A Summary of ‘The Case for a Vegan World'
Veganism is good for individuals and society because:
Veganism is good for the environment
Animal industries require extensive land use, and damage the land. Large amounts of land must be cleared of forests to support grazing (more than 80% of agricultural land is devoted to animal industries in the USA, UK and Australia) causing erosion and loss of topsoil, salinity, changes in weather patterns and a loss of carbon sinks. Along with the land clearance, the animal grazing itself has further negative impacts, including soil acidification and compaction, the growth of nuisance plants, spreading parasites and impeding natural animal movements. The waste products of the animal industries create unsustainable amounts of manure and toxic materials.
Animal industries use and pollute enormous amounts of fresh water. Through pasture irrigation or feedlotting, the average Australian uses 3 Million litres of water for the 70Kg of meat they eat each year. Dairy is even worse, consuming vast amounts of fresh water (35 times the average industry water use!) and further polluting fresh water with the waste products from the animals. The clearing of forests also reduces rainfall, increases runoff and reduces the water able to be stored in the environment. Manufacturing of animal products and freshwater fish farming contaminate the riverine environment (with such things as Mercury and Formaldehyde used in tanning).
Animal Product Extraction damages the marine environment. Fish are being killed at an unsustainable level, with 90% of the world's large fish populations already wiped out. The Fishing disrupts the food chain which leads to ecological imbalances. Dragnets tear up the sea bottom. Large net and long line fishing creates vast quantities of ‘by catch' (non-target animal kills) such as Dolphin, Turtles, Seals and Albatross. Fish farming spreads disease, disrupts local ecologies and is an inefficient use of resources (often farmed fish are fed on others caught in the wild!).
Animal Industries are damaging and changing the atmosphere of the planet. Factory farm and grazing animals are bread in mind-boggling numbers to be exploited by humans. (The belches, farts and waste products of livestock account for 15-20% of global methane emissions). When energy use is allocated out to its users, the animal industries produce 140 Million Tonnes of CO 2 per year in Australia , almost triple the next highest contributor, Electricity Supply. The ammonia released from the waste of these abused non-human-animals is a primary source of acid rain. Factories and abattoirs which process animal products in turn contribute their atmospheric pollution through energy and material use.
Animal industries use enormous amounts of energy and scarce materials. It takes fifty times the amount of fossil fuel to supply a meat-based diet as compared to a meat free one. The feeding/managing and transporting of non-human-animals requires fuel as well. Land used to feed non-human-animals destined for slaughter can supply as little as 1/10 of the protein and carbohydrates as land used to produce plant foods. The factory farms and slaughterhouses of the animal product industry are highly mechanised and use large amounts of electricity. After the animals are slaughtered, their flesh is prone to rot and requires more packaging and refrigeration than plant foods and, in most cases, even more energy is needed to cook the flesh.
Animal industries destroy biodiversity and threaten species. This occurs when land is cleared for grazing and farms, with the introduction of species new to an area, when farmed non-human-animals compete with the existing wildlife for food and when monocultures impact on the distribution of beneficial insects. All of these problems are of course the fault of the human intruders and not of the animals exhibiting their natural behaviours.
Animal Industries cause poverty and starvation of people. In South America and elsewhere, rainforest is cleared to produce soy bean destined for export as feed for factory-farms. The demand for grains and legumes produced in the third world raises the price of the food beyond the reach of human consumers in the country of origin. Desire for the flesh-eating western diet among the rich of those countries and the first world raises the price of basic foodstuffs. A statistical analysis of land ownership in these impoverished countries shows that 80% of the farmland is owned by 3% of the people or large multinational corporations, and their interest is in making money from exportable cash-crops, not providing food for the local population.
Veganism benefits human health
Vegan diet is good for mental health, the brain and central nervous system. Diets high in cholesterol, saturated fat and total calories but low in fibre, vegetables and fruit increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease. Animal foods are among the high risk foods for triggering a migraine. Citrulline, found in plant foods such as watermelon, may decrease the development of Parkinson's disease. Diseases such as Spongyform Encephalopathy can cross the species barrier when humans eat the brain and spinal cord tissue of non-human-animals.
Veganism is the best choice of diet for promoting healthy nervous tissue. Multiple Sclerosis may be caused by the consumption of dairy and nervous degeneration can be worsened by diets high in fat, especially animal fat. Low-fat Vegan diets have been shown to slow the progression of MS.
The benefits of a Vegan diet on circulatory diseases are well known. Because Vegetarians have lower cholesterol levels and blood pressure, their risk of atherosclerosis, heart attack, chest pain, thrombosis and stroke are greatly diminished. This is the number one cause of premature death in the first world. Enormous incapacity and death is generated each year through the negative impacts of diets high in cholesterol and animal fat. For the same reasons, Vegans are much less likely to suffer from impotence.
Animal products often give people food poisoning, an illness caused by bacteria found in most meat and which is potentially fatal. People expect to suffer from food poisoning several times a year but it is preventable by following a Vegan diet. As well as bacteria, animal products are host to a variety of toxins, some of which have accumulated because animals are often fed back to animals as feed. Animal products are also inherently high in fat and low in fibre, dietary conditions which promote colon cancer and in themselves and also provide a medium for bacteria to convert bile into carcinogenic substances in the intestines. Vegetarians have 40% less chance of developing bowel cancer. They have a lower risk of constipation, peptic ulcers, diverticulitis and hyperglycaemia.
Cow's milk fed to children can lead to juvenile-onset or Type 1 diabetes. A low fat wholefood diet is the best diet for preventing, living with and reversing non-insulin dependent type 2 diabetes.
The Vegan diet encourages a better immune system, with the consumption of substances which help the body repair itself and its DNA, substances such as selenium, fibre, beta-carotenes, flavones, Vitamin A, B and E. On the flip side, intensive animal food production leads to the production and distribution of trans-species diseases among the human population.
The respiratory system seems to aided by a vegetable based diet, with Vegetarians having much lower risk of Asthma. Animal fat consumption also worsens lung cancer.
A Vegan diet is good for your skeletal system. Getting too much protein can leach calcium from your bones. As your body digests protein, it releases acids into the bloodstream, which the body neutralises by drawing calcium from the bones. Animal protein causes more of this calcium leaching than vegetable protein does. Drinking milk increases not reduces the risk of osteoporosis. Animal food such as dairy increase the development of arthritis and exacerbate the condition once it has occurred. Plant foods (excluding some high risk plant foods) will help deal with the cellular damage and symptoms of arthritis after it has developed.
Animal food diets effect the reproductive tissues and systems. Animal fat consumption leads to early puberty and a greater risk of breast cancer, prostate cancer and impotence. The consumption of milk raises the risk of ovarian cancer. Polychlorinated biphenyls and organochlorins which accumulate in non-human-animals and their milk, can cause endometriosis in humans.
Wholefood Vegan diets with large amounts of potassium rich, sodium low foods such as fruits, vegetables and beans, discourage kidney stones. A lower protein diet plant diet has been shown to help patients suffering from kidney disease, reducing the catabolism and loss of albumin through urine.
Vegans have a lower risk of macular degeneration of their eyesight. Compounds found in vegetables help to keep the skin healthy and resistant to UV induced cancers.
Vegans are at much reduced risk of a variety of cancers when compared to meat eaters. Animal proteins 'turn on' Carcinogenesis. Additionally, antibiotics and other chemicals which are carcinogenic to humans are fed to animals and then passed on in their fat. Carcinogenic chemicals are also found in fish oil, which degrades rapidly and releases volatile free radicals.
Children who grow up getting their nutrition from plant foods have tremendous health advantage. They are less likely to develop weight problems, diabetes, high blood pressure and some forms of cancer. There is evidence that they have a higher average IQ with Vegan children averaging 117 compared to 99 in omnivorous children. They have better eating patterns and grow at a comparable rate to their omnivorous counterparts.
As can be seen from the above examples, a Vegan diet provides benefits to almost all the body's systems, and Vegetarians outlive non-vegetarians by an average of at least 6 years. One 21 year study (the China Study) that compared omnivores with vegetarians showed the greater the meat consumption, the greater the death rate from all causes.
Veganism reduces the suffering of non-human animals
For many readers of Abolitionist-Online, this area of the argument has probably already been the driving force behind their adoption of a Vegan lifestyle. Animals exploited by humans suffer and are degraded from being used as a source of food and other products. They also suffer when used in research, as entertainment or as labour. Animals can also suffer as a result of their treatment in the pet industry.
