their first birthday
  9.  The UK imports £46,000,000 worth of grain from third world countries to feed our livestock
  10. Due to overgrazing 850,000,000 people live on land threatened by desertification & over 230,000,000 already live on land so severely desertified that they are unable to sustain their existence & face imminent starvation
  11. 1,000,000,000 people in the west gorging on meat & dairy leave 1,000,000,000 to waste away & 3,500,000,000 teeter on the brink
  12.  If they continue to clear American forests to raise cattle at the present rate, in 50 years there will be none left
  13.  1 acre yields 165 lbs of beef or 20,000 lbs of potatoes
  14.  8/10 of cultivated land in the UK is used to grow food for animals (14,732,000 hectares)
  15.  It takes 16lbs of high protein soya to produce 1 lb of beef
  16.  Since 1945 in the UK we have lost 95% of flower meadows, 50% of ancient woodlands, 40% of heathlands, 50% of wetlands & 224,000 km of hedgerows all due to animal farming
  17.  Pressure on land due to meat farming leads to soil erosion 6billion tons/year in the USA
  18.  If everyone went vegan up to 90% of land used for animal farming could be taken out of production & used to replant woodlands, leisure activities etc.
  19.  25% of Central America's forests have been destroyed for cattle grazing since 1960
  20.  Between 1966-1983 38% of the Amazon rainforest was destroyed for cattle grazing
  21.  90% of cattle ranches established on cleared forest land go bankrupt in less than 8 years as the land becomes barren due to nutrient loss & overgrazing
  22.  Overgrazing by cattle is destroying the land & increasing desertification, nearly 430 million acres in the USA alone has suffered a 25-50% reduction in yield since first grazed
  23. An inch of topsoil takes 200-1000 years to develop - yet in the USA they have lost around 1/3 of their prime topsoil in 200 years (around 7 inches) due to animal farming
  24. Land will be lost due to rises in sea level due to global warming due to animal farming
  25. The destruction of the rainforest by cattle farmers is destroying the lungs of the planet & reducing the worlds capacity to replenish our oxygen supply
  26. The 1,300,000,000 cattle in the world emit 60,000,000 tons of methane per year (methane is a greenhouse gas & leads to global warming)
  27. Burning of forests, grasslands & agricultural waste associated with animal farming releases 50-100,000,000 tons of methane per year
  28. Combining these figures, 25% of methane emissions are due to animal farming (not including the billions of sheep, pigs & poultry so the real figure is much higher)
  29. Fertilizer used to grow crops to feed to animals releases nitrous oxide - thought to account for 6% of the greenhouse effect
  30. Fertilizer, weedkiller & pesticides sprayed on crops enter the atmosphere creating a noxious carcinogenic cocktail
  31. CFCs are released into the air from refrigeration units used to store decomposing flesh (meat), milk & butter - CFCs are destroy the ozone layer
  32. Ammonia from animal urine also pollutes the atmosphere
  33. CO2 is released by burning oil & petrol in lorries, ships, abattoirs, dairies, factories etc. associated with meat & dairy production
  34. Emissions from large chemical plants which produce fertilizer, weedkiller & other agricultural chemicals are also poisoning our air
  35. 25 gallons of water to produce 1lb of wheat & 2500 gallons to produce 1lb of meat
  36. UK farm animals produce 200,000,000 tonnes of slurry (liquid excrement) every year, the majority of which ends up in our rivers
