The Benefits Of Vegetarianism

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Interesting Fact: If every American skipped one meal of chicken for a week, the environmental effects would be equivalent to 500,000 cars off the road. This is one of the many simple yet startling facts that should be more than enough for our society to take a vegetarian diet into consideration. A vegetarian is someone who does not eat meat and sometimes other animal products for religious, moral, or health reasons. Around 500 B.C.E vegetarians were first mentioned by the Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras of Samos. The most common form of vegetarians are lacto-ovo vegetarians who eat vegetables, eggs, and dairy products but do not eat any form of meat. The real question is, why should people become vegetarian in the first place?…show more content…
Last but not least, vegetarians can drastically decrease the amount of food being wasted on our planet and could help reduce world hunger. It is time for us to take a vegetarian diet critically and encourage others to become vegetarians for the good of future generations. To start with, vegetarians have a lower risk from cardiovascular problems, cancer, and other severe diseases that meat eaters have high chances of getting. According to the Harvard Health Publishing, “In one of the largest studies…vegetarians on average are 25% less likely to die from heart diseases.” Heart disease is the most leading cause of death for both men and women. Any medical treatment required to cure heart related problems are known to be hugely expensive and in multiple cases unaffordable for an average family. It is not only about the expenses when it comes to cardiovascular problems, also the great burden put on a family when losing a loved one through heart issues. With a vegetarian diet, millions of people would be saved from heart problems . Another study done by the Oxford Cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition ( EPIC- Oxford) that involved…show more content…
over 10 pounds of plant protein are used to produce one pound of beef protein. If these grains were fed to humans instead of livestock, more food would be available for the 925 million people in chronic hunger worldwide..”. Why do we waste large amounts of plants and land to feed livestock, take care of them, wait for them to grow big enough, kill them, and then ship it to stores? In the same amount of time and land, more vegetables and fruits like potatoes could have been grown and sent to people suffering from hunger. Research conducted by Cornell University states that the U.S. alone could feed 800 million people, leaving only 125 million people for the rest of the world to grow enough food to feed. There is so much time and effort being wasted on livestock when there are critical problems like world hunger affecting us. Veganzinga claims that 40% of all food produced in the U.S. is thrown away. Tomatoes that aren't aesthetically pleasing are thrown right off the vine”. This statement is agreeable, however it could be misunderstood. For example, a tomato being thrown away is wasting far less than a piece of meat thrown away. That piece of meat requires over 10 pounds of plant like the tomato. Our society should be educated on not wasting food because of its appearance and before it

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