Why Should Someone Become a Vegan?

eganism, the act of freeing ones self from the use of animal product and animal by-products has been around for a long time. Since the 1960s veganism has shown a immense increase in popularity and has gained more respect and recognition. Going vegan has many benefits, some of which include helping to stop the slaughter of innocent animals (obviously), benefits to your personal heath, a clean environment and helping with the epidemic of world hunger.

Did you know the big open fields most people picture when they think of a farm are virtually non-existent in today's world? Most factory farms keep their livestock jam-packed in filthy cages, usually too small to even turn around in. Many animals go their entire lives, or at least until they are loaded on the truck bound to the slaughter house without feeling the sunshine on their back. Farm animals are genetically altered or given drugs to induce an unnaturally fast growth rate, produce larger amounts of milk and eggs or to allow them to live in otherwise unlivable conditions. These drugs and genetic alterations kill and cripple many animals every day. Animals bound for slaughter have virtually no protection from cruelty and abuse at the hands of the factory workers. The big corporations care only about making as much money as possible while spending as little as they can, even if it means small, filthy cages inhabited by living and dead animals alike and no exercise for the animals so that all their energy goes toward gaining weight. By going vegan you can save more than 100 animals per year from this cruel fate.

Studies have shown that a vegan diet is one of the healthiest things that you can do for yourself. Veganism helps prevent heart disease, stroke and cancer among other things. Vegans are nine times less likely to become overweight than their meat eating buddies. Vegan children typically grow taller and have higher IQs than non-vegan children. Strong ties between meat consumption and many diseases such as osteoporoses, Alzheimer's, asthma and even male impotence have been found vegans have been proved to fight disease better than meat eaters.

Raising animals for food is extremely inefficient. It can take as much as 32 pounds of grain to produce two pounds of edible animal flesh. This is because most calories consumed by the animals go into simply existing, not helping growth. The United Nations stated that raising animals for food "is one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems on every scale from local to global." Almost half of the water, 70% of wheat grains and corn and 80% of agricultural land in the U.S. is used for livestock. All these resources could be put towards important world problems such as the problem of world hunger if people would go vegan.