Before you say "but it's what I want to eat, it's not hurting anyone!", hear me out. I know you've grown up consuming meat, dairy, and eggs and never thought twice about it. Neither did I for a long time. You're not a bad person for not being vegan. I'm not here to stand on some moral high ground to tell you that you're a horrible human being for not thinking the same as me. Most people don't know why people are vegan and only see negative stereotypes. This post is not calling you out or attacking you for what you eat. So without further adieu, here is why I'm vegan.
I love animals.
We all feel this sentiment- at least I hope so. We love our pets and cherish their company. We love animals and we don't want to hurt them. If anyone were to hurt our pets, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be okay with it. But at some point along the way, we were taught that certain animals are for company and others are for eating. Did you ever wonder why? If you're like most people, you probably didn't.
So what you mean when you say "I love animals" is that you love specific animals. Because if you loved ALL animals, you wouldn't be OK with the rape, torture, and slaughter of animals such as cows, pigs, or chickens. Can you imagine someone wanting to do those things to a dog? Of course, I'm speaking as someone who lives in the United States where this is not common practice like it is in some parts of the world. Which is always hypocritical and somewhat amusing when people are in an uproar over these practices while we simultaneously do the same thing to cows. But I digress.
Animals are individuals like you and me. They feel pain, loss, and terror. One of the worst instances is within the dairy industry. The female cows are forcefully impregnated (in order to produce milk- remember you need a calf) year after year. If their baby is a male, they will be killed within a matter of days (that's where veal comes from!). If they're female, they will endure the same fate as their mother. The mother cows experience the loss of their babies just like a human mother would. You can find videos of these mothers running after their babies when they are taken (which is usually immediately after birth). In fact, here's a video right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaqR9V4XkXA
Before you say "but that's not everywhere", it actually is. This is standard practice. Even if your dairy is from a local farm, the practice is the same. No matter how they try to spin it saying that their cows are "happy and healthy", these practices are inhumane.
Speaking of inhumane, imagine being hung upside with others of your species and seeing those in front of you having their necks cut open and bleeding to death. Pretty terrifying, right? This is what happens to animals, such as pigs, all over the world. This is considered a "humane slaughter". I could laugh at that oxymoron if it wasn't so terrifying at the same time. These animals don't want to die. No matter how they are raised, their deaths are premature and undue. I could give many more examples, but I think my fingers would fall off and my brain would implode if I was to attempt to write them all out. I will be leaving more information down below.
I care about the environment.
At this point I usually hear the words "tree hugging hippie" to describe people like me who care about the environment. But is that really a bad thing? While I don't go around hugging every tree I see, I'd like to keep them around. Here is a (kinda) short list of environmental reasons:
- Animal agriculture accounts for eighteen percent of greenhouse gas emissions- which is more than all transportation exhaust (Source)
- Animal agriculture utilizes 34-76 trillion gallons of water a year- which is far more than fracking at 70-140 billion gallons
(Source One, Source Two, Source Three)
- Livestock cover 45% of land (Source Three, Source Two)
- 75% of the world's fisheries are exploited or depleted (Source One, Source Two)
- Up to 91% of Amazon destruction can be attributed to animal agriculture (Source)
I tried to make this list as concise as possible... I really did. This is just a screenshot of the environmental impacts that we are causing due to eating animal products.
I care about my health and the health of others.
This is when everyone tells me "everything in moderation", but in this instance, that's not good enough. And when are Americans really good about moderation anyways? Just saying...
Eating animal products is linked to some of the leading causes of death such as heart disease and certain types of cancer. Adopting a vegan diet can also reverse the affects of heart disease. For my sources, I often turn to Dr. Greger from nutritionfacts.org (Link). I find that he explains subjects in a way that is easy to understand because lets face it, we're not all doctors.
Conclusion
In reality, this post is just the tip of the iceberg. Over the course of my time here on this blog, I intend to right more thorough post about each subject. At it's core, I'm vegan because I don't want to use animals to my benefit- especially when it's destroying the environment and our health. It is incredibly easy to switch to a plant-based diet. In the modern world, we no longer need to eat animal products to survive. You can't pretend that you live in a bubble and don't effect everyone else. So my question to you is, why wouldn't you go vegan?
Information
If you'd like to explore veganism more, here are some helpful resources and links. These cover a variety of topics in much greater depth than I've talked about.
These documentaries/videos:
Cowspiracy (on Netflix)
Forks Over Knives (on Netflix)
Earthlings: http://www.nationearth.com/earthlings-1/
Best Speech You Will Ever Hear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es6U00LMmC4
Uprooting the Leading Causes of Death: http://nutritionfacts.org/video/uprooting-the-leading-causes-of-death/
These YouTube channels:
That Vegan Couple: https://www.youtube.com/user/MoveMeYoga
The Vegan Activist: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE0yGL4Bgs2QNomOrslyLtw
Happy Healthy Vegan: https://www.youtube.com/user/HappyHealthyVegan/featured
The Vegan Zombie: https://www.youtube.com/user/ZombieGate
Lauren Jade: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrvfHDU3RVnHVIc26oyuO7Q
Bite Size Vegan: https://www.youtube.com/user/BiteSizeVegan
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