Vecetarlanism : The healthy and moral choice
What is a vegetarian? It seems like a simple question, but the answer is complicated because many people who follow very different diets all declare themselves vegetarians. Some, known as vegans, eat no animal products at all: no meat, no eggs, no products made from milk such as butter and cheese, and no honey. Some vegans, known as fruitarians, go even further; they avoid killing plants, eating only fruit, seeds, beans and nuts. Other vegetarians are less extreme, eating no products that require killing animals. They decline to eat meat or fish but do eat milk products and eggs. Finally, there are vegetarians who eat some kinds of meat and fish. Some eat fish but no meat; some eat fish and chicken but no red meat such as beef. Because such people eat fish or chicken, strict vegetarians do not consider them to be vegetarians at all.
There are multiple good reasons for becoming a vegetarian. First, animals raised for food are kept in cruel conditions, where they suffer and are ultimately killed. It is simply wrong to cause the death and substantial suffering of another living creature. With their religious beliefs, such people as Hindus and Buddhists share this point of view. As well, it is wrong to use land to raise animals for their meat; the amount of land and energy required to produce a kilogram of meat protein is about 10 times that needed to produce the equivalent amount of protein. As a consequence of switching to a non-meat diet, more people could be fed on the same amount of land, and in a world where one-third of the population struggles in poverty, a non-meat diet is more appropriate.
Apart from these moral reasons, the current method of raising animals, in massive factory farms threatens the environment. Not only do these farms cause exposure to pollution and disease in rural areas, but they also contribute to climate change in several ways. First, cattle themselves are a source of methane, which has a much more significant greenhouse warming effect than carbon dioxide (CO2). As they digest food, cattle produce around 18 percent of the methane in the atmosphere caused by human activity. In addition, tropical rain forest is burned and cut down in order to grow crops to feed cattle. This burning adds CO2 to the atmosphere, and the forest can no longer capture CO2 and produce oxygen. Lastly, raising animal protein, with its requirement of oil-based chemicals and fuel, uses more energy. In all these ways, our hunger for cheap meat adds to the global warming problem.
Finally, we should all pursue a vegetarian diet for health reasons. A diet rich in meat is also often one that is high in fat; this can lead to disease, especially heart disease and cancer. On average, vegetarians live much longer than meat eaters. Eliminating meat from our food will enable us to lead a healthier and longer life.