Benefits of Veganism

My Family Story

Being raised in a family comprising two older brothers, a mother who makes a mean shepherd’s pie, and a father who is a grill master my diet consisted mainly of meat. Every day I would eat whatever was prepared and never really thought much of it. Pork, beef, chicken, bacon, turkey, ham, I’ve had them all, a lot. It was hard to avoid eating meat growing up in my household but then again I never really tried.

As I became older and could think for myself, I slowly thought more and more about why we eat meat and what would happen if I stopped eating it. I didn’t realize the true benefits a meatless diet had to offer to myself and the world until I was experiencing them first hand. A vegan/ meatless diet creates a happier, healthier you while saving the environment as well.

When I turned sixteen years old, my father was diagnosed with dangerously high cholesterol and was told to go on a special diet, cutting out lots of meats.

The sad part about this was my grandfather, died at the same age my father was then; fifty-four. My grandfather died before I was born, so I had never met him but I never knew when he died. The day my dad was instructed to go on the diet was the first time I had heard how old my grandfather was when he died and how he died early because of an improper diet.

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This affected me in an oddly sad but inspiring way. Meanwhile, I was enrolled in an environmental science class in high school that pushed self-sustainability in terms of growing food and eating less beef as it is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gasses in the world. The course taught me to be environmentally conscious but I think I took it a step further. Reflecting on what happened to my father and thinking about my future, I decided to join my dad in his diet and exercise.

Movies about Veganism

At first, the transition was difficult. My body had become so accustomed to eating meat products that when I didn’t consume any, I would have a negative mood and an occasional headache and stomachache. Over time, the diet became easier to maintain, and I got used to the vegetables taking up space on my plate where the chicken nuggets used to be. A few weeks into the diet I noticed some changes in me. I had become more energized, happier, and had a fulfilling sense of satisfaction, but I didn’t really understand where these feelings were coming from. As I continued the diet I the benefits became more immense, and that’s when I noticed what was truly causing these changes; eating healthier. I noticed by simply eating fewer meat products you become happier and healthier. I was hooked on eating healthy and had no plan to stop once I saw the benefits. Soon after this realization, I watched a documentary while in school called “Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret” directed by Kip Anderson and Keegan Kuhn. The film opened my eyes even wider by unveiling the dirty secrets of the meat industry by mentioning things like how animal agriculture is responsible for 18% of greenhouse gasses, “more than the combined exhaust from all transportation” and how Animal agriculture uses about 34-76 trillion gallons of water annually, which is about 65% of our drinking water in the United States, according to the film (Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret). I thought about more potential benefits that this animal product lifestyle had and looked into the practice even more. As mentioned in Carlo Alvaro’s journal “Ethical Veganism, Virtue, and Greatness of the Soul Carlo Alvaro” raising animals is bad for the environment, which directly harms us, humans, as well. The amount of land, food, water, money, and energy needed to raise these animals is so immense all the resources required for the animals outnumber the resources we humans use on average. Alvaro quotes the United Nations saying a vegan diet is needed in order to ‘‘save the world from the worst impacts of climate change’’ (Carlo Alvaro). The article also mentions multiple studies that all determine a cow can drink up to fifty gallons a day, consuming much higher amounts than humans. Given the number of resources these animals and others take up, they leave some areas of the world deprived of food and water. After realizing how much of a negative impact the meat industry is to us and the environment, why do we continue to doom ourselves and future generations? There is lots of evidence that displays absurd amounts of resources like food, water, and land an animal needs, but we continue to eat these animals. The poem “Think of Me” by famous Reddit user, The Curious Astronaut which is from a cow’s point of view focuses on how the animals feel when we take what belongs to them to use for ourselves. One line from the poem states “… when you buy it from the grocery store I hope you think of me, torn away from my mother.” The poem utilizes a pathos writing technique and makes the reader feel sympathetic or even guilty for eating meat. To expand on this, the message presented in this poem is also another reason I switched to eating a more plant-based lifestyle; Animal Cruelty. Millions of animals are born and raised just be eaten, drained of their milk for our\ consumption, dispossessed of their fur for our high-fashion jackets, the list goes on. We take what we want from these animals and give nothing in return. Us consumers either don’t know or don’t care because it’s cheaper to buy chicken when the farm can cram 400 chicken in a spot made for fifty. According to the article “Are They Buying It? United States Consumers’ Changing Attitudes toward More Humanely Raised Meat, Eggs, and Dairy” by Spain, C. Victor talks about US agriculture after WWII and how its concept became more about profit rather than concern for the animals. Farms became smaller, more compact, and more industrial to save money at every corner. The article also mentions how consumers of animal products are generally more concerned about the price of the meat rather than the way the animal was treated (Spain, C. Victor). Overall, it seems people are too selfish to not care about the treatment of these poor animals, however that can easily change with a growth mindset.

Growth Mindset

Just as Carol Dweck mentions in her TED Talk about the Growth Mindset, “yet” is one of the most influential words out there in terms of success and achieving a growth mindset. I believe the same philosophy can be applied to consuming fewer animal products/ becoming a vegan. The truth is consuming these animal products at the rate we humans are doing now has so many negative effects. For example pollution in the form of greenhouse gasses, the number of vital resources the animals require like water and food, and using up much land and destroying the environment. If people can just learn the consequences of their unhealthy eating habits, maybe we could be one big step closer to undoing what we have already done to this planet, but just not yet. The day will come when we will respectfully stop eating animal products, but just not yet.

Not only does eating fewer animal products and more plant-based meals help you become more happy and healthy, but it also helps save the earth from its impending doom that we humans have forced it into from consuming more animal products than we should. These effects are climate change, pollution, loss of import resources like food and water, physical damage to the environment and many more things that are slowly destroying Earth. Overall, as long as you stay open-minded and continue to progress your growth mindset you will understand the significance of cutting down on animal products in order to save yourself and save the world.