  37. Bloody wastewater from abattoirs ends up in our rivers and seas.
  38. In the USA every second humans produce 12,000 lbs of effluent while farmed animals produce 250,000 lbs
  39. Nitrates & pesticides used on crops grown to feed livestock end up in our rivers
  40. Meat & dairy farming uses 70 litres of water per day per animal in the UK or 159,250,000,000 litres per year in total
  41. The water used to produce 10 lbs of steak is equivalent to the average consumption of water for an entire household for an entire year
  42. Depletion of groundwater reserves to grow crops for animals & to supply abattoirs will lead to greater water shortages
  43. Aquafers (stores of underground water) in the San Joaquin Valley in the USA are being drained at the rate of 500,000,000,000 gallons/year to produce meat
  44. 18% of all agricultural land in the world is irrigated & as global warming increases (partly due to animal farming) it will cost $200,000,000 to keep these systems going
  45. The water used to produce a 1000 lb beef steer is enough to float a Destroyer battleship
  46. The liquid waste from the various parts of the meat & dairy industry flow into the rivers & from there into the seas polluting them & encouraging huge algal blooms to grow
  47. To produce 1calorie of energy from meat takes 60 calories of petrol, whereas growing grains & legumes to directly feed people produces 20 calories for each calorie of fuel used (that's 1200 times more efficient)
  48. Meat & dairy farming uses billions of gallons of oil to run tractors, fuel ships & lorries (to move animal feed & animals), pump billions of gallons of water to irrigate fields & run slaughterhouses, power refrigeration units to prevent the corpses from decomposing & to power sewage plants to clean up some of the pollution produced
  49. Cattle convert only 6% of their energy intake (mainly grains & soya) into flesh, the remaining 94% is wasted as heat, movement (which is why they keep many animals in very close confinement), hair, bones, faeces etc.
  50. 1lb of beef takes 1 gallon of petrol to produce
  51. A family of four eating beef for a year uses enough petrol to run a car for 6 months (obviously depending on how far you drive!)
  52. If the full ecological cost of meat was passed onto the consumer - the price would be quadrupled (at least)
  53. The EC spends œ100,000,000's to subsidise animal production resulting in lakes of unwanted milk & mountains of unwanted meat & butter. This money could be better spent encouraging organic fruit, vegetable & grain production
  54. In the USA in 1979 145,000,000 tons of crops were fed to cattle resulting in only 21million tons of animal bodies - the cost of the wasted crops was $20,000,000,000
  55. Between 1950 & 1985 grain production in Europe & the USA increased massively but 2/3 was fed to animals
  56. 70% of all grain is fed to animals
  57. Eating vast quantities of animal flesh, eggs, milk & butter is a luxury that most of the planet can not afford
  58. Fishing with drift (and other modern) nets weakens & destroys ecosystems by indiscriminately killing billions of sea creatures & disrupting the seabed
  59. Fishermen's nets kill 10 times as many other animals as the fish they are hoping to catch
  60. Fish caught in nets die an agonising slow death of suffocation
  61. Each year 15,000,000,000 land animals are slaughtered for food & an unknown but much larger number of sea creatures (including 1000's of dolphins caught accidentally)
  62. Chickens are crammed into battery cages with up to 3 other birds, they are unable to even spread their wings & many can not even stand up
  63. Unwanted male chicks (because they can't lay eggs) are gassed or pulped while their sisters go to the battery sheds
  64. Chicks are debeaked without anaesthetic to prevent them injuring each other in the unnaturally confined conditions they are kept in - this is equivalent to having your fingernails pulled out without anaesthetic
  65. Modern farming methods using growth hormones & artificial lighting mean that many chickens outgrow their bones, resulting in fractured & broken legs
  66. Sows are kept tethered in stalls 1.3 x 1 metre on concrete or slatted floors - they can not even turn around
  67. Poultry raised for meat are kept in windowless broiler sheds, with around 20-30,000 in each shed, they live in an area of 10-20 cm square - fighting due to overcrowding is common & like battery hens they commonly suffer from supperating bed sores
  68. Broiler sheds are artificially lit 23 hours a day to produce rapid growth
  69. Animals travel between farms & to slaughter in overcrowded transporters with no food or water - resulting in stress, injuries & deaths - legal requirements are widely ignored
  70. 95% of poultry suffer injuries before being killed & 30% suffer broken bones
  71. Problems with stunning practices mean that many animals have their throats slit while still conscious (around 6% of cattle or 200,000 per year) & are then dipped in tanks of scalding water (to loosen feathers, bristles etc.) again while fully conscious
  72. 4000 animals die spurting their blood out every minute in a British slaughterhouse
  73. Calf leather comes from animals killed at just 2 weeks old
  74. Cows were fed on the ground up remains of other cows & sheep - the result is thought to be BSE (mad cow disease) in the USA cattle are fed partly on recycled plastic pellets
  75. Cows only give milk for 10 months after they have a calf - so they are routinely artificially inseminated (ie. mechanically raped) to keep them pregnant & milking - their calves are taken away (usually at 12 hours old) for meat or export to veal crates
  76. Cows would naturally live up to 20 years but are slaughtered after 5-7 years when their milk production begins to fall
  77. In the UK animals are killed by first being stunned with electricity or a captive bolt gun (ie. a bolt is fired into their heads) before having their throats slit & being plunged into boiling water - all this happens on a production line with the animals being hung upside down from a moving conveyor belt - this is factory farming
  78. Veal calves are confined in stalls in the dark, unable to move & are fed on pigs blood , chocolate & dried milk (we are drinking the rich fresh milk of their mothers)
  79. Cows naturally produce 5 litres of milk per day for their calves - under the intensified systems of modern farming they produce 25-40 litres per day - resulting in swollen & inflamed udders - at this rate they are soon worn out
  80. Large areas of land are under monoculture to grow crops to feed to animals - these areas are wildlife deserts supporting fewer & fewer species.
