43 reasons to be a vegan

From http://www.liberation-mag.org.uk/vegan.htm

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1. Vegan diets offer disease protection because of lower cholesterol and animal protein and higher folates, antioxidant vitamins and plant nutrients.

2. Vegans are less likely to suffer strokes caused by coronary artery disease.

3. 95% of all food poisoning comes from meat and animal products.

4. Vegans have half to three-quarters of the risk of dying of heart disease compared to meat eaters.

5. Vegans often live longer and suffer less from several chronic diseases.

6. Vegans have excellent health. Protein is not a limiting factor.

7. Zinc levels are normal in vegans.

8. New research suggests that dementia may be linked to a BSE-like 'prion' found in some meat.

9. Vegans have lower rates of obesity, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, large bowel disorders, cancers and gallstones.

10. Vegan diets have been successful in arresting and reversing coronary heart disease.

11. A vegan diet can reduce cholesterol levels (cholesterol is linked to heart disease - fruit and vegetables contain none).

12. Vegans are no more likely to suffer anaemia than meat eaters.

13. Antioxidants protect against more than 60 diseases. Found mostly in fruit and vegetables.

14. Vegans have higher intakes of folic acid than omnivores.

15. Diabetes is much less likely to be a cause of death in vegans.

16. Hypertension (high blood pressure) in vegans is one third to one half that of meat eaters.

17. The amount of veg protein fed to the US beef herd would feed almost the entire populations of India and China - two billion people.

18. A vegan diet meets all the nutritional needs of infants and adolescents.

19. 35% of the world's people can be fed on a meat-based diet. A plant diet could feed everyone.

20. Animal faeces are a major cause of acid rain - in Holland and Belgium, the main cause.

21. Deserts spread every year - by an area the size of England and Scotland. Livestock grazing is the main cause.

22. Rain forests are still being felled to graze hamburger cattle. Going vegan saves one acre of forest every year.

23. The world's 17 major fisheries are on the point of collapse because of over-fishing.

24. On irrigated land, 1lb of beef uses 5,214 gallons.

25. Disease, dirt and crowding, antibiotics and chemical growth enhancers - that's the five-month life of most pigs.

26. 24% of dairy cows are pregnant when slaughtered - many nearing full term.

27. Calves are taken from their mothers a day or two after birth. Males are usually killed.

28. Amount of grain needed to end extreme hunger - 40 million tonnes. Amount of grain fed to animals in the West - 540 million tonnes.

29. Most ducks are factory farmed in crowded sheds. They never see daylight or swim in water.

30. The majority of calves, lambs and pigs are conscious when their throats are cut.

31. Nearly all 650 million UK chickens are fed antibiotics daily. 72 million die from disease.

32. 90% of the UK's animal feed protein concentrates comes from poor countries - often those where children die from starvation.

33. If Britain went vegan, less than quarter the farm land would be needed.

34. More than 90% of all agricultural land in Britain is used to feed animals.

35. Every year in Britain, one billion gallons of pesticides are used - 200 chemicals. 50 suspected of causing cancer.

36. Farmed animals rank second in causing global warming. Reason - methane from prolific farting and belching.

37. Up to one fifth of chickens may be fully conscious when they enter the scalding tank to loosen their feathers.

38. Four-fifths of broiler chickens (killed for meat) have broken bones and deformed feet, legs and other bone deformities.

39. 20% of lambs die from cold, disease and starvation.

40. 80% of all eggs come from battery hens - kept five to a cage no bigger than a microwave oven.

41. More than 90% of all agricultural land in Britain is used to feed animals.

42. Broiler sheds may contain up to 50,000 birds - each one allowed a space the size of a telephone directory.

43. 50% of all piglets have their teeth crushed and tails cut off without anaesthetics.

44. 25% of turkeys are in chronic pain because of swollen joints - 70% of big birds.

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Sounds very convincing to me! Especially #8 :D
But does meat eating cause the dementia, or do you already have to be demented in order to eat meat? Hmmmmm........;)

My only comment to this valuable list, is that genetics plays a role in our health even more so than our lifestyle of food, exercise etc. Because of my genetics, I have diabetes2, though through diet and exercise it is kept within bounds that are normal for people without diabetes. Also have inherited tendency for high cholesterol, despite not having eaten anything containing cholesterol for so many years.

Apart from those two conditions, which are minimised, when I recently had a thorough checkup after changing doctors, my new doc went over all the test results with me, and he said, with obvious surprise: "you don't seem to have any of the conditions that women of your age usually have". And like my previous doctor, he told me that whatever I'm doing, to keep doing it! :D

Nevertheless, to get back to the listing, it can be quite disheartening to read all the goodies that being a vegan can bring, when for example it states: vegans are no more likely to suffer anaemia than meat eaters, yet I know of one vegan at least who has pernicious anaemia. Another thing, sometimes reading through some of the postings here, there are so many people suffering various complaints, that I wonder what non-vegans think when they read these postings.

Posted by eve:

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Another thing, sometimes reading through some of the postings here, there are so many people suffering various complaints, that I wonder what non-vegans think when they read these postings.

