here are some reasons to take the first step
http://www.meatout.org Lance Armstrong has asked people to start with
a neatless Monday. 81,000 Baltimore school children are having 1 meatless
day a week. Yale, UC Davis, a Kentucky university, Johns Hopkins are
adapting their cafeterias.
http://www.ivu.org
http://www.vegansociety.org
http://veganvillage.co.uk
http://vegsoc.org
http://www.meatlessmonday.com
http://www.goveg.com
http://www.mercyforanimals.org/ohdairy
http://www.vrg.org
1. Prevent Animal Suffering...
. Trillions of animals suffer hideously in factory farms, transit and slaughterhouses. Fishes die of suffocation, asphyxiation.
2. Help the Environment
. prevent deforestation
. reduce global heating
. prevent drought
. stop floods
3. Prevent Disease http://www.pcrm.org
. heart disease
. cerebral stroke
. cancer of many kinds
. ecoli or colon bacteria infections
. insecticide concentrations at the top of the food chain
. food poisoning .. corpses should be buried not consumed
. kidney dysfunction ... carnivores have 5 times our kidney size per pound
. arthritis the uric acid or preurine (trioxypurine) in animals' muscles when they are murdered
crystallizes in needle formation around the joints
. choking high up on the list of accidental deaths (comparable to swallowing shoe leather?)
. appendicitis (our fruitarian ancestors gave us the longest intestinal tract in relation to height of
any animal)
. bleeding ulcers (carnivores secrete much more hydrochloric acid than human beings)
4. Create Most Food Yield Per Acre.. Preventing Hunger
Cow corpses yield 100 lbs of animal flesh per acre in desertified W Texas... a maximum 1000 lbs.
per acre in more rain-blessed areas. Dairy products and vegetables yield more per acre.
Centenarian fruit and nut trees can drop as high as 2 tons each of food or 450,000 pounds an
acre in some cases.
5. Prevent Crime
. the adrenalin secreted by terrorized animals is only partially broken up by
cooking and causes anger in those who eat the flesh
6. Stop Accidents
. slaughterhouse workers slip on the grease, fecal matter, urine, blood in abbatoirs
. slaughterhouse workers are kicked in the head and elsewhere as they electroshock, kick
drag and otherwise force animals into the slaughterhouse chutes
. slaughterhouse workers are exposed to cold
7. Foster Esthetics
. compare the fragrance of almond blossoms to the stench of the killing fields
8. Restore Mental Health
. Russian research found that vegetarian diet eliminated the adrenalin saturated flesh which
is a factor in depression, anger, anxiety
9. Stop Fires
. Animal fat (grease, lard, tallow) accumulating on restaurant and home walls causes fires.
. Malfunctioning ovens cause fires
. Gas and electric lines into stoves cause fires.
. http://www.engine2diet.com a whole firehouse goes vegan
10. Save Money
. Cadaver eating is expensive.. sometimes many times more per pound than fruits and vegetables
. Cooking and freezing are costly
. Around the world flesh-related diseases are hemorrhaging $$ from national health care.
11. Prevent Obesity
. the average vegan weighs 23 pounds less than the average nonvegetarian and 11 pounds less
than the average vegetarian
12. Save Time
. Vegetarian, vegan and fruitarian meals take much less preparation time
. Vegetarian plates take less cleaning time
. Kitchen wall cleaning takes less time
13. Save Water
. "Probably the most reliable and widely-accepted water estimate to produce a pound of beef is the figure of 2,500 gallons/pound. Newsweek once put it another way: "the water that goes into a 1,000 pound steer would float a destroyer." http://www.vegsource.com
14. Spiritual traditions and teachings
. http://www.christianveg.com Christian
. http://www.bmf.org Muslim
. http://www.hindu.org Hindu
. http://www.plumvillage.org Buddhist
. http://www.jewishveg.com/schwartz
Jain, Sikh, Sufi, Rastafarian, Wesleyites, Salvation Army followers of General Booth, Franciscans,
Cistercians, early Christians... all have vegetarian traditions
15. Break Addiction's Chains Both Physical and Mental
. The uric acid or trioxypurine in flesh is stronger than caffein (dioxypurine). Not everything we absorbed in childhood was good.
16. Foster International Peace
. As Mexican undocumented workers refuse slaughterhouse jobs, they are going to
Central Americans. Slaughterhouses are an intrinsic part of the immigration problem.
. Canadians, Norwegians, Icelanders, S African governments club seals because they eat fishes.
. Japanese 'scientists' harpoon whales not only for their flesh but because they eat fish.
17. Save Energy
. meat takes over 81 times the production energy that nut protein takes.. . no till agriculture saves energy and animal lives
. energy in the freezer at slaughterhouse, warehouse, transportation truck, home
. energy in the stove
. energy and cost of veterinarians, toxic hormone injections etc.
. compare dropping a peach seed on the forest fringe and covering it with a little dirt.. coming
back in 4 years to fruit which drops in your lap... to the great effort of killing animals
18. Live Longer
. Several life insurance companies give discounts to vegetarians. The January 1973 National
Geographic mentioned that centenarian tribes are vegetarian (Villcabamba of Ecuador, Azerbaijans, Hunzas, yogis are some examples)
Thank you to Allison Aubrey of NPR for her coverage of the
Meatless Monday campaign, the first step to a total Meatout.