Western societies maintain the idea that eating meat is synonymous with health and prosperity. The big meat producers have come to persuade us that it is essential to eat meat to be healthy, and vegetarians are often misunderstood or even ridiculed.
Yet if one examines the question honestly, there are very good reasons to be vegetarian in the world today.
1) A vegetarian diet provides everything you need
Contrary to popular belief, all the nutrients necessary for the proper functioning of the human body can be obtained by plants, and alternatives are based plants for all animal products. Physically, we are in fact designed to be vegetarian: our teeth, our journey intestinal our internal operations, are those of a herbivore.
By contrast, the meat is very low in carbohydrates - it lacks, in particular, carbohydrates that are essential to good health, and vitamins. Yet the average American consumes 4 times more protein than is recommended for daily intake daily. This means a diet too rich in cholesterol, too much nitrogen in the blood and, consequently, a number of medical problems in the long term.
2) Being vegetarian is good for health
According to numerous medical studies, vegetarians are at less risk facing a number of medical problems.
- Heart disease
Vegetarians are much less threatened by heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular diseases. This is probably due to their lower cholesterol levels.
-Hypertension
Vegetarians are less hypertension than non-vegetarians, and are, therefore, less at risk from heart disease, attacks and kidney failure.
-
Cancer Studies have shown that for cancers unrelated to smoking and alcoholism, and in particular those related to food - colon, breast, prostate, pancreas, esophagus - the Vegetarians have a significantly lower mortality. The Global Fund for Cancer Research recommends cons of reducing fatty food intake and increase consumption of fruits, vegetables and whole grains, to minimize the risk of getting cancer. Soybeans, in particular, contains a powerful anti-cancer.
Above the market, most produce meat, cooking a set of benzene and other carcinogens.
- Obesity
Vegetarians are less at risk of overweight, probably in part because they eat more fiber, less animal fat and, for men, less alcohol.
- Diabetes
Vegetarians are much less frequently in subjects with type II diabetes, probably because their diet is rich in complex carbohydrates and fiber, which help reduce the level of sugar in the blood. The fact that vegetarians are thinner and have a lower cholesterol level should also play a role.
- A vegetarian diet, apparently, also decreases the risk of many other medical problems: gout, hernia, constipation, hemorrhoids, varicose veins, gallstones, kidney stones, osteoporosis, appendicitis, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, gingivitis, acne ...
3) Less risk of food poisoning and ingestion of chemicals
- Food Poisoning
meat, eggs and dairy products are responsible for most cases of food poisoning. The animals are home to many viruses and bacteria - some very dangerous - which are ingested with the meat. These organisms are rare in plants, and much less hazardous to human health.
- Pesticides and chemicals
PCBs, dioxins, herbicides, etc.. are in greater concentration in Meat, fish and dairy products, because the animals occupy the top of the food chain. Mothers can pass these toxic chemicals to their babies during pregnancy or breastfeeding, and this may affect the developing nervous system of children. A vegetarian diet minimizes the risk of contamination.
- Exposure to livestock drugs
Farm animals are treated with more than 20,000 drugs-steroids, antibiotics, growth hormones, etc.. When you eat meat, you ingest these drugs and also is exposed, and at all hazards associated with consumption secondary antibiotics.
4) A greater respect for the environment
There are many reasons to be vegetarian who cares about the environment. The fact is that Earth has limited resources that will soon be exhausted by our ever-growing human population.
- A more optimal use of limited resources of the Earth
A non-vegetarian diet uses more land resources and water, because you have space for livestock, water their give, and it must produce more grain to feed them, to boot. Livestock production requires between 10 and 1000 times more land, energy and water than those necessary to produce the equivalent plants. Earth could feed many more people with a vegetarian diet.
- Conserving fossil fuels
78 calories of fossil fuels needed to produce one calorie of beef protein, 35 for 1 calorie of pork; 22 for a chicken, but only 1 for 1 calorie of soybeans.
- Preserving forests
The world's forests are destroyed for the intensive rearing of livestock. The erosion makes it quickly cleared land unusable for agriculture and difficult to reforestation, so that farmers move on and clear other parts of the forest. Deforestation contributes to the accumulation of carbon dioxide, which plays a major role in global warming. Two thirds of the tropical forests of Central America have already been cleared or highly degraded, mainly for cattle farming.
5) A question of ethics
Can you honestly look little lambs playing in a meadow, imagine killed and cut up into pieces, and still enjoy them on your plate? Is Intensive livestock or chickens or calves are kept in a shed without ever seeing the sunlight and stuffed with hormones to make them grow faster do not pose any problem of conscience when you eat a hamburger or chicken nuggets ? Have you ever seen on TV, or really what happens in a slaughterhouse? It's too easy to close his eyes. By eating meat, you are in a sense, complicit in all this. There is no need to subject it to all animals. It is so nice to be a vegetarian and know that you are doing right.
6)
Personal Finance - Cost
food Vegetarian food costs, generally less expensive than meat. This is accentuated by the fact that meat production requires more intermediaries, there are also more taxes levied by the state at each stage of "manufacture".
- Cost of medical care
Being in better health through a vegetarian diet means spending less indirect medical expenses.
"Nothing will be as beneficial to human health and the chances for the perpetuation of life on earth as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."
- Albert Einstein
Sources:
http://www.vegsoc.org/
http://vegetarian.about.com
http://www.enviroveggie.com/
http://www. britishmeat.com/49.htm
http://www.gan.ca/lifestyle/vegetarian+guide/vegetarians+and+the+environment/index.en.html
0 comments:
Post a Comment