People ask me all the time: “why are you vegan”. I hear it
almost every day. This question is followed by a superfluity of generic “oh
well I don’t know...I lot of reasons I guess” and I divert the conversation to
avoid conflict. I know this is not the radical response you were expecting from
a crazy vegan but there is a time and place for everything and to be honest it is
not a clear cut simple answer.
The reasoning behind my lifestyle boils to three basic
principles: health, compassion and survival.
Health:
I could go on and on about the health benefits of being
vegan and risks of animal based diets but to keep it short and sweet I will summarize
what I feel are the most compelling arguments.
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Cardiovascular
disease: A vegan diet reduces the
risk for heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. Vegan diets go far in preventing
heart attack and stroke.
-
Cholesterol:
Eliminating any food that comes from an
animal and you will eliminate all dietary cholesterol from your diet.
-
Prostate
cancer: A study outlined in the Medical News Today; showed that men in the
early stages of prostate cancer who switched to a vegan diet either stopped the
progress of the cancer or may have even reversed the illness.
-
Colon
cancer: Because of the design of the
human digestive system, food sits in the intestines for a long time compared to
other omnivores. As a result, eating a
plant based diet significantly reduces the chance of colon cancer.
-
Breast
cancer: The most extensive study ever performed on human nutrition (the
China Study – referenced below) concluded that countries where women eat very
little meat and animal products have a much lower rate of breast cancer than do
the women in countries that consume more animal products.
-
Weight: A
healthy weight can be obtained and maintained through a vegan diet. Eating
vegan eliminates most of the unhealthy foods that tend to cause weight concerns.
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Energy
and sleep patterns: From my personal experience, eating vegan has given me
so much more energy and an overall happier, less stressful life.
An abundance of studies prove a range of benefits from
reduced cataracts to stronger, shinier hair. Like I said, I will not provide
you with an exhaustive list the above are just my favorites.
Compassion:
This branch of thought is less black and white making it thornier
to explain and stems into two categories: compassion for animals and compassion
for other humans.
The animal bit is more obvious.
Animals are brutally slaughtered day in and day out. There
is no question about it. I am not a writer and do not have the literary skills
to begin to describe what goes on in slaughter houses and even “free range”
farms. Here are a few links that give a little insight to the animal cruelty: http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/factory-farming.aspx
There is a less obvious ripple effect from the current “North
American Diet”. The carbon footprint from animal based diets is considerably
higher than that of plant based diets. Take a look at this chart and see for
yourself: http://www.thedailygreen.com/weird-weather/weather-categories/global-warming-pictures/carbon-footprint-of-food-0717.
So what does this mean? I will discuss this a little more in the header below
but the premise is that our planet is disintegrating right before our eyes. Our
lifestyles are destroying the ecosystem causing animals to be endangered and extinct.
In the past 20 years, the coral coverage
in the Caribbean has dissolved by 90% and 38% in the Great Barrier Reef. This is
not cool guys.
Compassion also means compassion for other human beings. It
has been widely discussed that if every person in the world lived their lives their
lives like the average North American, we would need six Earths to supply the
resources - meaning that our planet cannot handle this level of life. Think of
it as a zero sum game: every time you consume something from this planet you
are taking it away from someone else. According to the most recent
estimate that Hunger Notes could find, malnutrition, as measured by stunting,
affects 32.5 percent of children in developing countries—which is one of three. We are all to blame.
Survival:
I have heard an assortment of arguments that challenge vegan-ism I am sure that I am not the only one who has heard: “our ancestors didn't battle their way to the top of the food chain just so you can eat tofu and
lettuce”. My Nana says something along these lines every time I visit her.
If I am not mistaken this argument is a deduction of the
celebrated Darwinian theory of evolution; survival of the fittest and so
on and so forth. This theory extends that time can have varying effects on
beings and the result can be adaptation, co-evolution, co-operation and
extinction.
Our current lifestyle is definitely not co-operation or
co-evolution as the rest of the planet seems to be decomposing whilst we
attempt to strive. So what is left? Adaptation and extinction.
Adaptation is the process that makes organisms better suited
to their habitat. Is this what people mean by the “our ancestors...” statement
above? In that we have adapted over the years to reach the top of the food
chain to secure the safest place in the current habitat. At first glance this
makes sense. Let’s look into this a little more...
The number one cause of human death is heart disease and
cancer. This is our number one predator in the current human habitat. Further,
studies have shown that these diseases can be directly attributable to eating
animal products. So although climbing the food chain may have made sense at
point in time it is not consistent with the Darwinian concept of adaptation.
This leaves one last page in the Darwin book: extinction.
Overall the vegan lifestyle just makes sense to me and that is why I am
vegan.
Sources:
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