Saturday, December 31, 2011

New Years Resolution 2012: Go Vegan!

For your new year's resolution 2012, Resolve to go vegan! For people, for health, for animals, for the planet!
  • save 100 animals per year
  • lose weight and improve cholesterol and triglyceride levels
  • reduce your risk for chronic diseases
  • reduce demand for water, energy, crops, and arable land (this helps feed the world)
  • reduce air and water pollution from animal factories
  • find spiritual peace through non-violence
Question: "What do vegans think would happen to animals if everyone went vegan? Do you think people will keep cows, pigs and chickens as pets?"

First of all, I don't expect that everyone will go vegan for several hundred years, or until we have a sufficiently advanced society that everyone is satisfied with the flavors and nutritional content of cruelty-free foods. In the short run, every single person who reduces their meat intake, goes vegetarian or vegan can prevent a massive amount of suffering. For example, every egg represents a hen suffering for 24 hours in a typical battery cage egg factory.

If -many- people went vegan though, massive amounts of farm and ranch lands could be freed up for humans and wildlife. After all, humans are animals, too. Domesticated animals would see their populations massively reduced, and that's fine with me. I don't think cows and chickens and pigs really need to have their populations in the billions as they are now. I think the true winners would be humans and wildlife.

There is a growing shortfall in the amount of arable land required to feed the human population. I think it's simply irresponsible to continue to dedicate all our land and water to growing corn for pigs, cows, and chickens. It's simply wasteful when human beings are going hungry. And I don't buy the argument that the human population is the problem!

Finally, we're wasting all our health care money, technology, skills, and time on heart disease and obesity, when we can simply prevent most of it by eating right + getting exercise (e.g. growing veggies in the back yard)!