What are some of the pros and cons of being a vegetarian?

Answer 1

Pro#1 (Good for mother earth)
All food animals consume several times more grain than they produce as meat. So several times as much land is needed to grow grain to feed animals, several times as much energy is used to harvest the grain and transport it, several times as much water is necessary, several times as much pesticides, etc. Worldwide petroleum reserves would be exhausted in 11 years if the rest of the world ate like the U.S. The least energy-efficient plant food is 10 times as efficient as the most efficient meat food. A nationwide switch to a pure vegetarian diet would allow us to cut our oil imports by 60%.

Over half of the water used in the U.S. is used to grow feed for livestock. It takes 100 times as much water to produce meat than to produce wheat. The water required to produce a day's diet for a typical American is 4,000 gallons. (It's 1,200 for vegetarians and 300 for vegans.) Compared to a vegan diet, three days of a typical American diet requires as much water as you use for showering all year (assuming you shower every day).

U.S. Livestock produce 250,000 pounds of waste per second -- 20 times as much as humans. A large feedlot produces as much waste as a large city, but without a sewage system. Animal waste washed into rivers and lakes causes increased nitrates, phosphates, ammonia, and bacteria, and decreases the oxygen content. This kills plant and animal life. The meat industry account for three times as much harmful organic waste as the rest of the industries in the U.S. combined.

It takes ten times as much land to produce food for an average American compared to a pure vegetarian. An acre of land can produce 20,000 pounds of potatoes, but only 165 pounds of beef. In the U.S., 260 million acres of forest have been destroyed for use as agricultural land to support our meat diet (over 1 acre per person). Since 1967, the rate of deforestation has been one acre every five seconds. For every acre cleared for urban development, seven acres are cleared to graze animals or grow feed for them.

Around 85% of topsoil loss is directly associated with raising livestock. We have lost 75% of our topsoil. The USDA says crop productivity is down 70% as a result of topsoil loss. It takes nature 500 years to build an inch of topsoil. Vegan diets make less than 5% of the demands on the soil as meat-based diets.

Pro#2 (Human health)
It's no secret that compared to average meat-eaters, vegetarians generally live longer, are less likely to be overweight, suffer far fewer incidences of cancer and heart disease, and have more energy. These facts have been consistently borne out by decades of scientific research. The largest epidemiological study ever conducted (the China-Oxford-Cornell study) concluded that those eating the amount of animal foods in a typical American diet have seventeen times the death rate from heart disease, and, for women, five times the rate of breast cancer, than those who get 5% or less of their protein from animal foods. (See the references at the end of this article.)

Meat contains 14 times the amount of pesticides as plant foods, since pesticides get concentrated as they move up through the food chain, and since they're more easily stored in fatty tissues. In 1980, six years after the pesticide dieldrin was banned, the USDA destroyed two million packages of frozen turkey products contaminated with dieldrin. (And such contamination can routinely occur without detection.) In 1974, the FDA found dieldrin in 85% of all dairy products and 99.5% of the American people. The EPA discovered that the breast milk of vegetarian women contained far lower levels of pesticides than that of average Americans. A study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine found that "The highest levels of contamination in the breast milk of the vegetarians was lower than the lowest level of contamination…(in) non-vegetarian women… The mean vegetarian levels were only 1-2% as high as the average levels in the U.S."

Pro#3 (the human body favors a vegetarian diet)
Meat-Eaters

Carnivorous animals, including the lion, dog, wolf, cat, etc., have many unique characteristics which set them apart from all other members of the animal kingdom. They all possess a very simple and short digestive system -- only three times the length of their bodies. This is because flesh decays very rapidly, and the products of this decay quickly poison the bloodstream if they remain too long in the body. So a short digestive tract was evolved for rapid expulsion of putrefactive bacteria from decomposing flesh, as well as stomachs with ten times as much hydrochloric acid as non-carnivorous animals (to digest fibrous tissue and bones). Meat-eating animals that hunt in the cool of the night and sleep during the day when it is hot do not need sweat glands to cool their bodies; they therefore do not perspire through their skin, but rather they sweat through their tongues. On the other hand, vegetarian animals, such as the cow, horse, zebra, deer, etc., spend much of their time in the sun gathering their food, and they freely perspire through their skin to cool their bodies. But the most significant difference between the natural meat-eaters and other animals is their teeth. Along with sharp claws, all meat-eaters, since they have to kill mainly with their teeth, possess powerful jaws and pointed, elongated, "canine" teeth to pierce tough hide and to spear and tear flesh. They do NOT have molars (flat, back teeth) which vegetarian animals need for grinding their food. Unlike grains, flesh does not need to be chewed in the mouth to predigest it; it is digested mostly in the stomach and the intestines. A cat, for example, can hardly chew at all.

