Vegetarian Ways Essay -- Argumentative Persuasive Health Essays

Vegetarian Ways Today you've arrived here with questions. After you read this maybe you'll have the answers? Whether you're already a vegetarian or if you're only curious about vegetarians I hope you find this informative and maybe influential. Ihope to open your minds enough that you'll agree that we don't have to "kill to live". I hope to expose you to a lifestyle that doesn't promote violence or death. These are all the reasons you should need to convertyour lifestyle. I've been a practicing vegetarian for 2 years. A vegetarian is defined as someone who avoids all animal flesh, including fish and poultry. Vegetarians can be sub categorized: Those who avoid flesh but still indulge in animal products such ascheese, milk and eggs are referred to as ovo-lacto-vegetarians. People who reject all animal products are referred to as purevegetarians or vegans. Scientific research shows that ovo-lacto-vegetarians are healthier than meat eaters and vegans arehealthier than both. Now I'm going to present you with four reasons everyone should be a vegetarian. First the obvious ethical reasons, second the physiological reasons, third the health reasons and finally the most important reasons for our planet, the environmental impact of a meat based diet. First the ethical reasons to become a vegetarian. The ethical reasons were the first to occur to me when I began considering becoming a vegetarian. Why should any creature lose it's life to fill my stomach? Unfortunately most people don't associate the meat on their plate as having had life at one time. In some countries people eat meat of monkeys, dogs. cats, and even other people which is disgusting to us. But it's OK for us to kill cows, chickens, or fish cause they are different? At 20 weeks of age, 85 million pigs die for Americans to eat. Another 24 million die due to abuse before they reach slaughter age. Cows normally have a 25 year life span, but most only live to be 3-5 years old before dying to become hamburgers. More than 1 million calves a year are raised for veal. They spend a miserably short life of 16-18 weeks in a crate that's not big enough for them to even stand or move in. Not given any water or solid food, only deficient milk replacers, so they will stay white and tender. Since only female chickens lay eggs over 280 million male chicks are thrown into plastic bags and piled on each other to d... ...onsumption of beef over 300 million pounds of meat are imported annually from Central and South America. This economic incentive leads to these nations destroying more forests to create more pasture land. 55 square feet of tropical rainforest is destroyed to produce every quarter pound of rainforest beef. Each year over 1000 species are eliminated due to destruction of rainforests for grazing land. More than  ½ of all water used for all purposes in the U.S. is consumed in livestock production. It takes 25 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of wheat. It takes 5,000 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of California beef. 33% of all raw materialsconsumed are devoted to livestock production, while only 2% are used for a vegetarian based diet. A few famous vegetarians: Einstein, Plato, Newton, Ben Franklin, Ghandi, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley. All these people knew the answer to the question I began with. " NO you do not have to kill to live". A vegetarian diet meets all the RDA, without the guilt of murder while preserving our environment. Isn't that easy? Wow. It takes so little to do so much. Quoting Ghandi, "Why turn your body into a graveyard by devouring the flesh of other creatures?"