Vegans why

Livestock produce 18 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent -- that's more than transport! Animal manure contaminates water and releases antibiotics that may increase the resistance of some bacteria.

Vegans also believe that their diet uses land more efficiently and responsibly than animal agriculture. If people ate only plant-based food, there would be no need for the swaths of pastures and feed crops that support livestock.

Agriculture would produce food directly for human consumption and use less land. The proteins and vitamins from animal products do, however, help sustain much of the world's poor -- people who might not have the resources to create and monitor a total plant-based diet.

Many vegans choose the diet purely for its health benefits. Although veganism requires supplements and professional consultation to meet dietary needs, most vegans can get all their nutrients without animal products. Vegan mainstay foods like whole grains, vegetables , fruits and legumes are naturally low in fat and cholesterol and rich in fiber, magnesium, potassium, folate and vitamins C and E.

The American Dietetic Association reports that vegetarians and vegans have lower body mass indexes , blood pressure and cholesterol levels than nonvegetarians do. They also report decreased rates of type 2 diabetes , colon cancer, prostate cancer, hypertension and heart disease [source: ADA ].

Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close. Mobile Newsletter chat close. Mobile Newsletter chat dots. Mobile Newsletter chat avatar. You undoubtedly have more pleasant ways to spend your time than investigating animal welfare compliance.

And why expend all that effort when there exists such an abundance of delicious vegan food? And anyway, no matter how you strive to purchase only the highest-quality animal products, numerous problems remain either unaddressed or impossible to remedy.

As just one example, there is simply no way to eliminate slaughter. Even the highest-welfare producers kill their dairy cows and layer hens well before midlife, as yields decline. Diving a little deeper, the use of heirloom breeds is all but unheard of in commercial agriculture.

In short: the more you care about sourcing animal products from only the most conscientious producers, the messier and more unsatisfying your task becomes. By contrast, aspiring vegans have it much easier—their primary task is to try delicious new foods. The two fundamental concepts of the animal protection movement—animal welfare and animal rights—offer powerful approaches. Most animal protection efforts begin with animal welfare, a simple concept arising out of common decency.

Unfortunately, eradicating suffering is easier said than done. A great deal of the suffering intrinsic to animal use is expensive and difficult to remove. Once someone begins to pay attention to animal welfare, some degree of dietary change is virtually inevitable. In order to eliminate additional suffering, people also switch to free-range and pasture-raised animal products. But animal welfare is only one approach to thinking seriously about the ethics of eating.

The most important ideas offered by the animal protection movement relate not to animal welfare, but to animal rights. Animal welfare condones virtually any use of animals, as long as we attempt to minimize suffering. Animal rights rejects this world view and emphatically proclaims that animals are not ours to use however we wish.

As its name suggests, animal rights goes beyond animal welfare to proclaim that animals have rights. The animal rights literature contains a number of lengthy and challenging books. Speciesism is probably the most widely-used concept related to animal rights. Such justifications inevitably ignore facts of far greater relevance. When animals are mistreated, speciesism is often to blame. Perhaps the most obvious example relates to the fact that, by all accounts, pigs are more intelligent than dogs.

Speciesism arises from the same sort of thinking that leads to other sorts of rights violations. How does racism, sexism, classism, and so forth relate to speciesism? The only thing that sets speciesism apart from the others is that it offers an excuse to exploit certain types of animals rather than certain groups of people. The victim is forever denied the experiences she would have otherwise had, and no remedy for this injustice exists.

Certainly, if we agree that murder demands severe punishment, we become obliged to examine the ethics of animal slaughter. And to do this for culinary pleasure, when abundant delicious alternatives exist, seems especially problematic. One final approach to thinking about animal rights is worthy of careful consideration: the utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham, which Peter Singer incorporated into his classic, Animal Liberation. Utilitarianism seeks to evaluate every situation in order to maximize joy for all parties.

For instance, it is far better for ten people to each receive one sandwich, than for one person to get all ten sandwiches. Sure, that one person at the top might feel increased gratification by receiving ten sandwiches instead of one.

Utilitarianism is based on the idea that morality is expressed by maximizing total joy and minimizing total suffering. Most of us can agree, for instance, that the pepperoni on pizza tastes good. There is consequently some added joy that comes with being able to order your pizza with pepperoni. In such cases, the animal suffering associated with a given food doubtless far outstrips the joy derived from its consumption.

We live in a time when vegan meats, dairy products, and eggs become better and more widely available every year. Day by day, the argument that non-vegan foods provide unique and irreplaceable pleasures is increasingly difficult to entertain. Utilitarian thinking applies not just to food, but to every animal product from cosmetics to fur to leather. But even so, utilitarianism probably offers the most helpful framework available for evaluating the ethics of animal use.

The concepts of speciesism, subject of a life, and utilitarianism offer ample reason to go plant-based—or to move beyond that to a vegan lifestyle.

Here then, we arrive at what I consider the crux of the matter: are you okay taking a healthy animal who clearly wants to live, and cutting her throat? Is slaughtering animals for food a violation of their rights, or is this part of the circle of life? Whatever your answer, this question certainly deserves the most careful reflection from each of us.

