WRT- Vegetarian paper.docx

 PDF version of arguementive paper: Being Vegetarian

Being Vegetarian

            When most people picture a vegetarian, they imagine a hippie-animal rights activist that shoves animal cruelty facts down your throat as you eat a hamburger. There are many more reasons behind being vegetarian than animal rights, and a surprising number of Americans follow a vegetarian diet or at least a “vegetarian-inclined” diet. A study by the Vegetarian Times showed that 7.3 million Americans are vegetarian and an additional 22.8 are vegetarian-inclined (Vegetarianism In America, Vegetarian Times). Different people choose vegetarianism for different reasons, such as animal rights, the waste of resources, and personal health reasons. Everyone can benefit from adapting a vegetarian diet.

            Personally, what drew me to becoming a vegetarian was the countless health benefits.  The first month after switching my diet I dropped six pounds. The caloric differences between meat dishes and vegetarian substitutes is remarkable. A typical hamburger can reach upwards of 200 calories for the patty alone, while a veggie burger is usually 100 calories or lower. Vegetarian protein options such as beans, nuts, tofu, dairy and grains are lower calorie options than meat (Count Your Calories for a Healthier Lifestyle).

According to a peer-reviewed 2003 Oxford University study of 37,875 healthy men and women aged 20-97, 5.4% of meat eaters were obese compared to 3% of vegetarians. Meat eaters had an average Body Mass Index (BMI) 8.3% higher than vegetarians. Another 2006 meta-study that compiled data from 87 studies also found that vegetarian diets are associated with reduced body weight (Berkow).

It’s been proven that vegetarians actually live longer than meat eaters. A peer-reviewed study in 2001 found that vegetarian men lived on average 7.28 years longer than meat eaters and women 4.42 years longer. An additional study said that the vegetarian diet reduces all-cause mortality by 12%. 

            The four conditions that account for 75% of the nation’s health care costs are heart disease, obesity, cancer and diabetes. The majority of those health care expenses are completely unnecessary.  Obesity, heart disease and some cancers can be reversed by a plant based diet.  Heart disease and type II diabetes are not death sentences, they are curable conditions with the right diet and exercise. A study done by Harvard University found that meat eaters are more than 300% more likely to get colon cancer than non-meat eaters (Can A Vegetarian Diet Lower Health Insurance Costs?). While another study, published by the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, concluded that “Red meat consumption is associated with an increased risk of total, CVD, and cancer mortality. Substitution of other healthy protein sources for red meat is associated with a lower mortality risk” (Departments of Nutrition and Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health). 

Let’s say that the entire nation adopted the plant-based diet. Everyone with heart disease and obesity could eventually reverse it, and the amount of money the nation as a whole would save on medical care would be astounding. People with diabetes can spend upwards of $400 a month on medications alone, while if they adopted the right diet they wouldn’t need to spend that money on medication. Their monthly insurance would also cost less if they didn’t have an existing condition. In the United States an average of 600,000 people die each year of heart disease alone, it’s the number one killer of American lives. That’s 600,000 lives that could have been spared.

            In addition to cutting healthcare costs, vegetarianism would also benefit the environment. Breeding animals for meat is the biggest contributor to global warming. 90% of carbon emissions are from breeding animals. That’s more than the entire transportation industry worldwide.  The United Nations has concluded that factory farming animals for meat is the #1 leading contributor to Global Climate Change, depleted water resources, pollution, and habitat destruction on a local and global level.  It takes more than 10 times the amount of energy from fossil fuels to produce 1 calorie from animal based food than it does to produce 1 calorie of plant based (Forks Over Knives). Livestock takes up a lot of space, they can’t just roam around on their own. The Amazon Rainforest has been reduced by 20% since the 1970s (the size of the entire state of California), and now the majority of that land is housing livestock.  Factory farming also causes pollution.   Chicken, turkeys, pigs, and cows generate billions of pounds of drug laced feces yearly that frequently spill into nearby waterways killing millions of fish and causing dangerous effects.

