Why are we vegan?
Most people would be surprised to learn that being vegan is not a health choice for us. While it does have great health benefits, we choose to be vegan for environmental and ethical reasons.
We can give you a few bullet points, but the best way to really understand is to check out the links below.
Love eating?
Don't be discouraged, eating is one of our favorite things to do. We do not live on salads! There is an incredible buffet of food available to vegans worldwide. We will keep uploading recipes and foods we love here, and check out the links below for more food options.
Environmental Reasons:
Green house gases
Pollution of Land + Water
Sustainability
Ethical reasons:
World hunger and starvation
treatment of animals
Facts To Consider:
More than 800 million people could be fed by all the grain currently fed to US livestock
It takes almost 7 pounds of corn and soy to produce just one pound of pork
more than 70% of United States grain goes to feeding farm animals
441 gallons of water is needed to produce one pound of meat
14 gallons of water is needed to produce one pound of wheat
The livestock industry is responsible for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than the entire transport sector (which produces 13.5%), including aviation.
Plant-based diets only require around 1/3 of the land and water needed to produce a typical Western diet.
Farming animals and growing their feed also contributes to other environmental problems such as deforestation, water pollution and land degradation.
Every second of every day, one football field of tropical rainforest is destroyed in order to produce 257 hamburgers.
Sentient, intelligent animals are often kept in cramped and filthy conditions where they cannot move around or perform their natural behaviors. They are suffering through every moment of the day, not just the moment they are executed.
Eating a plant based diet helps lower the strain that meat and dairy production puts on the environment and can enable us to have a more sustainable future.
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
more Information:
http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/animals-used-food-factsheets/vegetarianism-environment/
http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/meat-wastes-natural-resources/
http://www.downtoearth.org/environment/top-10-reasons
http://www.vegansociety.com/become-a-vegan/why.aspx (1)
http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/environment.html
http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/resources.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-frazier/vegan-diet_b_3996646.html
what to eat:
http://www.peta.org/living/food/accidentally-vegan/
http://features.peta.org/VegetarianStarterKit/
Readers Digest article:
http://www.rd.com/slideshows/going-vegan/#slideshow=slide1
Why not just vegetarian?
http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/factory-farming/cows/dairy-industry/
http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/factory-farming/chickens/
http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/factory-farming/
http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/factory-farming/pigs/
Aside from the evironmental damage sufferd from the dairy industry, compassion for the animals one of the reasons we are Vegan.
Even though they are not bred for meat, many suffer serious health problems and even death
because they are selectively bred to grow or produce milk or eggs at a
far greater rate than their bodies are capable of coping with. They live in cramped filthy conditions.
All of them meet the same fate
at the slaughterhouse. This includes the millions of calves and male
chicks who are killed every year as ‘waste products’ of milk and egg
production and the animals farmed for their milk and eggs who are killed
at a fraction of their natural lifespan. Choosing a vegan diet is a
daily demonstration of compassion for all these creatures." (1)
