benefits of being a vegetarian?

Answer 1

Enviromental benefits...

1.Caring for the enviroment-
America's meat eating habits are bad.Half of the water used in the U.S. is used for animal agriculture.Our topsoil is damaged by raising animals for food,we only have about 6 inches of topsoil left,it takes 500 years for 1 inch of topsoil to be created.Every year in the US an area the size of Connecticut is lost to topsoil erosion--85% of this erosion is associated with livestock production.
.Animals create a huge amount of waste,a population of 60,000 pigs creates the same amount of waste as a group of 240,000 people,and our poop is flushed and filtered so the water can be used again,animals' waste is put into a manure lagoon or a small amount can be put back into soil,but most of it builds up.Think about what I said before
60,000 pigs=240,000 people
and now think of the 10 billion animals raised for food each year.Imagine the waste created.The number of farm animals on earth has risen fivefold since 1950: humans are now outnumbered three to one. Livestock already consume half the world's grain, and their numbers are still growing almost exponentially.This is why biotechnology - whose promoters claim that it will feed the world - has been deployed to produce not food but feed: it allows farmers to switch from grains which keep people alive to the production of more lucrative crops for livestock. Within as little as 10 years, the world will be faced with a choice: arable farming either continues to feed the world's animals or it continues to feed the world's people. It cannot do both.

The impending crisis will be accelerated by the depletion of both phosphate fertiliser and the water used to grow crops. Every kilogram of beef we consume, according to research by the agronomists David Pimental and Robert Goodland, requires around 100,000 litres of water. Aquifers are beginning the run dry all over the world, largely because of abstraction by farmers.Approximately 1.3 billion cattle populate the earth at any one time. They exist artificially in these vast numbers to satisfy the excessive human demand for the meat and by-products they provide. Their combined weight exceeds that of the entire human population. By sheer numbers, their consequent appetite for the world's resources, have made them a primary cause for the destruction of the environment. In the US, feedlot cattle yield one pound of meat for every 16 pounds of feed. (Within the 12-year period preceding 1992, the number of chickens worldwide increased 132% to 17.2 billion.)It takes an average of 2,500 gallons of water to produce a single pound of meat. According to Newsweek, "The water that goes into a 1,000 pound steer could float a destroyer." In contrast, it takes only 25 gallons of water to produce one pound of wheat.Feeding the average meat-eating American requires 3-1/4 acres of land per year. Feeding a person who eats no food derived from animals requires only 1/6 acre per year. Recent marginal growth in animal protein consumption in increasingly affluent developing countries has led to huge increases in the need for feed grains. In 1995, quite suddenly, China went from being an exporter to an importer of grain. World shortages are predicted as both populations and meat consumption rise together--an unsustainable combination. Early in 1996, the world was down to a 48-day supply of grain. According to Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute, the world "may have crossed a threshold where even the best efforts of governments to build stocks may not be enough."The passage of local laws favoring massive corporate pork operations in North Carolina recently propelled the state into the number two spot in national hog production, practically overnight. In terms of manure, the state might as well have grafted the human population of New York City onto its coastal plain, times two! Studies by North Carolina State University estimate that half of the some 2,500 open hog manure cesspools (euphemistically termed "lagoons"), now needed as part of hog productions there, are leaking contaminants such as nitrate--a chemical linked to blue-baby syndrome--into the ground water. In the summer of 1995, at least five lagoons actually broke open, letting loose tens of millions of gallons of hog waste into rivers and on to neighboring farm lands. No mechanical method of retrieval exists that cleans contaminants from groundwater. Only nature is able to purify things again; and that could take several generations.Worldwide demand for fish, along with advances in fishing methods--sonar, driftnets, floating refrigerated fish packing factories--is bringing ocean species, one after another, to the brink of extinction. In the Nov., '95 edition of Scientific American, Carl Safina writes, "For the past two decades, the fishing industry has had increasingly to face the result of extracting [fish] faster than fish populations [can] reproduce." Research reveals that the intended cure--aquaculture (fish farming)--actually hastens the trend toward fish extinction, while disrupting delicate coastal ecosystems at the same time.A scientist, reporting in the industry publication Confinement, calculated in 1976 that the planet's entire petroleum reserves would be exhausted in 13 years if the whole world were to take on the diet and technological methods of farming used in the US. Trees are being cut down at an alarming rate in the US, as well as around the world, for meat production. If tomorrow people in the US made a radical change away from their meat-centered diets, an area of land the size of all of Texas and most of Oklahoma could be returned to forest.It is estimated that livestock production accounts for twice the amount of pollution in the US as that produced by industrial sources. Livestock in the US produce 20 times the excrement of the entire US population. Since farm animals today spend much or all of their lives in factory sheds or feedlots, their waste no longer serves to fertilize pastures a little at a time. One poultry researcher, according to United Poultry Concerns literature, explains: "A one-million-hen complex will produce 125 tons of wet manure a day." To responsibly store, disperse, or degrade this amount of animal waste is simply not possible. Much of the waste inevitably is flushed into rivers and streams. Becoming a vegetarian does more to clean up our nation's water than any other single action.Methane is one of the four greenhouse gasses that contributes to the environmental trend known as global warming. The 1.3 billion cattle in the world produce one fifth of all the methane emitted into the atmosphere.Meat contains no essential nutrients that cannot be obtained directly from plant sources. By cycling grain through livestock, we lose 90% of the protein, 96% of the calories, all of its carbohydrates, and all of its nutritional fiber.Agricultural engineers have compared the energy costs of producing poultry, pork and other meats with the energy costs of producing a number of plant foods. It was found that even the least efficient plant food was nearly 10 times as efficient in returning food energy as the most energy efficient animal food.Since so much fossil fuel is needed to produce it, beef could be considered a petroleum product. With factory housing, irrigation, trucking, and refrigeration, as well as petrochemical fertilizer production requiring vast amounts of energy, approximately one gallon of gasoline goes into every pound of grain-fed beef.The direct and hidden costs of soil erosion and runoff in the US, mostly attributable to cattle and feed crop production, is estimated at $44 billion a year. Each pound of feedlot beef can be equated with 35 pounds of eroded topsoil.A nationwide switch to a pure vegetarian diet would allow us to cut our oil imports by 60%.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). 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.

