What to Say When Asked, ‘Why Vegan?’
Although it seems obvious to us vegans that the taste of meat, eggs, and dairy “products” doesn’t warrant the misery and death of billions of animals or such foods’ catastrophic impact on the planet and our health, others can sometimes have a difficult time grasping the issues.
So we’ve summarised five of the main reasons for making the switch to vegan living.
Why Vegan? Because I Don’t Want to Pay for Cruelty to Animals
Every single animal is a sensitive individual with his or her own thoughts, feelings, and personality, yet – in Australia alone – more than half a billion cows, pigs, lambs, chickens, and other animals are killed for food every year. They’re treated as nothing more than meat, egg, or milk machines and often kept in filthy, crowded conditions. Then, typically when they’re only a few months old, they endure a stressful and terrifying trip to the abattoir, where many are killed while still conscious.
Most people claim to love animals and would be horrified to see what they endure before their bodies are hacked to pieces and turned into burgers or sausages. Being vegan is about recognising that we should treat all animals – and not just the ones who share our homes –with respect and compassion.
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Why Vegan? Because I Enjoy Living on This Planet
Not only does animal agriculture cause horrendous suffering, it also contributes heavily to some of the largest environmental problems our world faces today.
Animals on farms eat large quantities of grain – far more than the equivalent amounts of meat, eggs, or milk we take from them. Vastly more land is required to feed a meat-eater than a vegan, and animal agriculture places a severe strain on water supplies. In addition, the waste and greenhouse gases produced by animals cause serious pollution, and the United Nations has said that a global shift towards a vegan diet is necessary to alleviate the worst effects of climate change.
With an ever-increasing number of vegan options readily available, choosing plant-based foods is one of the simplest and most effective ways to follow a more sustainable lifestyle.
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Why Vegan? Because I Don’t Want to Risk My Health
Eating animals is literally killing us. Consuming meat, eggs, and dairy “products” increases our risk of suffering from heart attacks, strokes, cancer, diabetes, and obesity. A study by Harvard University found that by replacing processed meat with plant proteins such as lentils, beans, and nuts, we can reduce our risk of early death by 34 per cent!
Furthermore, the World Health Organisation determined that processed meat is a carcinogen, just like cigarettes and asbestos, and it’s clear that we all need to start eating vegan to improve our health and increase our life expectancy. It makes no sense to breed billions of living beings, inflict horrible abuse on them, and then slaughter them just to create products that are bad for human health.
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Why Vegan? Because People Are Starving
We could feed the world if we stopped eating meat. Calorie for calorie, animal-derived foods are many times less efficient than plants and cereals, requiring massive amounts of feed, water, and chemicals to produce. In addition to causing major environmental problems, this is a human problem – because every day, millions of people are going hungry, while crops that they could eat are instead being used to fatten animals to be slaughtered for their flesh.
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Why Vegan? Because the Food Is So Good!
By choosing vegan, you’ll not only refuse to be part of a system that uses, abuses, and kills billions of sentient individuals every year but also open yourself up to an entire world of new flavours and recipes. Fromreadily available supermarket productstocountless tasty options at chain restaurants, it has never been easier to go vegan.
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©Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals