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Most of us are the first generation in our families to go vegan. When people like feline01 & Vegan Man's vegan babies are proud vegan grandparents of vegan grandchildren, things will improve, I'm sure. :)

Well, some of the points on the list is a little on the fanatic pro-vegan side. For example, has it been documented that vegans live longer? To say that 'vegans have excellent health' is also misleading, because there are many reasons that people can be ill, and it's wrong to try to 'sell' the vegan diet some sort of miracle cure. Regarding #18, I think it's wrong to say that 'A vegan diet meets all the nutritional needs of infants and adolescents.' This might not be true: one can be a vegan and still live on junk food, french fries, white rice, pasta and tomato sauce and chocolate. Because of all the issues we discuss in the B12-forums, a vegan diet may also lack B12 (as you probably know, I don't think we can blame the vegan diet as such for this, but the many elements in our lives and our environment that reduce or kill B12).

But there's plenty of interesting stuff on the list, so (as you have noticed), I think it was worth posting.

I actually think there are more vegans with poor health that some of us want to admit - to such an extent that it also affects the studies that are being made about the health of vegans (which still show very good results!).

I think it's far more healthy than any other diet, but because of that, it attracts people with health problems they feel can be solved by switching to a more pure diet. There are people with heart problems, weight problems, anorexia, cancer, skin problems and many other conditions that drops eating animal products and therefore may become part of the statistics on vegan health.

I've also noticed that sometimes, in health food stores, there are people who seem to be in a very poor condition. But we can't blame hospitals, health food stores or a healthy diets they attracts people who need to improve their health....

I think the already brilliant statistics about the health of plant eaters would have been even more impressive if it didn't include people who started on that diet with serious health problems.

Another thing about statistics about vegans, is that they never show the condition of a person that have lived only on a vegan diet. They document the condition of people who most likely have been raised on meat and dairy, and who may have switched to a vegan diet at some point in life. Since the numbers are so good for a person who ie. have lived 25 years on meat & dairy, and 5 years on plant food, imagine what the numbers will look like in a study about people who never have been eating animal products,,,

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Korn

Since the numbers are so good for a person who ie. have lived 25 years on meat & dairy, and 5 years on plant food, imagine what the numbers will look like in a study about people who never have been eating animal products,,,

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Oh to be one of those people... *wistful dream*

The vegan twins are so lucky to have such wonderful parents to give them this opportunity.

But let's not forget that there are heaps of people who have eaten meat and dairy all their lives, and live long, healthy lives. In fact if a vegan goes ott in conveying the good news about vegan lifestyles, it can generate really unpleasant responses in people who know that meat eaters can also have a good life. Just thinking of my mother who could never understand why I became vegan, and she lived to the age of 95yrs.

As a vegan who is here through compassion towards all living beings, and for the environment also, I wouldn't care if a vegan diet did *not* give good statistics, because I'd remain a vegan.

Posted by eve:

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But let's not forget that there are heaps of people who have eaten meat and dairy all their lives, and live long, healthy lives.....Just thinking of my mother who could never understand why I became vegan, and she lived to the age of 95yrs.

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I don't think this will continue to be true. The world is very different now from the world your mother grew up in. She probably didn't have the chance to consume convenient processed foods at the expense of fruits and vegetables like so many people today do. Generations ago, people ate more fruits and vegetables, which by virtue of all the good phytochemicals we now know they contain, counteracted the damage done to their bodies by consuming animal products. They also worked harder physically. Nowadays people who eat animal products, especially those who try to limit carbohydrates a la Atkins, do not consume enough beneficial phytochemicals to counteract not only toxins produced by consuming organic animal products, but also toxins, drugs, and pollutants that have tainted conventionally produced animal products. And this does not include the poisons found in our air, water, and soil which did not exist when your mother's generation was growing up. I don't think people are going to "get away" with continuing on as their ancestors did for very much longer. ;)

Seaside, you're quite right in what you pointed out. :)

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Korn

34. More than 90% of all agricultural land in Britain is used to feed animals.

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Korn

41. More than 90% of all agricultural land in Britain is used to feed animals.

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That's 43 reasons actually, 34 and 41 are the same!

some of these facts are terribly sad, idk how anyone can eat meat

I was able to talk about some of these points and show a friend who is considering veganism, thank you!

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Korn

38. Four-fifths of broiler chickens (killed for meat) have broken bones and deformed feet, legs and other bone deformities.

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Don't!

I still have flashbacks to my pre veggie days, when I used to eat a lot of KFC, over that one.

Broken and weirdly deformed bones were so common in that muck that my freinds and I often joked about what the chickens might have been doing to have ended up that way.

Strangely we never speculated much upon why what should have been dryish white meat was usualy kinda slimey and distinctly grey though.

sound more like pigeons than chickens....

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eve

But let's not forget that there are heaps of people who have eaten meat and dairy all their lives, and live long, healthy lives. In fact if a vegan goes ott in conveying the good news about vegan lifestyles, it can generate really unpleasant responses in people who know that meat eaters can also have a good life. Just thinking of my mother who could never understand why I became vegan, and she lived to the age of 95yrs.

As a vegan who is here through compassion towards all living beings, and for the environment also, I wouldn't care if a vegan diet did *not* give good statistics, because I'd remain a vegan.

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This is exactly how I feel. I feel uncomfortable talking about the health benefits of veganism, because for me, that was a side effect. I also feel I am 'selling out' by not being truthful about how I feel. I don't care about studies, because no study on earth would convince me to eat meat or dairy. I don't care if it's 'natural'. I feel so much compassion and pity towards animals in the industry, and for the environment. I don't believe my health is more important than the torture these animals go through. The only reason I have for being vegan, is that I don't want to contribute to cruelty.

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tickled onion

sound more like pigeons than chickens....

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Pennsylvania Poached Pidgeon franchises!