5 Reasons why you should really GTFO and Go Vegan
1. Odds are you’ll live longer
Blue Zones are areas in the world with the largest concentrations of centenarians, or people who live to be 100. A common theme amongst these centenarians is that they eat diets that are at majority, plant based.
“In all five (Blue Zones), the common denominators include mostly a plant-based diet. There’re five pillars to every Blue Zone diet: whole grains, greens, tuberous (sweet potatoes or potatoes), nuts, and beans. The important one is beans. A cup of beans a day could add two to three years on your life,” Dan Buettner, the discoverer of Blue Zones explained in an interview with Today.
In addition, when compared to meat eaters, those who had cut meat products out of their diet were 12% less likely to die prematurely from all causes than those who ate meat (National Institute of Health, 2013)
2. Eating animal products perpetuates world hunger
In comparison to agriculture for consumption, farming animals for a source of nutrition is a far more inefficient way to feed humans. This is due to the fact that livestock animals take a large amount more food from the global food supply than they actually provide.
Think about it, in order to eat farmed animals, crops must be grown in order to feed these farmed animals. We feed and slaughter 60 billion farmed animals per year, while there are only 7.3 billion humans on earth. It takes 13 pounds of grain to yield just one pound of beef (Capps, 2014).
“If U.S farmers took all the land currently devoted to raising cattle, pigs, and chickens and used it to grow plants instead, the could sustain more than twice as many people as they do now… an additional 390 million hungry mouths” (Shepon, Eshel, Noor, and Milo, 2018).
So why not just cut out the middle cow and let him live a happy life?
3. The impact on the climate and environment
Livestock farming contributes more greenhouse gases than emissions from all transport vehicle’s combined
“Greenhouse gas emissions from the livestock sector are estimated to account for 14.5% of the global total, more than direct emissions from the transport sector.” (Froggatt, Wellesley, and Bailey, 2013).
An excess of greenhouse gases leads to climate change which can increase risk of extreme weather like heatwaves, fires, droughts, floods, etc.
Not only does livestock farming cause a substantial increase in greenhouse gases, but in 2012 369 million tons of manure was produced from livestock alone. That is more than 12 times the waste of the entire United States population according to calculations done by Food & Water Watch (Food and Water Watch, 2015). This amount of manure is often too much for crops to absorb, leaving excess manure to run into water sources.
4. Eating vegan is better for heart and overall cholesterol health
Diets that are high in meat, dairy, and egg products are proven to raise cholesterol levels, which in return raises the risk of heart attack and other cardiovascular complications (Physicians Committee, 2020). Cutting animal products like one would in a vegan diet, decreases the chances of such complications.
Vegans also have lower blood pressure in comparison to those who eat meat. This is thought to be caused by the high potassium intake that can be found in a typical vegan diet. High potassium, magnesium, and calcium all have positive impacts on blood vessels and blood pressure (Yokoyama, 2014).
5. Animal products make us ill
Livestock farming on large scales relies on the use of hormones as well as antibiotics to accelerate growth, weight gain, and control diseases.
However, when we eat animal products, the antibiotics that were given to those animals are then transferred. Studies show that these antibiotics that are found in dairy and meat products are related to an increase risk of cancer (Makelinejad and Rezabakhsh, 2015) as well as causing early puberty in some children (Greger M.D., 2016).
In summary,
I don’t know about you, but we at GTFO It’s Vegan want to live a long, happy, and healthy life.
So, join us in our journey to vegan living!
We are here to help you live your best vegan life!
References:
Capps, Ashley. 2014. 12 Important Reasons To Go Vegan Today. https://freefromharm.org/why-vegan/
Food & Water Watch. 2015. Factory Farms Continue to Dominate U.S. Livestock Industry. Accessed September 23, 2020. https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/news/factory-farms-continue-dominate-us-livestock-industry
Froggatt, Antony. Wellesley, Laura. Bailey, Rob. Livestock – Climate Change’s Forgotten Sector: Global Public Opinion on Meat and Dairy Consumption. Chatham House. Accessed September 23, 2020. https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/livestock-climate-change-forgotten-sector-global-public-opinion-meat-and-dairy?dm_i=1TY5%2C30JL0%2CBHZILT%2CAUGSP%2C1
Greger M.D., Michael. 2016. Estrogen in Animal Products. Nutrition Facts. Accessed September 23, 2020. https://nutritionfacts.org/2016/09/13/estrogen-animal-products/
National Institutes of Health. 2013. Vegetarian Diets Linked to Lower Mortality. Accessed September 23, 2020. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/vegetarian-diets-linked-lower-mortality
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. 2020. Lowering Cholesterol With a Plant-Based Diet. Accessed September 23, 2020. https://www.pcrm.org/good-nutrition/nutrition-information/lowering-cholesterol-with-a-plant-based-diet
ProVegInternational. Hypertension – Eating the Right Diet to Lower High Blood Pressue. Accessed September 23, 2020. https://proveg.com/5-pros/health/hypertension-eating-the-right-diet-to-lower-high-blood-pressure/
Shepon, Alan. Eshel, Gidon. Noor, Elad. Milo, Rob. 2018. The Opportunity Cost of Animal Based Diets Exceeds All Food Losses. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Accessed September 23, 2020. https://www.pnas.org/content/115/15/3804
Spector, Nicole. 2018. ‘Blue Zones’: 6 Secrets to borrow from people who live the longest. NBC News. Accessed September 23, 2020. https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/blue-zones-6-secrets-borrow-people-who-live-longest-ncna921776
Vergunst, Francis. Savulescu, Jullian. 2017. Five ways the meat on your plate is killing the planet. The Conversation. Accessed September 23, 2020. https://theconversation.com/five-ways-the-meat-on-your-plate-is-killing-the-planet-76128#:~:text=The%20environmental%20impact%20is%20huge&text=It%20contributes%20to%20land%20and,produced%20greenhouse%20gas%20emissions%20worldwide.
Yokoyama, Yoko. Nishimura, K. Barnard, N. Takegami, M. Watanabe, M. Sekikawa, A. Okamura, T. Miyamoto, Y. 2014. Vegetarian Diets and Blood Pressure: A Meta-Analysis. National Library of Medicine. Accessed September 23, 2020. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24566947/