Animals used as food will suffer emotional and physical pain. These include the suffering caused by breeding practices (eg. constant pregnancy in dairy cows), through housing and feeding practices (eg. sow stalls), through transport (eg. live export) and through inhumane slaughter practices. Each month over 3.5 million Cattle, Sheep and Pigs are killed in Australia for use as food. The magnitude of the suffering is difficult to imagine.
Humans misuse animals to provide them with a range of products beside food. Fur, leather and silk are well known examples. There is a plethora of other animal derived material which humans seem to believe are vital for their interest at the expense of all other creature's interest. Soaps, cosmetics, ornaments, dyes, adhesives and status symbols can all be derived from animal's bodies. The bio-tech industry is a voracious consumer of products such as bovine-foetal-serum, gelatine, bile salts, gall, shellac etc. The emerging field of Xenotransplantation (using animal organs in human beings) will be another cause of suffering in non-human-animals.
Non-human-animals are abused for “scientific research” in other ways. Animals suffer in the testing of cosmetics, drugs, food substances and chemicals intended for humans, for example using the LD50 (What dose causes 50% of study animals to die?) or Draize eye-irritancy tests. Non-human-animals are also used in the study of simulated human diseases, and in military and industrial testing.
Animals used in entertainment are often abused. Recreational fishing is regarded as a respected pastime despite their obvious distress at being hooked and dragged from the water. Recreational hunting of birds and mammals persists on land. Rodeos, circus, zoo and aquariums continue to be popular in western countries, dancing-bears in the middle-east. At race-meets, many people admire the handsome and strong horses or sleek greyhounds, but ignore how those animals are bred, treated and discarded in huge numbers.
Non-human-animals have traditionally been exploited for labour and they continue to be used to do work in agriculture (ox, elephants, horses), fishing (with cormorants) and transport (horses, camels, donkeys). Whenever humans consider animals a resource to be exploited, vegans are concerned that abuse, suffering and death will likely follow.
Veganism benefits human culture
‘The Case for a Vegan World' supports the proposition that Veganism benefits human beings culturally, both on the level of society and the individual. Studies show that people who have a history of torturing and maltreating animals can then go on to torture and mistreat humans. Veganism may build empathy and bias the individual away from violence, towards conscientiousness, a clearer mind and more positive attitude in life. Societies without slaughterhouses and food which is made available through killing would be more aesthetically pleasing and less psychologically damaging to their members. The objectification of any living being is likely to create unhealthy and harmful attitudes both to the individual and society. We suspect that by cultivating a Vegan lifestyle in societies, they would be less likely to go to war because there would be less competition for resources. A shared Vegan ethic has the potential to unite disparate people who in many other ways are divided by culture. We look forward to further research on the sociological and psychological benefits of veganism.
As a result of all the above, Veganism benefits the economy
There is a great deal of financial and resource waste involved in supporting and running the animal industries. The government provides tax-subsidies, special grants, research funding, special use infrastructure and other funding to prop up these dying industries. What is more, the animal industries provide back absolutely minimal levels of employment, profit and return to the government through taxes.
These industries can also damage the money making potential of more healthy industries such as tourism as they pollute and damage the landscape, stripping its resources for short term profit.
We would save a great deal in our public health system by abolishing the animal industries. Healthier and longer lived people leads to overall reductions in health costs, particularly the expensive interventionist systems designed to surgically repair damage created with poor lifestyle. The cost of treating disease in Australia each year is over A$50Billion dollars, with the highest contributor being heart disease, entirely an artefact of animal product use. All up, we estimate more than half of this cost could be saved if a vegan diet were more widespread, along with the associated reduction in human suffering.
The total drag on the economy of supporting and maintaining the animal industries is the sum of all these various costs, and probably in the order of A$30-50 Billion dollars annually. Imagine the tax cut the Treasurer could provide with that 'cash box' at his next budget speech!
And for those who are religious and depending on their particular belief system, Veganism may also be a religious imperative.
Neither Vegetarianism or Veganism are entirely new concepts to the world, many schools of thought have adopted these lifestyles and recognised the damage that animal exploitation does to non-human animals, the environment, human bodies and minds. Traditions of Vegetarian and Vegan philosophy can be found in many of the world's religions, and we will try and document as many as we can on 'The Case'. It seems that the rational basis for adopting a Vegan lifestyle has been obvious to some enlightened individuals for many thousands of years. |
