Rejecting the commodity status of animals and abstaining from using them or substances derived from them into diet is the philosophy of veganism. Any individual who takes up such a diet is considered to be a vegan.
Here is a list of reasons as to why an individual should consider going vegan:
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The lives of animals are precious
Each farm animal one consumes is in a sound capacity to feel emotions such as pain, joy, pleasure. And others as grief and affection, just like an individual does. Ripping them of their lives and subjecting them to extreme form of torture, physical and emotional pain is the last thing that sounds fair. Their lives are precious too, and animals should not be thought of as food but as friends or fellow beings.
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The egg and dairy industries lead to extreme sufferings of the caged
Wild hens normally lay about twelve to twenty eggs in a year. However the caged domesticated hens are genetically manipulated to be producing far more than their natural capacity. And are expected to lay about three hundred eggs in a year. This usually renders them to be subjected to fatal reproductive disorders and physical pain. Too add to the misery, most of them are kept in low-spaced suffocating cages with them. Not even having enough space to spread their wings. About billions of hens and chicks lose their lives due to the harsh sufferings they are put through.Which is just to keep the industry flourishing.
Meditation and its advantages …
In a similar manner, the dairy industry thrives on exploitation of motherhood of cows. The cows, like all the other mammals, make milk only in order to feed their calves. Which are extracted by the humans for their own use. The calves born to the cows are usually removed from them within hours of their birth. So that the humans are able to extract the milk which was intended for the calves. The cows are also not provided with any sort of proper maternal nurturing that is required for them. During their reproductive phase when they seek it the most.
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A well-balanced vegan diet is sufficient to provide all the required nutrients
It has been evidently proven by science and advanced research that a well-balanced vegan diet is capable of looking after the provision of all the required nutrients. Which is sufficient amounts to the human body. It is not only a viable option but consumption of plant-based foods also offers significant health benefits. These include controlling high cholesterol levels, controlling high blood pressure, monitoring diabetes, reduction in incidences of obesity and a lower risk of strokes and heart attacks. They are also said to be preventing advent of certain type of cancers into the human bodies.
Vegan diets also tend to be high in vitamin C and vitamin E, magnesium, dietary fibres, iron and folic acid and phytochemicals which are beneficial to health.
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Animal Agriculture and its negative impact on world hunger
Statistics suggest that approximately one billion people on the planet are malnourished. And a massive six million children starve to death each year, such is the situation of world hunger. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that farming animals is wasteful and inefficient in comparison to growing plants in order to feed humans. As the livestock animals tend to take drastically much more food in magnitude than the global food supplied by them. The farm animals are fed crops which are substantially more than what an individual human would need to be fed. Hence more crops are to be grown for the purpose.
Also, only a very minute percentage of this plant energy consumed by the animals is transformed into edible form of protein. Most of it is used to fuel the metabolism of the animals themselves. It can be hence easily concluded that such an affair leads to staggering wastage of natural resources. As it requires considerably much more water, land and energy. Instead, one could opt for better use of existing croplands and directly feed the humans. Tackling issues like world hunger and food security to a larger extent.
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Animal agriculture and its negative impact on the environment
Animal agriculture also tends to be one of the single greatest man-caused sources of land degradation, emission of greenhouse gases, pollution of freshwater and destruction of rain forests. It also leads to habitat loss for many species resulting to them getting endangered or extinct and causes major air pollution. Also, the cows which consume grass are evidently slower growing than those which consume grain and the longer it takes for them to grow, the more nitrous-oxide and methane do they emit.
The United Nations has openly called for a worldwide shift to a vegan diet as far as possible in order to combat issues such as climate change and ecological devastation more effectively.