5 Non-Nutritional Reasons to Go Meatless

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Eschewing meat and choosing plants as the foundation for the most perfect diet is a decision supported in multiple dimensions, such as health, ecology, and sustainability. Nutritionally speaking, humans do not require animal products to survive. We, in fact, benefit from emphasizing plants as fuel, enjoying a reduced risk for obesity and most of the chronic diseases that plague society at all-time highs. All nutrients can be found – packaged better – in plants, save for the microbial-produced vitamin B12 and sun-inspired vitamin D. But, in addition to these health-oriented advantages, there are at least these five crucial non-nutritional reasons for going plant-based…

1. Overuse of antibiotics has led to the proliferation of superbugs – bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics – resulting in the heightened risk of untreatable infections in humans (articlearticle). Seventy to eighty percent of all antibiotics sold in the United States are sold for agricultural use (articlearticlearticle). I previously wrote a more detailed analysis  on the threat of antibiotic resistance here.

 

2. Livestock production is the most significant contributor to environmental destruction, more so than all transportation combined. Factory farming is incredibly energy-intensive, depleting our land, oceans, and fresh water and food supplies (report, video). We are using our planet’s resources at approximately 1.6 times the rate beyond what it can provide and we will require two full Earths to sustain our current eating behaviors, according to sustainability consultant, Dr. Richard Oppenlander.

 

 

3. Animal cruelty. The only way to bring animals to the table at the rate at which humans are consuming them is to impose extraordinary conditions, invoking a lifetime of incessant torture, and then untimely, brutal slaughter to approximately 70 billion animals a year. (Mercy For Animals, 10 Billion LivesEarthlings trailer)

 

4. Animal products are chemical cocktails. Hormones, toxins, pathogens, (more on foodborne illness), chemicals, and medications are all regularly found in meats, dairy, and eggs. Worse, inspections by the government to regulate and protect us from these risks are flawed, failingimperfect, and deceptive

 

 

 

 

5. The consumption of animals costs us exorbitant amounts of money in healthcare by billions of dollars, since eating animals is associated with drastically increased risks of the most common chronic diseases and symptoms requiring long-term pharmaceutical and medical management. Further, livestock production is heavily subsidized by the government primarily by supporting feed crop operations, saving farmers billions of dollars and helping consumers eat more harmful animal products at lower prices, but suffering the adverse health effects, nonetheless.

Further Reading:

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This Post Has 9 Comments

  1. Eric Pode

    But you mustn't eat plant life. Plants absorb all that nasty CO2!

  2. Angela Minelli

    Wow. This is an insanely eye-opening article. I've been wanting to go vegan, and now this may really push me over the edge. I might try just eating fish and eggs at first and then completely wean off. There's a mindset issue to contend with too sometimes which I'm facing but I'll get there 🙂

  3. Doug Williams

    You do realize this vegan nonsense has only been around for a few hundred years. Unfortunately vegans know zip about biology. There has never been a study to compare vegan against a carnivore diet. The studies have all been vegan against the SAD diet. It was the vegans we have to thank for the gmo crap we have now. You do know that vegetables are carbohydrates, don't you? And you do know that carbohydrates is sugar, right? So what you're considering is going on an all sugar diet. May as well just eat ice cream and enjoy it. There are so many facts wrong with this article I won't even bother debating them.

  4. Angela Minelli

    Why don't you shut the fuck up Doug Williams because I'm not asking for you opinion? And why don't you consider the fact that YOU might be wrong? And yea, I'm not so fucking stupid that I don't know VEGETABLES are carbs – I EAT carbs douche bag!

  5. Angela Minelli

    Why don't you shut the fuck up Doug Williams because I'm not asking for you opinion? And why don't you consider the fact that YOU might be wrong? And yea, I'm not so fucking stupid that I don't know VEGETABLES are carbs – I EAT carbs douche bag!

  6. Tavores Tymes

    Gen.9:10-11 And with every living creature that is with you of the fowl of the cattle and of every beast of the earth with you from all that go out from the ark to every beast of the earth And i will establish my with you!!!!! see people forget that the covenant not to shed blood thru cruelty was to the animals also zoo when we murder them we break the everlasting covenant as said in Is.25:5 we have broken it because of whats written in Ez.24:6-9…..and in Acts 15:20;28-29 is how all shall be saved because the Father will repay those who have shed blood for the lust of flesh eating

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