Vegetarian Diet - A Closer Glance
Not long ago, a well-known star made the headlines when he made an environmental plea for everyone to adopt a high protein vegetarian diet. He was not even advocating a total abstinence from meat - just one day a week. Many of the newspapers that covered the story were unkind. They laughed and called him an old hippy who didn't know what he was talking about.
What the media almost universally overlooked was the truth behind his words. If everyone understood the facts about vegetarianism, they would understand why so many people have given up meat eating and felt better for it. Let's take a cold, hard look at meat eating from a vegetarian's point of view.
Looking at the subject from an environmental standpoint, there are a number of reasons to turn away from eating meat on the scale most consume it, especially beef. Raising beef cattle requires enormous amounts of arable land that could produce far more nutritional food than the cattle can. This is a fact established by hard data that no one can truthfully deny.
If you have a very strong stomach, pay a visit to a meat processing plant. These are all located far away from large populations for a reason. They smell so bad, they literally make people sick. Those who are unfortunate enough to have to work in the plants or live nearby them have a higher than average incidence of a number of health complaints.
Unless you are a hardened killer, you will be shocked by what you see inside the meat processing plant. To call it inhumane is putting it mildly. While the killing process itself is not necessarily an environmental issue, it is a moral one. It is doubtful that you will reach for a shrink-wrapped sirloin steak quite so quickly after you have seen what happened at the slaughterhouse. You are more likely to turn away and go to the vegetable department and start your vegetarian diet!
The beef industry goes to great lengths to promote the health benefits of meat eating. Aside from protein, there is very little to substantiate their claim that meat is an essential part of one's diet. An argument might be made that an occasional small serving of meat may be in order, but so many eat phenomenal amounts of meat and it is a major contributor to numerous serious health problems, including heart disease and cancer.
Ask anyone who has given a high protein vegetarian diet a chance and most of them will tell you that they are happier for it. Many never eat meat again. Almost no one who has been a vegetarian ever goes back to eating large amounts of meat. No matter what the meat industry tries to tell us to the contrary, a vegetarian diet is a healthy diet.
Something that a lot of people overlook is the fact that all of the major religions advocate abstaining from meat, at least periodically. This includes the Catholic Church, Judaism and the Muslim faith. While these religions do not advocate total abstinence, both Hinduism and Buddhism do advocate a strictly vegetarian diet. The only "religion" that advocates meat eating is the cattle industry! - 17268
What the media almost universally overlooked was the truth behind his words. If everyone understood the facts about vegetarianism, they would understand why so many people have given up meat eating and felt better for it. Let's take a cold, hard look at meat eating from a vegetarian's point of view.
Looking at the subject from an environmental standpoint, there are a number of reasons to turn away from eating meat on the scale most consume it, especially beef. Raising beef cattle requires enormous amounts of arable land that could produce far more nutritional food than the cattle can. This is a fact established by hard data that no one can truthfully deny.
If you have a very strong stomach, pay a visit to a meat processing plant. These are all located far away from large populations for a reason. They smell so bad, they literally make people sick. Those who are unfortunate enough to have to work in the plants or live nearby them have a higher than average incidence of a number of health complaints.
Unless you are a hardened killer, you will be shocked by what you see inside the meat processing plant. To call it inhumane is putting it mildly. While the killing process itself is not necessarily an environmental issue, it is a moral one. It is doubtful that you will reach for a shrink-wrapped sirloin steak quite so quickly after you have seen what happened at the slaughterhouse. You are more likely to turn away and go to the vegetable department and start your vegetarian diet!
The beef industry goes to great lengths to promote the health benefits of meat eating. Aside from protein, there is very little to substantiate their claim that meat is an essential part of one's diet. An argument might be made that an occasional small serving of meat may be in order, but so many eat phenomenal amounts of meat and it is a major contributor to numerous serious health problems, including heart disease and cancer.
Ask anyone who has given a high protein vegetarian diet a chance and most of them will tell you that they are happier for it. Many never eat meat again. Almost no one who has been a vegetarian ever goes back to eating large amounts of meat. No matter what the meat industry tries to tell us to the contrary, a vegetarian diet is a healthy diet.
Something that a lot of people overlook is the fact that all of the major religions advocate abstaining from meat, at least periodically. This includes the Catholic Church, Judaism and the Muslim faith. While these religions do not advocate total abstinence, both Hinduism and Buddhism do advocate a strictly vegetarian diet. The only "religion" that advocates meat eating is the cattle industry! - 17268
About the Author:
Don't be so quick to laugh along with the media the next time a superstar takes a stand for a vegetarian weight loss diet. That would be a good start to a vegetarian diet.
posted by X - Men at
3:23 AM
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