vegans and vegetarians

Vegetarians


All through time vegetarians have been coined as unusual or rather odd people. The definition of a REAL vegetarian is a person that abstains from eating all animal flesh(chicken and fish included!!) for reasons varying from simple health, to helping the enviornment, to aiding the world hunger epidemic.Vegetarians have been reffered to as as grass eaters, rabbits,vegs, .Medical studies prove that a vegetarian diet is easier to digest, provides a wider range of nutrients and imposes fewer burdens and impurities on the body. Vegetarians are less susceptible to all the major diseases that afflict contemporary humanity, and thus live longer, healthier, more productive lives. They have fewer physical complaints, less frequent visits to the doctor, fewer dental problems and smaller medical bills. Trapidly depleted as a result of meat-eating. Raising livestock for their meat is a very inefficient way of generating food. Pound for pound, far more resources must be expended to produce meat than to produce grains, fruits and vegetables. For example, more than half of all water used for all purposes in the U.S. is consumed in livestock production. The amount of water used in production of the average cow is sufficient to float a destroyer (a large naval ship). While 25 gallons of water are needed to produce a pound of wheat, 5,000 gallons are needed to produce a pound of California beef. That same 5,000 gallons of water canheir immune system is stronger, their bodies are purer, more refined and skin more beautiful.The world's natural resources are being produce 200 pounds of wheat. If this water cost were not subsidized by the government, the cheapest hamburger meat would cost more than $35 per pound.
Meat-eating is devouring oil reserves at an alarming rate. It takes nearly 78 calories of fossil fuel (oil, natural gas, etc.) energy to produce one calory of beef protein and only 2 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce one calory of soybean. If every human ate a meat-centered diet, the world's known oil reserves would last a mere 13 years. They would last 260 years if humans stopped eating meat altogether. That is 20 times longer, giving humanity ample time to develop alternative energy sources.
Thirty-three percent of all raw materials (base products of farming, forestry and mining, including fossil fuels) consumed by the U.S. are devoted to the production of livestock, as compared with 2% to produce a complete vegetarian diet.
If Americans reduced their meat consumption by 10% enough grain would be freed (12000 tons) to feed 60,000,000 people- the population of Great Britian. If all Americans became vegetarian enough grain would be freed to feed 600,000,000 people- the population of India. A child dies of starvation somewhere in the world, every 10 seconds.

If they continue to clear American forests to raise cattle atthe present rate, in 50 years there will be none left. From 1966-1983, 38% of the Amazon rain forest was destroyed for cattle grazing. An inch of topsoil takes 200-1000 years to develop - yet in the USA they have lost around 1/3 of their prime topsoil in 200 years (around 7 inches) due to animal farming.
25 gallons of water is needed to make 1lb of wheat, but it takes 2500 gallons to produce 1lb of meat. The water needed to make 10 lbs of steak is equal to an average household's consumption of water in an entire year. Enough petrol is used by a family of four eating beef for a year, to run a car for about 6 months. 70% of all grain is used to feed animals.
Fishers who use drift or other modern nets, kill millions of sea animals and disrupt the sea bed. Fishermens' nets kill about 10 times as many other animals as the ones they are trying to catch. 15,000,000,000 land animals are slaughtered every for food, and an unknown but much larger number of sea animals (including thousands of dolphins caught accidentally) are killed. Several chickens are stuffed into battery cages together, unable to even spread their wings and often not able to stand up. 95% of poultry suffer from injury before being killed. Every year, millions of male chicks are gassed or pulped because they can not lay eggs, while their sisters go to the battery sheds. Chicks are debeaked without anaesthetic so they won't hurt each other in the unnaturally tight confines they're kept in. To us, this would be like having our fingernails pulled out without anaesthetic. Sows are kept crammed in stalls 1.3 x 1 metre on concrete or slatted floors, so small they can not even turn around. Cows naturally produce 5 litres of milk per day for their calves, but under the systems of modern farming are made to produce 25-40 litres a day. This results in swollen & inflamed udders, and they are soon worn out. Cows naturally live up to 20 years, but are slaughtered at 5-7 years when their milk production begins to fall. Cows only give milk for 10 months after they have a calf, so they are routinely artificially inseminated (or mechanically raped) to keep them pregnant and milking. Their calves are taken away,usually at 12 hours old, for meat or export to veal crates.
Vegetarians have a 20% lower rate of mortality from all causes (meaning they live longer & don't get sick as often). Vegetarians are 40% less likey to get of cancer than meat-eaters. This is thought to be because they have a higher intake of vitamins A,C & E. Osteoporosis (due to calcium loss from bones) is mainly due to the sulphur content in meat & casein protein in milk that cause calcium to be lost in the urine. The countries with the highest meat & dairy consumption are those with the highest levels of brittle bones. Of 2,100,000 deaths in the USA in 1987, 1,500,000 were related to diet (meaning meat and/or dairy). An animal-based diet is invariably high in cholesterol, animal protein (see #13), and saturated fat, which combine to raise the level of cholesterol in the blood--the warning signal for heart disease and stroke. Due mainly to the meat-centered diet of most Americans, these two diseases account for nearly 50% of all deaths in the US.

information from geocities.com