Plant-Eaters

Grass-and-leaf-eating animals (elephant, cow, sheep, llama, etc.) live on grass, herbs, and other plants, much of which is coarse and bulky. The digestion of this type of food starts in the mouth with the enzyme ptyalin in the saliva. these foods must be chewed well and thoroughly mixed with ptyalin in order to be broken down. For this reason, grass-and-leaf eaters have 24 special "molar" teeth and a slight side-to-side motion to grind their food, as opposed to the exclusively up-and-down motion of carnivores. They have no claws or sharp teeth; they drink by sucking water up into their mouths as opposed to lapping it up with their tongue which all meat eaters do. Since they do not eat rapidly decaying foods like the meat eaters, and since their food can take a longer time to pass through, they have much longer digestive systems -- intestines which are ten times the length of the body. Interestingly, recent studies have shown that a meat diet has an extremely harmful effect on these grass-and-leaf eaters. Dr. William Collins, a scientist in the New York Maimonedes Medical Center, found that the meat-eating animals have an "almost unlimited capacity to handle saturated fats and cholesterol". If a half pound of animal fat is added daily over a long period of time to a rabbit's diet, after two month his blood vessels become caked with fat and the serious disease called atheriosclerosis develops. human digestive systems, like the rabbit's, are also not designed to digest meat, and they become diseased the more they eat it, as we will later see.

Fruit-eaters include mainly the anthropoid apes, humanity's immediate animal ancestors. The diet of these apes consists mostly of fruit and nuts. Their skin has millions of pores for sweating, and they also have molars to grind and chew their food; their saliva is alkaline, and, like the grass-and-leaf eaters, it contains ptyalin for predigestion. Their intestines are extremely convoluted and are twelve times the length of their body, for the slow digestion of fruits and vegetables.

Human Beings

Human characteristics are in every way like the fruit eaters, very similar to the grass- eater, and very unlike the meat eaters, as is clearly shown in the table above. The human digestive system, tooth and jaw structure, and bodily functions are completely different from carnivorous animals. As in the case of the anthropoid ape, the human digestive system is twelve times the length of the body; our skin has millions of tiny pores to evaporate water and cool the body by sweating; we drink water by suction like all other vegetarian animals; our tooth and jaw structure is vegetarian; and our saliva is alkaline and contains ptyalin for predigestion of grains. Human beings clearly are not carnivores by physiology -- our anatomy and digestive system show that we must have evolved for millions of years living on fruits, nuts, grains, and vegetables.

Furthermore, it is obvious that our natural instincts are non-carnivorous. Most people have other people kill their meat for them and would be sickened if they had to do the killing themselves. Instead of eating raw meat as all flesh-eating animals do, humans boil, bake, or fry it and disguise it with all kinds of sauces and spices so that it bears no resemblance to its raw state. One scientist explains it this way: "A cat will salivate with hungry desire at the smell of a piece of raw flesh but not at all at the smell of fruit. If man could delight in pouncing upon a bird, tear its still-living limbs apart with his teeth, and suck the warm blood, one might conclude that nature provided him with meat-eating instinct. On the other hand, a bunch of luscious grapes makes his mouth water, and even in the absence of hunger he will eat fruit because it tastes so good."

Scientists and naturalists, including the great Charles Darwin who gave the theory of evolution, agree that early humans were fruit and vegetable eaters and that throughout history our anatomy has not changed. The great Swedish scientist von Linné states: "Man's structure, external and internal, compared with that of the other animals, shows that fruit and succulent vegetables constitute his natural food."

So it is clear from scientific studies that physiologically, anatomically, and instinctively, man is perfectly suited to a diet for fruit, vegetables, nuts, and grains. This is summarized in the table above.

Pro#4 (caring for animals)
Around eight billion animals are killed for food every year in the U.S. alone -- a number greater than the entire human population of the planet. Each meat-eating American eats the equivalent of about 24 animals per year. What's worse, modern agricultural methods mean that animals are raised in cramped confinement operations instead of the pastures from childhood picture books -- a practice known as factory farming. Chickens are crammed into cages with no free space, and are debeaked to keep them from pecking each other to death. Animals are pumped full of various powerful drugs to kill diseases resulting from filthy living conditions, and to make them grow or produce faster than nature intended. When cows and chickens stop producing as much milk and eggs as the younger animals, they're unceremoniously slaughtered and made into low-grade meat (fast food and pet food). For some, vegetarianism and veganism are ways to refuse to participate in the commodification of anim

The only cons I can think of atm would be, when you go over to another persons house for dinner it might a bit of trouble finding something to eat. But if you already know them, or let them know ahead of time its not realy a problem. Or if you go out for a meal it can be harder to find something to eat.

