Going Vegan

Everyone should be a vegan. Not only does eating meat support the abuse of animals, but it's also bad for your health and the environment. Going vegan has many benefits. On average, a vegan lives six to ten years longer than meat eaters. Meat eaters eat over six hundred pounds of meat each year, which is five times more than the consumption of fruit and three times the consumption of grain. Why not go vegan? It can literally change the world.

Animals raised for food do not grow up on luxurious fairy tale farms like those in children's books. They are raised in a little place called hell - factory farms. Animals - pigs, cows, chickens, turkeys, ducks - are shoved into ridiculously small cages and kept there for months at a time, not being able to spread a single wing, turn around, or feed their babies. Cows are branded, leaving untreated third degree burns on the side of their head or body, have their horns chopped off, and are castrated, all without painkillers or anesthetic. Pigs have their teeth clipped in half, ears mutilated, tails cut off, and are castrated, also without painkillers. "Chickens and turkeys are arguably the most abused animals on the face of the Earth." (Paul McCartney). If a chicken is born a boy on a factory farm, they are immediately torn from their mothers and are ground up alive in grinders to be made into food for other animals. All female chickens have their sensitive beaks cut off with a hot knife and are stuffed into room full of hundreds of other birds. They are given hormones and steroids that make them grow so big so fast that the chickens often cripple under their own weight and starve to death just inches from their food. If the animals in factory farms survive and are still seen as profitable, they are stuffed into cages by the eights or into trucks by the dozens and shipped to slaughterhouses. Chickens, cows, and pigs are shackled upside down by their feet. Cows and pigs have their throats slit while they're still conscious and able to feel pain, then are left to bleed to death. Most chickens lift their heads up before the blade that slits their throats cut them.

Billions of chickens every day are boiled alive in defeathering tanks. All before slaughter, each animal must live through unbearably harsh treatments, which result in broken bones, bruising, and inanity from being beaten, trampled on, roughly handled, and even sexually assaulted or molested. However, there is a humane way to kill animals. It's called the CAK method (controlled atmosphere killing). Very few factory farms use it. Chickens are put into chambers and are gently put to sleep as the oxygen is replaced with other gases. It is far less traumatic then traditional slaughter methods and eliminates most abuse, as slaughterhouse workers never get the chance to handle live birds. They die without feeling anything! Large companies and food chains like McDonalds refuse to have their suppliers in Canada and the US to switch to the CAK method. By buying meat and dairy from a store or food from McDonalds, you are supporting animal abuse. The more you buy, the greater supply and demand is so more animals get abused then slaughtered. By going vegan, you cut down on the supply in demand, resulting in saving over a 100 animals a year from abuse and death.

By performing a clinical study using one thousand eighty eight teen-aged patients over the course of ten years, Dr. Jerome Fisher proved that eating dairy is the leading cause of acne. He discovered that once his patients stopped eating dairy their acne went away. Not only is meat and dairy bad for your looks but it's also bad for your body. The animals used for food are sprayed with pesticides and antibiotics to prevent disease. The saturated fat, cholesterol, pesticides, dioxins, hormones, and antibiotics end up in the food you eat. Your body creates all the cholesterol it needs. The extra cholesterol from dairy and meat blocks the flow of blood to all the organs in your body and even causes impotence. Going vegan reverses heart disease strokes, and various types of cancer, diabetes, and obesity.

How does eating meat affect the environment, you ask? The meat industry happens to produce more greenhouse gases than all the cars, trucks, SUV's, planes, and ships in the world combined. Factory farms give off enormous amounts of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous-oxide emissions, which are the leading causes of climate change. It's not just what factory farms give off, but what they need to function. Factory farms use over one-third of all fossil fuels and raw materials in the United States alone to raise animals for food. Over half the water in the U.S. is used for raising animals, too. Besides that, over two-thirds of the rain forests have been cleared away to raise cattle. Going vegan fights climate change better than switching to a hybrid car.

Going vegan fights three major conflicts: Animal abuse, health problems, and climate change. Lots of people look down on vegans without knowing the benefits of not eating meat or dairy, or how they are contributing to hurting animals, their selves, or the environment. If going vegan is a great cause, then why don't people do it? Now that you know the real story, will you go vegan?