Answer 2

For starters, the health benefits are phenomenal. We are less susceptible to heart disease, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. I think there is also a significant connection between not comsuming meat and having a stronger immune system. Since I've been a veggie, I've NEVER been sick and on antibiotics. I just don't catch "what's going around".
Next, it's nice to know that we are not supporting an industry that msitreats and tortures animals. Some will argue that it's not ALL farms, but there more who do than those who don't. (the PETA website has insightful clips called "Meet your Meat". You should take a gander if you haven't already).
Finally, I think you have a great opportunity to be more spiritually aligned. When an animal is slaughtered, they are alive and conscious until the bitter end. All of the fear, tension, and anaxiety that runs through them remains in their bodies. When we ingest that, we are accepting those last horrific moments into our bodies. It's just not healthy.

Answer 3

I love this great T-shirt. While it says vegan, the reasons to go vegetarian are the same. You just save MORE if you give up dairy and eggs.

http://www.veganshirt.com/

VEGAN.
Compassion.
Nonviolence.
For the People.
For the Planet.
For the Animals.
Feed the hungry.
Save indigenous people.
Stand up for workers rights.
Be kind to animals.
Stop factory farms.
Save 100 animals every year.
End deforestation for grazing.
Save an acre of trees.
End grazing on public lands.
Tell USDA ‘Wildlife Services’ to stop killing wildlife for corporate ranchers’ profits.
Stop wars for resources.
Help end corporate rule.
Live your conscience.
Save our oceans.
Stop the #1 polluter of water.
Support a sustainable planet.
Think outside yourself.
Live compassionately.
Stop the violence.

