Pros and cons of becoming a vegetarian?

Question

Serious answers only please.

Answer 1

Pros:Why be vegetarian?



Improving Personal 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."

Saving the 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.

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 animals.

MORE ENDURANCE
At Yale, Professor Irving Fisher designed a series of tests to compare the stamina and strength of meat-eaters against that of vegetarians. He selected men from three groups: meat-eating athletes, vegetarian athletes, and vegetarian sedentary subjects. Fisher reported the results of his study in the Yale Medical Journal.25 His findings do not seem to lend a great deal of credibility to the popular prejudices that hold meat to be a builder of strength.

"Of the three groups compared, the...flesh-eaters showed far less endurance than the abstainers (vegetarians), even when the latter were leading a sedentary life."26
Overall, the average score of the vegetarians was over double the average score of the meat-eaters, even though half of the vegetarians were sedentary people, while all of the meat-eaters tested were athletes. After analyzing all the factors that might have been involved in the results, Fisher concluded that:

"...the difference in endurance between the flesh-eaters and the abstainers (was due) entirely to the difference in their diet.... There is strong evidence that a...non-flesh...diet is conducive to endurance."27
A comparable study was done by Dr. J. Ioteyko of the Academie de Medicine of Paris.28 Dr. Ioteyko compared the endurance of vegetarian and meat-eaters from all walks of life in a variety of tests. The vegetarians averaged two to three times more stamina than the meat-eaters. Even more remarkably, they took only one-fifth the time to recover from exhaustion compared to their meat-eating rivals.

In 1968, a Danish team of researchers tested a group of men on a variety of diets, using a stationary bicycle to measure their strength and endurance. The men were fed a mixed diet of meat and vegetables for a period of time, and then tested on the bicycle. The average time they could pedal before muscle failure was 114 minutes. These same men at a later date were fed a diet high in meat, milk and eggs for a similar period and then re-tested on the bicycles. On the high meat diet, their pedaling time before muscle failure dropped dramatically--to an average of only 57 minutes. Later, these same men were switched to a strictly vegetarian diet, composed of grains, vegetables and fruits, and then tested on the bicycles. The lack f animal products didn't seem to hurt their performance--they pedaled an average of 167 minutes.29

Wherever and whenever tests of this nature have been done, the results have been similar. This does not lend a lot of support to the supposed association of meat with strength and stamina.

Doctors in Belgium systematically compared the number of times vegetarians and meat-eaters could squeeze a grip-meter. The vegetarians won handily with an average of 69, whilst the meat-eaters averaged only 38. As in all other studies which have measured muscle recovery time, here, too, the vegetarians bounced back from fatigue far more rapidly than did the meat-eaters.30

I know of many other studies in the medical literature which report similar findings. But I know of not a single one that has arrived at different results. As a result, I confess, it has gotten rather difficult for me to listen seriously to the meat industry proudly proclaiming "meat gives strength" in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

MYTH: "Vegetarians get little protein."

FACT: Plant foods offer abundant protein. Vegetables are around 23% protein on average, beans 28%, grains 13%, and even fruit has 5.5%. For comparison, human breast milk is only 5% (designed for the time in our lives when our protein needs are as high as they'll ever be). The US Recommended Daily Allowance is 8%, and the World Health Organization recommends 4.5%.

MYTH: "Beans are a good source of protein."

FACT: There is no such thing as a special "source of protein" because all foods -- even plants -- have plentiful protein. You might as well say "Food is a good source of protein". In any event, beans (28%) don't average much more protein per calorie than common vegetables (23%).

you won't be contributing to this
http://meat.org/


cons:people judging you,some social situations maybe difficult

Answer 2

The possible con is that you will not enjoy the taste of foods that do not contain animal porducts. If that is not a con for you, then there are no cons. The pros need some clarifications. It cannot be assumed that a vegetatian diet will be healthy, afterall, one might only eat french fries, jalapeno poppers, and other such garbage, and that is not going to improve your overall condition. However, a crap diet of meat products will be worse for you then a crap diet of vegetable products. If you are choosing to become a vegetarian for philosophical reasons, there is no reason for you to raise this question. If you are doing so for health reasons, then also consider *the additives in the foods you eat, the temperatures at which you cook your food, and the overall quality of the foods you are consuming.

While meat in general has negative aspects, those aspects can be mostly avoided by making good decisions with regard to the previously mentioned points to consider* for being a vegetarian.

Answer 3

Pros: It can save money, you can lose weight faster, and your chances of getting food poisoning are greatly diminished. Some people also claim feeling healthier on a vegetarian diet.

Cons: You can become anemic from not getting enough iron, you may not get enough protien (yes, there are veggies with protien, but meat is certainly the better way to go), and some people claim feeling very weak on a vegetarian diet.

In the end, it's what works for you. I tried being a vegetarian, but I started passing out (even making sure I was eating all of the foods I should). I saw my doctor and he said because my protien and iron levels were so low, I needed to start eating more red meat!!! It didn't work for me, but it works for some. I think all of us are different in the way our bodies work and absorp the things we need in our system. Some people eat well their whole life and still have health problems while others eat crap and live to be 100. My grandmother has been eating sausage, eggs, and biscuits with gravy for 95 years and her cholesterol levels are still perfect!!!

Answer 4

Pros - cleaner body, cleaner planet, cleaner spirit

Cons - sometimes difficult to find much of a selection at some restaurants; you may be the only one at a party and/or dinner and that can be a pain, knowing others have to worry about what you're gonna eat

Answer 5

I was a vegetarian for one year then a vegan for two, now I'm a carnivore again and I've never felt better. My energy levels are higher, I'm not sick as much and...well, I just feel better. I don't know what it is exactly, but I'm betting the protein levels are waaaay higher in a steak than they are in a stir fry. Good luck.

Answer 6

Pro-You'll be eating something and not worry about the fact that it was living.
Con- You'll be missing out on a lot of protein that keeps your energy up.

Answer 7

Well seriously I can think of only Pros for becoming a vegetarian. Not to mention the contribution of saving the Lives and hardships of factory animals, a vegetarian diet is far superb for our health. Animal fat is not good for us and clogs our arteries, plus we run the risk of getting EColi, mad cow disease, and numerous other diseases that spread from animals being in inhumane conditions to become part of the food chain. Read for reference John Robbins book "Diet for a New America" and "The Food Revolution", and look into Dr. Dean Ornish heart program.

Answer 8

The pros are the ethical, moral and nutritional reasons that someone chooses this lifestyle. Food is healthy, plentiful and has unlimited variations/choices. The cons are that you must be sure your diet includes adequate protein and iron (that are found in animal meat/poultry)

Answer 9

I'm a nurse and a vegan. Weight loss and you will become a lot more healthier. In contrast, not eating properly and/or getting all the nutrients you need.

Answer 10

Cons: Less healthy becasue u don't get enough protein. Even though u can through nuts, It's ALOT less than regular- face it, ur body needs meat