Its a lonnnngggg answer I know but this is something I feel very strongly about and its good for people to read it and they can decide for themselves what they want to do with their own life, I understnad that not all people will agree, that is up to them to decide.

Answer 2

Well, if you're an animal lover, you benefit from a clear conscience. You're also avoiding all the additives, steriods, and God only knows what else that gets pumpued into those animals before they're slaughtered. On the down side, you may very well end up missing meat A LOT. And supplementing your diet with the appropriate proteins will become a real priority.

Answer 3

PRO: It makes me feel better! I always felt guilty looking at a calf and then eating a hamburger, etc. Now I don't think about the pain that the food I am eating had to go through!

CON: Sometimes, I have alot less energy, I have to take Vitamins, and see a nutritionist.

Answer 4

In my opinion, the biggest pro would be a higher energy level. Another would be a boosted immune system. Since vegetarians' diets vary, this would not be true for all. To me, the biggest con is the lack of vegetarian entrees at some restaurants. The individuals who crack the cliche jokes about your diet would be another downside. I never push my diet on anyone, but I've found that many need to defend/push their omnivorous diet on me.

Answer 5

The cons are- in some cities, there are very few restuarants, that offer vegetarian dishes. In a lot of camps and delicatessens, the workers don't know what to feed vegetrians, a lot of people, including the ones who only eat meat no and then, but often eat tukey don't understand vegetarians, and in some sandwhich establishments, such as TOGO'S, the only sandwhich flings avaialble for you to eat, are turkey, cranbrry sauce, cheese and hummus. In some, such as Subway, there's no such thing as a cheese sandwhich. Believe me, it's better to eat meat once and awhile, than to never eat it. And it's better to eat turkey and chicken often, than to eat meat often. Chicken and turkey are considered poultry, where as beef and pork are considered meat.

Answer 6

Humans are not biologically built to survive on only vegetables. Check out our teeth and our intestinal system. In fact, it is in our very nature to want to eat meat, if you look at poor, starving countries that don't have anything, they cannot be picky. They must eat whatever God puts across their path (plants, animals, insects, fish, etc.) So first off, I will say that I am pretty biased in that our culture has made vegetarianism a chic and moral issue instead of a personal choice. On the flip side, we are supposed to have a balanced diet, and people eat way too much meat that they are supposed to to be healthy.

So the benefits of being a vegetarian are getting the nutrients that you are supposed to get. To be healthiest, these should be eaten in a raw state. Cooking not only adds to bad things such as sodium and fat (if cooked in oil and seasoned), it also breaks down the original chemical structure of the vegetable, taking away from its full nutritional value. It is possible to get enough protein from legumes, and other such things usually found in meat.

On the flip side, there have been studies showing that eating fish and both lean white and lean red meat can help muscle growth, lower bad cholesterol, lower the risk of stroke, and actively fight erectile dysfunction. Plus, we all know the benefits of chicken soup when you have the cold.

There is nothing wrong with being a vegetarian, but know that meat is too good to pass up. If it is an animal rights or health thing, know that you can buy free range cattle and chickens. All natural with no steroids or growth hormones or anything.

Answer 7

pros-
your saving animals
its much healthier
it makes people happy to think no one had to die for them to eat
its enviormentaly friendly
its a good thong that many people are doing (we got tired of jumbing off of bridges, so decieded to do something good)
these days there are tons of meat alternitaves
vegheads are cool
even albert einstien promted it

cons-
some people miss the taste of meat, but with so many alternitaves, there really is no reason at all to eat meat

i meant to give that micheal guy a thumbs down but accidently gave him a thumbs up. oops!

Answer 8

Pros-not harming anything to eat, don't have to feel guilty
Cons-you have to learn about food so you can eat right and it sucks when you are at someones house and they don't know you're a vegetarian so there's nothing for you to eat.

Answer 9

Pro- healthier diet. You won't catch all hte diseases that go around that are associated with the animals. The animal can still live b/c your not eating it. Your body can digest vegetables, etc better than meat.

Con- lower protein intake but you can take a supplement or eat other protein rich foods.

Answer 10

pros: healthier body, more humane diet (nothing had to suffer before it got to your plate)
cons: being made fun of

Answer 11

con: staying healthy can be more of a challenge (but still possible) if you relied on meat for its nutritional value
pro: you have less to feel guilty about