  The effects that breeding animals for food cause on the environment is devastating, it’s changing the planet for the worse. It’s easily the largest waste of resources the world knows, since everything livestock eats, we humans can also eat.  It can take up to 16 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of meat.  The world’s cattle alone consume enough grain to feed 8.7 billion people. There’s currently about 1 billion malnourished people in the world. If the resources that went to feeding our food went to humans instead world hunger wouldn’t exist. That’s pretty powerful: we’re keeping our own race hungry so we can enjoy a hamburger.

            What convinces many people to be vegetarian is that it is cruel to animals. Most factory farmed animals spend their entire lives in cages that are barely big enough to house their bodies. Chickens’ beaks are seared off to prevent them from pecking each other which occurs in response to stress from overcrowding. Animals confined to crates or overcrowding often exhibit violent behaviors when they wouldn’t normally behave this way if they were allowed to roam freely. Animals are castrated, have tails and other body parts removed, or are branded (at over 950°F) without any anesthetics (Farm Sanctuary).  Many animals are even butchered alive.  The footage of farm factories and slaughterhouses are truly gut-wrenching. Farm Sanctuary, a farm in upstate New York that rehabilitates and raises livestock saved from slaughterhouses, has great information regarding animal cruelty as well as education on how to adopt a vegetarian and vegan lifestyle on their website (Farm Sanctuary).

            It may be a bit of an exaggeration to say that if everyone went vegetarian or even cut the amount of meat they eat in half, the world would be a better place, however, it’s not that far off base. The progress of global warming would decrease, world hunger would be obsolete, healthcare costs would decline, and we would all be healthier people. In the documentary Forks over Knives about adopting a whole-foods, plant based diet, the narrator adapts the lifestyle himself.  At the beginning of the film the narrator weighed 231 pounds, and after 13 weeks his weight dropped to 211 pounds.  His blood pressure was 142/82, and it dropped to 112/70 (which is lower than the average 120/80), his resting heart rate went from 92 beats per minute to 60, and his cholesterol dropped amazingly from 241 to 154 (Forks Over Knives).  The results are astounding, going meat free and adapting a whole-foods, plant based diet will make you healthy and add valuable years to your life. It’s your choice.

Works Cited:

1. Berkow, Susan E., and Neal Barnard. "Vegetarian Diets and Weight Status." Nutrition Reviews 64.4 (2006): 175-88. Print.
2. "Can A Vegetarian Diet Lower Health Insurance Costs?" Can A Vegetarian Diet Lower Health Insurance Costs? NYHealthInsurer.com, 06 Jan. 2012. Web. 28 Feb. 2014.
3. "Count Your Calories for a Healthier Lifestyle." Calorie Counter. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
4.  Departments of Nutrition and Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health. "Result Filters."National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 12 Mar. 2012. Web. 28 Feb. 2014.
5. EA Spencer, et al., "Diet and Body Mass Index in 38,000 EPIC-Oxford Meat-Eaters, Fish-Eaters, Vegetarians and Vegans," International Journal of Obesity, 2003
6. "Farm Sanctuary." Farm Sanctuary. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2014.
7. Forks Over Knives. Dir. Joe Cross and Kurt Engfehr. Perf. Lee Fulkerson. Monica Beach Media, 2013. DVD.
8. Michael J. Orlich, MD, et al., "Vegetarian Dietary Patterns and Mortality in Adventist Health Study 2," JAMA Internal Medicine, June 3, 2013
9. “Vegetarian & Vegan Starter Kit | Guide on How to Become Vegan/Vegetarian | PETA.org” Vegetarian & Vegan Starter Kit | Guide on How to Become Vegan / Vegetarian | PETA.org.PETA, n.d. Web. 01 May 2014.
10. "Vegetarianism In America | Vegetarian Times." Vegetarian Times. Cruz Bay Publishing Inc., n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2014.
11. "Vegetarian ProCon.org." ProConorg Headlines. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2014.