  81. Vegans have a 20% lower rate of mortality from all causes (ie. they live longer & don't get sick as often)
  82. Meat is full of traces of antibiotics, hormones, toxins produced by stress & pesticide residues that become concentrated from all the crops they have eaten
  83. Fish contain heavy metals & other pollutants -many of which originated on farms
  84. The world health organisation recommends a diet low in saturated fat, sugar, salt & with plenty of fibre - exactly what you get on a vegan diet
  85. Farmed animals contain up to 50% saturated fat in their bodies
  86. Vegans have a 57% reduced risk of getting heart disease (heart disease is the biggest killer in the UK accounting for 50% of deaths)
  87. Obesity is rare in vegans, obesity is related to many diseases
  88. Vegans have lower blood pressure & cholesterol levels - high levels are associated with heart disease, strokes & kidney failure
  89. Vegans have a 50% reduced risk of dying of diabetes
  90. Vegans have a 40% reduced level of cancer than the general population thought to be because they have a higher intake of vitamins A, C & E
  91. Vegans have a reduced risk of developing gall & kidney stones
  92. 80% of food poisoning is due to infected meat (faeces, bacteria etc.) after all meat is decomposing flesh - most of the rest is due to salmonella in eggs
  93. Osteoporosis due to calcium loss from bones is mainly due to the sulphur content in meat & casein protein in milk that causes calcium to be lost in the urine - the countries with the highest meat & dairy consumption are those with the highest levels of brittle bones
  94. 50% of people do not have the enzyme to digest milk properly & milk allergy is related to asthma & eczema
  95. Meat eaters have double the rate of Alzheimer's disease as Vegans - some people also think that Parkinson's disease is also linked to meat eating
  96. Egg yolk is a dense concentration of saturated fat & the white is high in albumin protein associated with leaching calcium into your urine. Butter is 80% saturated fat, cream is 40% saturated fat & cheese is 25-40% saturated fat
  97. Meat eaters are two and a half times more likely to get bowel cancer than Vegans
  98. The cling film used to wrap meat in supermarkets & butchers contains chemicals linked to falling sperm counts in men
  99. Chinese people (living mainly on a vegetarian diet) consume 20% more calories than Americans but Americans are 20% fatter
  100. Of 2,190,000 deaths in the USA in 1987, 1,500,000 were related to diet (ie. meat & dairy).
So, you can see that the Meat & Dairy industry is a major contributor to misery on this planet. It is destroying the health of people in rich countries, starving those in poor countries, it is torturing & killing billions of animals every year and in the meantime, it is one of the major factors in the destruction of the environment.

So, what does the meat & dairy industry have to say in its defence?
Well their only real point is usually "Meat is tasty" - fair enough a lot of people enjoy the taste of meat - but there are plenty of delicious vegan alternatives and if you really crave meat & dairy, nowadays there are plenty of healthy non-animal alternatives - just look in the supermarket & health food shop. So I hope you will agree it's pretty selfish to consider all the evidence & then say "well I know you're right about the environment & health & the animals - but I just love my meat."

Even more on the reasons:

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