Can Veganism Change the World?
Not many people have ever tried going against their traditional ways and managed to avoid eating meat. Can you imagine cutting out the main source of your daily protein entirely from your diet? Surely we can assume that it is not easy. Vegan, unlike vegetarian, is mostly understood as a diet that avoids products with any animal origin while avoiding the consumption of meat and fish at the same time. This includes any beauty products or cosmetics that test on animals or have an ingredient with an animal-origin such as beeswax. Veganism was originally defined in strict dietary terms which essentially means that you could identify as a vegan if you followed the diet rules while still using products with an animal-origin. This is logical because the most important step you can make towards the lifestyle is diet, cosmetics and such are the finishing details. Vegans are provided with three big advantages over meat eaters; no direct involvement in animal slaughter and mistreatment, a great reduction in health risk, and contribution towards environmental wellness for our planet. How can we change the world with veganism you may ask. Through reducing our “environmental footprint”, protesting animal cruelty, creating a healthier body to live in, and even taking the smallest steps we can towards these goals, we can change the world. The outcome of our changes would result in a world full of flourishing wildlife, well-being among humans, and promotional love for all animals.
To think that a change in diet could save the environment is a mind blowing concept, who wouldn’t want to participate? The animal farming industry uses a great deal of land, contributing to many environmental issues including climate change and global warming. The production as a whole has key impacts in these issues between the slaughtering of animal, waste disposal, waste storage, production of feed and fertilizer, and the transportation of product or the animals food and water. Studies have been done to prove that veganism significantly reduces a person's carbon footprint, an important one coming from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “The study found that mean dietary greenhouse gas emissions (results reported for women and then men) was 46 percent and 51 percent higher than for fish-eaters, 50 percent and 54 percent higher than for vegetarians, and 99 percent and 102 percent higher than for
By Harly Hodge
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