identified vegan. Weight loss is almost inevitable with this diet but if you are properly following a nutritious vegan diet, the weight loss can not be considered a bad thing. Having too much fiber in your diet however, can “wreak havoc on your digestive tract.” (Coffman 2017). This would cause gas, bloating, and quite possibly, diarrhea but if you consider the abundant list of benefits this diet can have on your body, looking past a little gas here and there seems totally worth it.
Becoming a vegan can save so many lives, especially if mass amounts of people started practicing this diet, but humans become so selfish we do not think of the larger effects of our actions when there is benefit for ourselves in turning our cheek. It is hard to imagine the pain of others when it is not something you have ever experienced, but nobody can look at the way farm animals are treated and seriously argue that they are not suffering. Take chickens for example, the poor creatures are shoved into cages hardly appropriate for the size of one chicken , then accompanied by a bunch of other chickens in the same tiny cage. Even a human with the least bit of claustrophobia would become highly irritated living shoulder with chaotic, scared people. Not only are they smushed in these cages and forced to live there for a great deal of their life uncomfortably, they end up trampling each other. The trauma that farmers inflict on the animals leaves them hectic, scared, and they act irrationally, trying to fly and walk every which way. This is how the other chickens get trampled, because when there is not enough room, which is the obvious case, they walk all over each other, trampling others heads into the bottom of the wired cages and killing them. Of course chickens are not the only animals suffering, in fact, mammals in general are not the only victims of this cruelty. Fish have been scientifically proven to be able to feel pain as well as pleasure. Trapping nets are set out to trap mass amounts of fish where they are left to slowly, and painfully die wrapped up in a constricting net “and fish are not the only victims of industrialized fishing. Dolphins, turtles, and other marine wildlife become ensnared in mile-long nets" (“Saved! You won’t believe their stories 2014”).
“It's time to ask ourselves: if it is now possible to live a life that involves delicious food and drink, delivers better health, leaves a smaller carbon footprint and avoids killing other
creatures - then why don't we?”(“Why Go Vegan” 2017). Well why don’t we, college students? Most college students are not on a budget that can afford to go grocery shopping for expensive fake meat and protein replacements because let’s be real, fruits, vegetables, and tofu are not cheap. So far, the majority of us have been raised with our grocery shopping done for us and cooked meals prepared for us daily.
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