While no diet can guarantee a long and healthy life, becoming vegan may improve your odds. Vegans also tend to eat far more vegetables and fruits than non-vegetarians. Studies consistently show that people who eat the most fruits and vegetables tend to enjoy better health. Research also suggests that vegans suffer lower rates of heart disease and diabetes.

Additional benefits probably arise from low saturated fat intake and from the healthful compounds in plant foods. A surprisingly large number of vegans will tell you that quitting dairy changed their lives. Milk products may cause all sorts of chronic health ailments, from nasal congestion to acne to migraines to digestive problems.

Many people suffer from these conditions for decades, yet never suspect that dairy products are to blame. I can personally attest to the health benefits that can accompany going dairy-free. My lifelong severe nasal congestion vanished forever within weeks of eliminating milk products from my diet. With all this in mind, even people unswayed by environmental and animal rights concerns might consider going dairy-free.

A well-planned vegan diet can in fact support the highest levels of fitness. But what about sports that require strength and bulk? Here too, examples of elite vegan athletes abound. And in , fifteen members of the Tennessee Titans switched to a vegan diet. In addition to the personal health benefits associated with a vegan diet, substantial public health benefits exist as well.

One of the greatest of these relates to the incubation of new strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Through its lobbying efforts carried out alongside the pharmaceutical industry, the meat industry has for decades gotten away with using staggering amounts of antibiotics.

A small portion of these important antibiotics are administered to farm animals in order to treat severe infections. But most of these antibiotics go to healthy animals in order to improve feed-to-meat conversion rates, and to prevent diseases associated with overcrowding. In the United States, farm animals are responsible for something like 70 percent of all antibiotic use. Despite the well-known risks of antibiotic overuse, this percentage has been steadily increasing for years.

Worldwide, the meat and dairy industries combine to use more than , tons of antibiotics per year. Many of these antibiotics, like penicillin and tetracyclines, have irreplaceable uses in human medicine. Confining thousands of animals in one space and dosing them all with antibiotics inevitably increases microbial resistance. This in turn renders important classes of antibiotics ineffective for urgent human medical needs.

By rejecting meats sold by farms that use antibiotics, we can each send a message and avoid contributing to the problem. Raising animals for meat, milk, and dairy production wastes resources. It also damages the environment on a massive scale. When fed to farm animals, a substantial portion of the calories and nutrients present in grains is turned to manure.

This manure invariably pollutes local water supplies and chokes rivers and other bodies of water. Worse yet, the meat and dairy industries are now recognized as a leading contributor to climate change. That means basing your diet directly on plants, rather than on animals who in turn eat plants. Diet for a Small Planet was the first bestseller to explore how plant-based diets can shrink your environmental footprint. She documented how feeding grain to poultry and livestock wastes tremendous amounts of food energy, protein, and other nutrients.

On a planet racked by crop failures and famine, squandering food resources on such a massive scale seems depraved. Moreover, the animal manure that factory farms generate is a serious menace in it own right. Cows, pigs, and chickens produce mountains of manure, which causes massive environmental problems. Although animal waste makes outstanding fertilizer, its high water content makes manure too expensive to truck to distant farmlands to fertilize crops.

So instead of putting it to productive use as fertilizer, factory farms often get rid of their manure by spraying it onto surrounding land. Predictably, this method of disposal tends to foul local water supplies, especially well-water. During heavy rains, flooding washes these pollutants into rivers. In the United States, much of this farm runoff ends up in the Gulf of Mexico, with dire consequences. The size and location of this dead zone varies according to the season and the weather, but averages more than 15, square kilometers.

Whenever these dead zones move into new territory, virtually all fish and other marine life suffocate. Of all the environmental reasons to embrace a plant-based diet, the strongest was unknown until recently. Scientists now recognize that the livestock industry is a main driver of climate change. The 74 billion farm animals raised worldwide each year collectively spew massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that traps at least thirty times more atmospheric heat than an equal amount of carbon dioxide. But regardless, animal agriculture is still a top emitter of greenhouse gases—and is undoubtedly the most sensible source to prioritize.

But switching to a plant-based diet is easy, and in most cases actually saves money. Plant-based diets therefore deserve recognition as the most realistic opportunity to rapidly cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Factory farms produce truly staggering amounts of pollution, with grave public health consequences. This hazard is most evident at indoor pig operations. The ammonia vapor generated by pig urine so degrades air quality that many pigs develop lung lesions. On top of that, workers have significantly elevated rates of respiratory problems.

And the health damage caused by this and other forms of agribusiness-generated air pollution extends far beyond pigs and workers. People living on properties that neighbor the sorts of pig farms described above commonly have impaired lung function.

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that upwards of 13, Americans die each year from air pollution generated by meat, dairy, and egg producers. But there are strong reasons to rid your diet of seafood.

