Advantages of Vegetarianism

This post is because of something that happened dinner time in school. I was sat with a few of my friends, and our conversation ended up being about Vegetarianism. Now, as I was the only Veggie there, I was the only person defending, and there were around four other people there. It was a friendly conversation and there was no harm intended, but I couldn't help feeling a tiny bit bullied. So here I have a few points from reliable sources (not including Wikipedia) about vegetarianism and its advantages.

• The Vegetarian Society said that 117 year old Canadian Marie-Louise Febronie Meilleur was living proof of the benefits of being a vegetarian. Current research backs this up ; lifelong vegetarians visit hospital 22% less often than meat eaters and when confined to hospital, spend a shorter time there.


• Vegetarians have more energy that lasts all day.


• Somebody in Britain becomes vegetarian every two minutes. The average meat eater is responsible for the deaths of approximately 760 chickens, 46 Turkeys, 29 Sheep, 20 pigs, 15 ducks, 7 rabbits, 5 cows and more than 1000 fish.


• They have healthier looking skin.


• People may not understand your choice, but most will support, appreciate and respect you for it.


• If you are an animal lover or/and concerned about the environment your behavior should be congruent with your beliefs. It feels good to walk your talk.


• Studies have shown that vegetarians often have lower incidence of coronary artery disease, hypertension, obesity and some forms of cancer. A vegetarian diet tends to be lower in total fat, and vegetarians tend to eat proportionally more polyunsaturated fat to saturated fat compared with non-vegetarians. (Animal products are the major sources of dietary saturated fat).


• Allergic symptoms to specific foods are more easily noticed.


• You don't need to eat meat. A vegetarian diet, like a non-vegetarian diet, can be very healthy, or it can be extremely unhealthy. But eating meat is generally considered unhealthy, especially when you eat a lot of it. It has been shown that you can significantly reduce your risk of many diseases by avoiding meat. Vegetarians also live about 6-10 years longer than meat eaters on average, but this may be at least partially due to other lifestyle choices that vegetarians are likely to make (e.g., exercise). Bottom line, if you reduce or eliminate meat from your diet, you are likely to experience at least some health benefits, as long as you don't replace all the meat you used to eat with junk food.


• At the beginning of 2000, there were 59.2 million people living in the United Kingdom, 7% (over 4 Million) are Vegetarians.


• One vegetarian is estimated to save the lives of 100 animals per year.

All of these little facts and figures leave me feeling a lot better about myslef. I am free from the subconcious guilt of eating animals. I feel healthier and proud of my dietry choices. Also, vegetarians are very supporting of each other, it's a nice litte, animal friendly community.

A Vegetarian xy