Leading health experts agree that going vegetarian is the single-best thing we can do for ourselves and our families. Healthy vegetarian diets support a lifetime of good health and provide protection against numerous diseases, including our country’s three biggest killers: heart disease, cancer, and strokes. The American Dietetic Association states that vegetarians have “lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease; … lower blood cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer” and that vegetarians are less likely than meat-eaters to be obese.1 Well-planned vegetarian diets provide us with all the nutrients that we need, minus all the saturated fat, cholesterol, and contaminants found in animal flesh, eggs, and dairy products.
Research has shown that vegetarians are 50 percent less likely to develop heart disease, and they have 40 percent of the cancer rate of meat-eaters.3,4 Plus, meat-eaters are nine times more likely to be obese than vegans are.5
The consumption of meat, eggs, and dairy products has also been strongly linked to osteoporosis, Alzheimer's, asthma, and male impotence. Scientists have also found that vegetarians have stronger immune systems than their meat-eating friends; this means that they are less susceptible to everyday illnesses like the flu.7 Vegetarians and vegans live, on average, six to 10 years longer than meat-eaters.8
A plant-based diet is the best diet for kids, too: Studies have shown that vegetarian kids grow taller and have higher IQs than their classmates, and they are at a reduced risk for heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and other diseases in the long run.10,11 Studies have shown that even older people who switch to a vegetarian or vegan diet can prevent and even reverse many chronic ailments.
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1 Ann Mangels, Virginia Messina, and Vesanto Melina, "Position of the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada: Vegetarian Diets," Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Jun. 2003, pp. 748-65.
2 Neal Barnard, M.D., The Power of Your Plate, Book Publishing Co.: Summertown, Tenn., 1990, p. 26.
3 Elizabeth Somer, "Eating Meat: A Little Doesn't Hurt," WebMD, 1999.
4 Neal Barnard, M.D., The Power of Your Plate, Book Publishing Co.: Summertown, Tenn., 1990, p. 26.
5 John Robbins, The Food Revolution, Conari Press: Boston, 2001, p. 58.
6 Neal Barnard, M.D., "Doctor in the House," PETA's Animal Times, Fall 2004, p. 7.
7 Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine with Amy Lanou, Healthy Eating for Life for Children, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2002, p. 49.
8 Robbins, p. 14.
9 Benjamin Spock, M.D., Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care: Seventh Edition, New York: Pocket Books, 1998, p. 333.
10 Charles Attwood, M.D., Dr. Attwood's Low-Fat Prescription for Kids, New York: Penguin Books, 1995, p. 84.
11 Robbins, p. 85.
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Global warming. Overexploited natural resources. Deforestation. Wasted land. Water and air pollution. The most serious environmental problems of our time are all directly linked to eating meat.
A 2006 United Nations report summarized the devastation caused by the meat industry by calling it "one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." The report recommended that animal agriculture "be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity."1
Many leading environmental organizations, such as the National Audubon Society and the Sierra Club, are now establishing the link between eating meat and eco-disasters like climate change. According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than a half-million cars off U.S. roads.
Environmental organizations aren't the only ones making the connection. PETA has worked with many celebrities, such as Sir Paul McCartney and Chrissie Hynde, to help raise awareness about the undeniable link between eating meat and environmental devastation. To read Sir Paul McCartney's interview about the environmental crisis, visit PETA's blog The PETA Files.
To learn more about how raising animals for food causes global warming, wastes resources, and pollutes our environment as well as what you can do to help, please click on the links below.
Meat and the Environment
Wasted Resources
• Land
• Food
• Energy
• Water
• Rain Forest
• Animal Suffering
Pollution
• Feces
• Water
• Air
• Global Warming
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and just to finish off the rest of you who are plain wastes of life...
http://puffin.creighton.edu/phil/ste...etarianism.htm
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posted this right beforer mine, and in the event this gets deleted, note to mod, just delete the reply or the quote or something. Replies in bold again.
Hahahahahahhahahaha, I haven't said why you don't have the right?!!!!?????!!!!??
The only thing in the entire history of man that says anything close to the right to kill animals when we do not need to is the bible!!!!!!! Hahahahahhahahahahah that is your source as to why we DO have the right??
Talk about loling... you are so full of useless nothings. Who said you have the right to kill another animal when you don't need to? Hmm? Answer me?
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I will continue to post the above information as long as people try and refute what I am saying. It completely discredits any opposing argument. I would recommend to Darth, Wayne, Cyrus and now you Patsy, you come back with some substantial proof before you talk down to me. I will talk down to you all day until you prove me otherwise and continue to provide the same facts over and over until they are ACTUALLY REFUTED, NOT JUST TROLLED ON like wayne and patsy do.
sarcasm to follow..........>) The other day, a tree fell down in my neighbors yard- missed a person walking down the side walk by two feet. I think that is a sign of trees hunting down us humans for polluting the air. We have endangered their life, and over evolutionary advances in the trees intellect, they spot the cause and now have decided to take matters in their own branches. (< end sarcasm........)- but now back to the Q at hand- since I choose to not hunt for pleasure based on my personal moral standards, I do not have a problem with those who choose to do so- it is with in their rights.