Living Vegan For Dummies - Alexandra Jamieson [165]
As you know, a vegan eats no fish, fowl, cows, lambs, sheep, pigs, eggs, cheese, milk, butter, or honey. Mahatma Gandhi is credited with saying “To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body.” By refusing to take the life of another creature, a vegan allows all creatures to continue on their natural course toward full self-expression, which is the true hallmark of an enlightened soul. I like animals, and I consider them to be my friends. And, well, I don’t eat my friends.
It Provides Excellent Nutrition
Fresh plant foods are full of phytochemicals, minerals, vitamins, enzymes, and fiber. These nutritious aspects of a vegan diet are sorely lacking in the standard American diet, and they can help halt, reverse, and cure long-standing health concerns like heart disease and obesity.
A vegan diet that includes a variety of foods will easily provide enough protein, healthy fats, complex carbohydrates, and calories for the average person. A vegan diet also provides a wealth of amazing nutritional support not found in the standard American diet; the vegan’s reliance on fresh fruit and vegetables as well as other whole foods, such as beans and grains, provides plenty of vital, nourishing energy.
It Protects Our Natural Resources
Grazing animals, such as cattle and sheep, for food leads to massive soil erosion as well as the loss of precious topsoil. Topsoil is a basic component of a healthy landscape and is necessary for natural plants, agriculture, wildlife, and healthy ecosystems. Forests are constantly being cut down to make room for more grazing area, leading to deforestation and contributing to the greenhouse effect and the loss of precious natural habitat for wildlife. The loss of these natural resources, forests, and soils is devastating to the health of our entire planet and humanity.
Choosing a vegan lifestyle is just as meaningful to the health and future of our planet as using reusable cloth shopping bags or compact fluorescent light bulbs.
It Protects the Food Supply for All Humans
Hundreds of gallons of water and many acres of arable land are required to produce a pound of meat for human consumption. A cow needs to eat hundreds of pounds of soybeans or wheat to produce a small amount of edible animal protein. As the world’s resources become more and more strained, a vegan diet takes on more importance than just being kind to our four-footed friends. If we stopped feeding all that edible plant food to animals, much more food would be available for humans around the globe. More than 900 million undernourished people inhabit our planet. Feeding those people the grain destined for factory-farmed animals would end a lot of suffering for both people and animals. What could be more humane than eating simply so that others may simply eat?
It Has Fewer Pesticides, Drugs, and Toxins
Animal foods that are produced by modern conventional methods often come with an unsavory side dish: the residue of antibiotics and hormones used to treat factory-farmed animals. How do these toxins get into the food? Allow me to explain.
These animals generally are raised in densely populated conditions, often without access to fresh air, sunlight, or exercise, and they’re fed an unnatural diet of high-calorie foods that are used to fatten them as quickly as possible. These conditions lead to an unhealthy environment in which diseases quickly spread. Then farmers and ranchers must use antibiotics to treat the animals. Cows, chickens, and other animals also are given hormones to speed their growth and produce more meat. These hormones and antibiotics can end up in the final products of milk, meat, and eggs, which are then absorbed into the human body when eaten. The question remains, what do these dangerous drugs do to people when eaten regularly, even in small doses?
Other toxins make their way into meat and dairy by way of what the livestock is allowed to eat. According to the Environmental Protection Agency,