Answer 4

sorry, there is no benefits of being a vegetarian. I heard of few cases of women had miscarriage until they shifted from vegetarian to meat eater. Be moderate, eat meat and vegetarian and eat a complete diet and not so oily food.

Answer 5

http://www.goveg.com/

They can give you all the health benefits, a vegitarian starter kit and any other information you seek.

Vegitarians can either be healthy or not, there are a lot of vegan foods that are just as fattening as the non-vegan foods.

The real benefit, in my opinion, is that I am not responsible for the torture and mutilation of some real social, intelligent animals.
If you are on an empty stomach and want to see what being a carnivore causes to happen, watch:

http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/video.asp?video=meet_your_meat&Player=wm&speed=_med

Answer 6

Nature has created human beings to be vegetarians as the animals already are non vegetarians and being vegetarians, you eat healthy leafy fresh vegetables which are easily digested and you stay healthy always.

Answer 7

Fit, healthy, vibrant. More regular bowel movements with not having to process muscle tissue that is too similar to our own. The satisfaction that nothing bled, screamed, or died so I could eat. Its much easier to prepare good foods. No greasy pans and grills to wash. Feeling lighter and having more energy. Not having to take medications for heartburn or headaches. No toxic overload on the body.......I could go on, but hope this gives you a start

Answer 8

According to studies, vegetarians have better health than people that eat meat. They have lower rates of coronary artery disease, gallstones, cancer (particularly lung and colon cancer), kidney stones, colon disease, diabetes and high blood pressure. It has been shown that sometimes a vegetarian diet can help cure these diseases. A vegetarian is also less likely to be overweight than a non-vegetarian.

The National Academy of Science reported in 1983 that "people may be able to prevent many common cancers by eating less fatty meats and more vegetables and grain."

The USDA recommends that people reduce saturated fat and cholesterol, which are in high amounts in animal products, and low in vegetarian diets.

In his Notes on the Causation of Cancer, Rollo Russell writes, "I have found of twenty-five nations eating flesh largely, nineteen had a high cancer rate and only one had a low rate, and that of thirty-five nations eating little or no flesh, none had a high rate."

Various studies have shown that vegetarians have lower blood pressure than non-vegetarians.

Vegetarians have much lower cholesterol levels than people that eat meat. Heart disease is found much less in vegetarians. Studies have also shown that vegetarians have up to half the cancer rate than those of non-vegetarians. Cases of breast cancer are much lower in countries that have low meat diets.

Vegetarians eat more antioxidants such as vitamin C, vitamin E, beta-carotenes and phytochemicals. Phyotochemicals are components in plants that help to prevent disease. Antioxidants decrease the chance of getting heart disease, cancer and other diseases.

Animal products are high in sodium, which causes the blood to retain water and also causes plaque to build up in the arteries, lowering the flow of blood, which are major causes of high blood pressure.

Grains and plant foods contain fiber, while animal products contain almost none. Because fiber is necessary for proper stool production, lack of proper fiber accounts for societies with meat-based diets to have higher cases of colon cancer. The main reasons why people need to take laxatives is because of lack of fiber in their diet and not drinking enough water.

It is important to get enough leafy vegetables that are high in antioxidants, which are good for overall health.

Some Important Guidelines

1. Eat a variety of foods. 2. Mainly eat foods from plant sources. 3. Don't eat too much salt or sugar. 4. Eat at least six servings of grains, breads and pastas. 5. Eat at least five servings of vegetables and fruits. 6. Avoid foods high in fat, especially those coming from animal sources.

Answer 9

It's probably a healthier lifestyle because vegetarians usually avoid eating fat and sodium,but It's to much of a sacrifice for me.

Answer 10

Vegetarians are fitter, happier, and more productive.

Answer 11

ANIMAL LIBERATION!

savingthelivesoftheinnocent