A Vegetarian Diet

As more and more of the planets population grows, more foods are in demand to keep everyone in the world fed. Foods such as meats, vegetables, fruits, and more are produced by the millions throughout the world, but many consumers have no clue how much energy is used to produce them. One of the food groups, the production of meat, is the biggest threat to the environment next to cars. Additionally it is known that production of meat has led to methane, and carbon dioxide emission, large amount of land and water use, and unhealthy eating habits that can lead to obesity. Now imagine a society where red meat is not available for consumption, and everyone converted to vegetarianism. People will be overall healthy and fed, carbon emission would drastically go down, and many acres of land will be available for use. In my utopian project, in a span of 25-50 years, I will propose a plan to completely ban the consumption of meat and incorporate more fish farms and futuristic farming to the United States. This plan will result to less carbon dioxide emissions, less water use and completely change the health of the citizens in the United States. My vegetarian/pescetarian utopia will be successful in addressing the issues of the overall health of both the planet and the people of the United states.

Thesis statement: There should be meat free alternatives and more awareness of the benefits of choosing a vegetarian lifestyle as eating less meat is better for an individual’s health and the environmental.

You may not know this, but what you choose to eat has a huge impact on the environment. There are many stances for these view points, but two people have very different opinions from one another. Jonathon Safron Foer is a strong advocate to not eat factory farmed meat in his essay “Against Meat”. On the other hand, Christina Serbenz flips a 180 on her view about food in her essay “7 Reasons Why I Refuse to Stop Eating Meat”, she argues that meat is vital for nutrition and adds a huge social benefit. There are many pros and cons according to each author.

“Meats, Dairies, and Eggs, Oh Why” (2014) is an argumentative essay written by Rebecca Dent that explains the benefits of eating a plant-based diet and advocates for the better treatment of the animals affected by the meat industry. Dent supports her assertions by discussing the negative health effects of an omnivorous diet, addressing reasons some might be hesitant to convert to a plant-based diet, describing the advantages of substituting meat for vegetables for both the consumers and the animals, and finally, by including expert opinions and statistical facts. Dent’s purpose for this essay is to highlight the benefits of vegetarianism in order to convince readers to convert to a plant-based diet. The intended audience for this argument is those who currently eat an omnivorous diet so that they would assess and change their eating habits.

Vegetarianism has been around since as early as the seventh century B.C.E.. The civilization was the Indus Valley Civilization, they practiced tolerance towards all living things. Several Indian cultures and various religions (such as a ahimsā) also practice non-violence towards animals (“Vegetarianism”, Wikipedia.com). This used to be the sole purpose for being vegetarian, but nowadays people are becoming vegetarian for several more reasons. The ethical aspect is still a big reason in the decision. Health benefits and environmental aspects have now also become big reasons for the controversy over vegetarianism. People say that killing animals for food is not morally wrong and, is in fact, a crucial part of our lives. Another aspect is that, while in some ways vegetarianism is beneficial to the environment, it can also hurts the environment. Also, despite all of the health benefits involved with vegetarianism, there are also several health concerns connected with it.

Going vegetarian can help preserve the limited land and water system that us humans take for granted sometimes. Factory farming along with free range farming are destroying the earth and its biodiversity. When people think of pollution like unnecessary CO2 emissions and deforestation of rainforests, they do not think about the animals being raised for consumption. In an article, “Concentrated animal Agriculture Is The Biggest

Meat production in modern conditions and scope can negatively affect the environment. Unfortunately, the entire global transportation of cars, planes, and ships allocates a large amount of interest and disposing of all greenhouse gases. Because in the world, many people who like to eat meat, countries allocate a huge swath of land to make more room for animals. Also scattered land to feed these animals. According to the article “Vegetarianism” by Ramsey. P, “Animals not confined to feedlots pose different problems for the environment. Overgrazing and disagreements about land use in the western United States have become major battleground issues between ranchers and environmentalists.” I believe that this is a big problem for our environment.