This is especially true for crabs and lobsters, since these animals are generally boiled alive. What about fish caught by nets or fishing lines? Are they capable of suffering? And, if so, how severely can they suffer? Studies definitively prove that fish are indeed capable of suffering. Fish farms often use antibiotics in massive quantities. And the crowding at many fish farms commonly causes infestations of gruesome parasites called sea lice. These parasites attach themselves to the fish and eat away at the skin, causing open lesions.

Genetic modification causes widespread deformities and even deafness among farmed salmon. Perhaps most disturbing, these fish routinely escape into the open ocean where they can mate with wild fish. This interbreeding causes unpredictable and potentially ruinous consequences to the gene pool of native fish species. And the worldwide appetite for fish is insatiable. As a result, fish populations around the world are in steep decline. Perhaps, then, if people must eat seafood, it should only go to populations that would face hunger without it.

Enforcing regulations against overfishing poses almost impossible problems. Fishing boats commonly switch off their electronic tracking equipment to evade the enforcement of catch limits. In some parts of the world, fishing fleets have caused irreversible catastrophes.

Over-fishing so ravaged the ecosystem that the cod have forever vanished. Fishing fleets decimate marine species of every sort. These nets ensnare every animal in their path, suffocating countless dolphins, sea turtles, sharks, and seabirds. Every kilogram of shrimp scooped up shrimping boats results in 4 to 6 kilograms of by-catch.

Given how many ways our food choices impact animals, our health, and our environment, this essay could offer only the briefest coverage of only the most important issues. But at least you now know enough to begin thinking productively about the topic. The way we eat carries enormous consequences.

Many people argue that nonhuman animals experience consciousness and deserve personhood. The question really is, do other species have mental experiences or do they sense things without having any sensation of what they are experiencing? Animals do—they react to movement: fight or flight or curiosity. Animal agriculture has a horrific impact on the planet.

A study published in the journal Science in found that the most sustainable animal-based products are still much worse for the environment than the least sustainable plant-based foods. Animal agriculture causes high levels of suffering to humans as well as animals. People who work on animal farms and in slaughterhouses suffer higher levels of PTSD than other industries.

Slaughterhouses and factory farms are also hotspots for viruses and bacteria, other illnesses, and injury. Slaughterhouses and factory farms deliberately recruit and employ undocumented workers to fill low-paying jobs, knowing that they will most likely not be able to speak out against unfair hours, low wages, and dangerous conditions. Some people avoid eating certain animals at specific times in accordance with the religion that they follow.

Animal agriculture causes air and water pollution, encourages deforestation, and contributes significantly to climate change. According to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, air pollution from factory farms kills more than 17, people across the United States annually.

Researchers say that animal agriculture is the worst emitter, responsible for 80 percent of deaths from pollution-related to food production. Agricultural production is estimated to be responsible for 80 percent of global deforestation. Animal agriculture fuels deforestation because land is cleared to grow soy or other crops to feed to farmed animals, or as pastureland for animals farmed by the meat and dairy industry.

Animal agriculture is one of the biggest contributors to global warming and is estimated by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization to be responsible for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Farmed animals produce manure and urine that frequently leaks into streams, rivers, and oceans. Because of the farming fertilizers that carry nutrients like nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus into water systems, algal blooms end up killing fish and aquatic life through the depletion of oxygen in the water.

It has been estimated that the 8 billion animals being raised for their flesh and secretions in the United States use half of the water consumed in the country. A report by the United Egg Producers estimated that 85 percent of commercial egg production in the U. Battery cages are usually a few feet wide and 15 inches high, leaving no room for chickens to spread out or stretch their wings. Multiple birds are stuffed into these small spaces and are unable to carry out natural behaviors such as perching, dust-bathing, foraging, and roosting.

These small and confined spaces are extremely harmful to chickens both physically and psychologically. After farmed animals are confined in damaging conditions, they are transported to the slaughterhouse in the same fashion. It is estimated that 4 million chickens, , pigs, and 29, cattle die in transport each year in the U. Animals are often held in trucks for long periods of time, with little room and no food or water, and easily overheat and suffer from dehydration in these conditions.

Some might find it surprising that the dairy industry is often said to be crueler than the meat industry. Females in the dairy industry are forced to become pregnant, year after year, so that they lactate, producing milk that humans take and sell. After giving birth, 97 percent of newborn dairy calves will be forcibly removed from their mothers within their first 24 hours of life. Most female calves will face the same fate as their mothers before them, while most males will be sold off for veal or cheap beef.

In the U. The natural molting process of hens is exploited and the entire flock is forced to grow new feathers. The hens are starved so that they unnaturally enter the molting process that would normally occur each winter, and the result is better egg production, at the expense of the overall health of the hens.

Many farmed mother pigs are held in gestation crates —a metal cage so tight that pigs cannot turn around—their whole lives. The meat industry treats them like machines, artificially inseminating them again and again so that their babies can be taken at a few weeks old and used for food. Because animals trapped in factory farms are packed into cramped and crowded conditions, their bodies are often mutilated without painkillers to avoid the disease and injury these conditions create.

It is standard practice to cut off the horns of cattle, the beaks of chickens, and the tails of sheep, pigs, and animals used by the dairy industry. Selective breeding has created misery for farmed animals across the world.