Taking a Look at Vegetarianism Essay

There are vegetarians all over the world. They just want what most people want: good food and a choice. And some people become vegetarians because of their religion, their culture, and the place they live.

Those who advocate vegetarianism profess that many people are weak of heart and so succumb to meat eating. While those who advocate a meat-oriented diet say that a meat diet is essential for a normal and healthy life, for they provide protein.

When most of our time is spent recovering from school, doing homework and thinking about our future there isn't that much time for anything else.

According to scientists the burning of fossil fuels is the main source for the large amounts of pollutants humans are creating. Fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas produce large amounts of carbon when burned to create energy that we all use. Many people think that the burning of these fossil fuels is not that big of a deal and there are other major contributors in the climate change controversy. The burning of these resources produce thousands of tons of carbon that are released into the atmosphere everyday Most everyone in the United States uses some source of energy produced from fossil fuels. Without the fossil fuels the major cities would not have enough energy to keep everything going. While they are working on increasing the amount of renewable energy sources, they are still dependent on the fossil fuels. Scientists are trying to link human pollution to the extreme weather changes that have been going on in recent years. An article found on www.edf.com Climate Changes Effect Plunder the Planet brings up some of the ideas that are caused by climate change. With the large amounts of carbon and other greenhouse gasses that are released they are effecting our ozone layer by trapping heat from leaving the planet, causing an increase in the global temperature around the world. www.study.com Fossil Fuels, Greenhouse Gases, and Global Warming states that over the last 800

The excess of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere have led to a dramatic rise in the climate and the hottest recorded years the Earth has seen. To be specific, “the 25 warmest years on record have come since 1980 [and] the 10 warmest since global recordkeeping began in 1880 have come since 1996, (p 56)” which is nothing to boast about, seeing as this is also the largest population and most technology the Earth has ever seen. Moreover, in lecture, we went over the amount of greenhouse gases created solely by livestock and how being a society dependent of livestock for food is very negative. Livestock emit about 68% of all agriculturally produced methane(lecture) and methane counts for approximately 18% of greenhouse gases (p 57). That is not to say that livestock do not create a large amount; in fact, human-caused methane emissions are almost solely from agriculture. To combat this, Dr. Wailes proposed that instead of basing our diet on water-heavy crops and methane-emitting animals, we switch to much more sustainable foods. One example of this would be to eat bugs. Bugs contain much more protein by the pound and do not eat alfalfa, which is what causes cows and other livestock to emit greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. Dr. Wailes also displayed a chart with three different “meals” which

Vegetarianism is a custom practiced in six out of the seven continents and has become more popular over the years. Vegetarianism can be defined as the exclusion of animal products such as meat and fish from one’s diet. Dairy products and eggs are often times excluded as well. Although there are many reasons one may decide to become a Vegetarian or follow such a code of ethics, the most common include: moral, religious or health reasons.

The sector emits significant amounts of three of the most important GHGs: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O). In fact, globally the farm animal sector accounts for: 9% of human-induced CO2 emissions, 35-40% of human-induced CH4 emissions, which has 25 times the global warming potential (GWP), or power, of CO2 over 100 years, and 65% of human-induced N2O emissions, which has about 300 times the GWP of CO2.” The Humane Society International explains here that animal agriculture is responsible for up to 65% of our emissions of these compounds, and shows that animal agriculture contributes to more emissions of the most powerful substances, while it contributes less to the weaker ones. While animal agriculture isn’t responsible for all of our pollution, it definitely plays a major role in the way we affect our

Environmental agencies focus on fossil fuels as the big bad baddy of greenhouse gas emissions leading to global warming, suggesting alternative energy, carpooling, hybrid cars, and biking, but animal agriculture accounts for more carbon dioxide per year than all transportation methods combined.

Raising and consuming livestock is destroying our planet with animal agriculture accounting for over 19% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon dioxide generated from the production of meat is the biggest contributor, generating 30 kilograms of carbon dioxide for one kilogram of beef made.

According to Laura Fraser, being a vegetarian is way more complicated than she first realized. It takes a lot more effort being a vegetarian rather than if people just consumed meat like most of our generation does. Vegetarians have to find other ways to get all the proteins and vitamins they need to stay healthy. Since it is rare for people to be considered a vegetarian most people who aren’t have to conform to them to satisfy their needs. She states in her essay that people become vegetarians for several different reasons varying from health related, animal rights activists, and environmental issues.

Where according to a research, the use of fossil fuels in factory farms to grow feeds for the large number of animals, emits 90 million tons of carbon dioxides worldwide per year, and also emits 37% of methane gas, which largely contributes to global warming.

     It also needs to be pointed out that meat production industry is highly unfriendly to the environment. It has been proved that the results of this mindless actions are extremely harmful to the whole planet: trees are lost in creating farms for animal food, land is taken away from wildlife, additional erosion is caused, topsoil is lost, groundwater is wasted, and pesticide is excessively used. In fact, one chicken farm uses as much water as a little city. Few may know that this industry, compared to others, causes the biggest pollution at all.

In the year of 2012, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimated that Americans ate an average of 52.3 pounds of beef, 57.4 pounds of chicken and 43.5 pounds of pork per person.(citation?) Only 5% of Americans are vegetarians and with that much meat eaten by Americans, in one year alone why should you to forced to become vegetarian? With meat being the main staple in the Americans diet there is no reason we should take that of the table. That fact alone shows that most Americans’ diets are made up of meat sources. According to the United States Census Bureau (USCB) the U.S. population was 313.8 million; meaning that 16 billion pounds of beef, 18 billion chicken and 13 billion pounds of pork was eaten by Americans alone in

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

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.