For years vegetarian and vegan diets have been gaining popularity. This rise in popularity is due largely to the belief that a vegetarian diet has numerous health benefits and the animals being raised to be slaughtered are not being treated humanely. These are both good reasons for adopting a meat-free lifestyle, but there is an even more pressing reason. The current rate of meat consumptions, especially in developed nations, is consuming natural resources at a rate that is not sustainable. The amount of resources such as land, water, and crops consumed to support meat production is staggering. In addition to the resource consumption, meat production is also contributing to critical global environmental issues such as deforestation and ozone depletion.

For thousands of years people have been consuming meat. A big part of people’s culture is focused around food and family, and disrupting that can be insensitive. Humans have evolved to a population by manipulating the environment, that being the use technology. Animal byproducts are what humans live on and contain essential nutrients on which humans thrive on. It provides a dense amount of calories, protein, and minerals in which is essential to survive. Animal agriculture was the driving force of human development, because there was an ability to constantly provide adequate food to the population. This allowed free time, innovations, explorations, and eventually the world in which we live. Meat also provides economic stimulus with in our world, but that has some drawbacks. As a country’s wealth develops, so does its consumption of animals, and studies have shown that this has a direct impact on the environment. Factory farming can have a substantial effect on the environment, by gas emissions, carbon use, and water pollution -just to name a few. The pros and cons can be pretty equal or out of proportion depending on one’s predisposition on the topic.

We should take care of the living conditions of animals, the impact of animal production on the environment and the optimization of the industrial farming in order obtain nutritional value from meat more effectively. We should reduce the pain we bring to animals and minimize the negative effects we exert on the environment due to our animal eating behavior. Peter Singer objects to our practice of animal eating as he thinks we violate animals’ right to live and avoid pain by making animals suffer. In Singer’s view, we living in the industrialized society could easily obtain food without using animals’ flesh (178). Animals’ flesh does not serve as the necessity for health or longevity reasons so that we could stop eating meat and be vegans instead.

But, what is vegetarianism? Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood and the flesh of any other animal), and may also include abstention from by-products of animal slaughter. Vegetarianism can be

As we can now observe, vegetarianism has become something fashionable, and the number of people who reject eating meat is constantly increasing. In Britain, for instance, over 5 million people have done it so far. It is obviously connected with the recent animal diseases, but this tendency is likely to spread on the other regions of the world. However, it is not only a fashion or fear of illnesses. I myself became a vegetarian about 2 years ago, and I can see a number of reasons why people should stop eating meat. They are mainly of ethic, economic and health type. Those who think in an ecological way should also be aware of how this meat consumption ruins our environment. I don’t have an intention

Having a healthy dietary method can reduce the chances of receiving many health diseases. These health diseases include obesity, heart disease, and cancer. By consuming certain foods and nutrients in one’s diet the risk factors for these health diseases can be reduced. A healthy dietary method that is beneficial to reducing and/or improving these health diseases is the vegetarian diet. The vegetarian diet follows a dietary pattern that is characterized by the consumption of plant-like foods and the avoidance of flesh foods (meat, poultry, and fish). The foods in this diet provide the body with many essential nutrients. This is why many health benefits have been associated with the vegetarian

Consumption of meat by humans creates several problems. First and foremost, raising animals for food compromises the environment. For example, it takes a large amount of natural resources to sustain the meat industry. The use of water, land, and food to raise animals for human consumption is not an efficient use of our limited resources. In contrast, it is more efficient to feed humans directly than to use land, food, and water to feed animals to be used as food. There are shortages of fertile land, clean water, and food in several third world countries. Many of these countries’ resources are allocated to produce feed for animals in developed countries around the world. As a result, the citizens of these countries are stricken with water and food shortages, while their crops are feeding cattle from across the globe. However, this problem can be solved by adopting a vegan diet. The vegan diet will allow a more efficient use of resources that in turn can be used to feed starving men, women, and children throughout the world. Consequently, more people in the world could be fed if the land used to grow feed for animals was used to grow food for humans.

The term “vegetarian” is quite often misunderstood. Vegetarian simply means a plant-based diet. There are several kinds of vegetarian diets, defined by what types of foods are consumed. I for example am a Lacto-vegetarians which includes dairy products in their diet. Lacto-ovo- vegetarians also eat dairy products, eggs and some including me don’t eat fish either.