I’d like to share with you some of the excellent reasons Veg For Life and Farm Sanctuary provided me with last year when I decided to stop eating meat and dairy.  Over a year later, I feel fine and still enjoy a range of physical ability, while my diet has expanded in yumminess.  (Note:  “yumminess” is a scientific word meaning “really tasty and interesting.”)

  1. In the U.S., animals raised for food have almost no humane protections in how they are raised and killed.
  2. More greenhouse gasses are released from livestock rearing than all forms of transportation combined.
  3. Reaching and maintaining a healthy weight is one result of a low-fat vegetarian diet.
  4. Grain production in the U.S. is fed mostly to farm animals rather than people, to the tune of 80% corn and 70% or more of other grains.
  5. Mad cow, or Krutzfeld-Jacobs disease, as it is called in human beings, is making people sick and causing premature deaths around the world.
  6. Confinement (often extreme), abuse, neglect, and mutilation are common practices forced on farm animals.
  7. In terms of ecological destruction, livestock grazing is one of the most damaging.
  8. Heart disease and high blood pressure are more easily avoided with a diet that leaves out meat and dairy.
  9. Inside factory farms, pathogens like e.coli and salmonella have an easy time growing.
  10. Animals confined on factory farms are not allowed to engage in instinctual behavior and live only a small fraction of their natural life spans.
  11. Water quality is strongly deteriorated by animal agricultural run-off into natural waterways across this country.
  12. Adult-onset diabetes is much less common in vegetarians.
  13. Eating animals raised in such a way that they are made so sick or injured to the point that they can no longer walk eating weakened energy, madness, and disease.
  14. Huge amounts of fossil fuels and drinkable water are wasted on imbalanced and unnatural livestock rearing practices.
  15. Osteoporosis can be prevented through removal of animal protein from the diet.
  16. A vegetarian diet is more energy-efficient, according to the U. of Chicago (as if we needed a college study to tell us that).
  17. Low-fat, high-fiber diets excluding animal products have been shown numerous times to prevent and reverse cancer.
  18. More than 50% of world forests have been cut down in order to raise and feed livestock.
  19. About 10 billion animals die needlessly on factory farms each year to fuel the world food industry.
  20. I feel like it’s the least I can do for the sake of the animals suffering unconscionable atrocities at the hands of criminal factory farm operators.

More information is available on these statistics at the links above.  Please share this information to help make this world a happier and healthier place for all living things.