| WRR Home > About Us >
Our Services > Advocacy
> Plant-Based Diets
 Plant-Based
Diets
by People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
Eating for Life
Leading health experts agree that going vegetarian
is the single best that thing we can do for ourselves and
our families. A meat-free diet rich in complex carbohydrates,
protein, fiber, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals
provides optimal nutrition for both children and adults, forming
the foundation for dietary habits that support a lifetime
of good health.
Leading medical organizations agree that balanced
plant-based diets are healthy and provide protection against
numerous diseases, including our country's three biggest killers:
heart disease, cancer and strokes.
The American Dietetic Association states that
vegetarians have "lower rates of death from ischemic
heart disease; …lower blood cholesterol levels, lower
blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes,
and prostate and colon cancer" and that vegetarians also
tend to be slimmer than meat-eaters. Vegetarian foods provide
us with all the nutrients that we need, minus the saturated
fat, cholesterol, and contaminants found in meat and dairy
products.
A plant-based diet has long-term benefits,
too. It protects us against some of the leading killers in
America today. Research has shown that vegetarians are 50
percent less likely to develop heart disease, and they have
40 percent of the cancer rate of meat-eaters. Plus, meat-eaters
are nine times more likely to be obese than vegans are.
The consumption of meat and dairy products
has been conclusively linked with heart disease, obesity,
diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's, asthma, and
impotence. Scientists have also found that vegetarians have
stronger immune systems than their meat-eating friends; this
means that they are less susceptible to everyday illnesses
like the flu. Vegetarians and vegans live, on average, six
to 10 years longer than meat-eaters.
A plant-based diet is the best diet for kids,
too: Studies have shown that vegetarian kids grow taller and
have higher IQs than their classmates, and they are at a reduced
risk for heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and other diseases
in the long run.
Studies have shown that even older people
who switch to a vegetarian or vegan diet can prevent and even
reverse many chronic ailments.
 Opposing
Animal Cruelty
The green pastures and idyllic barnyard scenes
of years past are now distant memories. On today's factory
farms, animals are crammed by the thousands into filthy windowless
sheds, wire cages, gestation crates, and other confinement
systems. These animals will never raise their families, root
in the soil, build nests, or do anything that is natural to
them. They won't even feel the sun on their backs or breathe
fresh air until the day they are loaded onto trucks bound
for slaughter.
Animals on today's factory farms have no legal
protection from cruelty that would be illegal if it were inflicted
on dogs or cats: neglect, mutilation, genetic manipulation,
and drug regimens that cause chronic pain and crippling, transport
through all weather extremes, and gruesome and violent slaughter.
Yet farmed animals are no less intelligent or capable of feeling
pain than are the dogs and cats we cherish as companions.
 The
factory farming system of modern agriculture strives to maximize
output while minimizing costs. Cows, calves, pigs, chickens,
turkeys, ducks, geese, and other animals are kept in small
cages, in jam-packed sheds, or on filthy feedlots, often with
so little space that they can't even turn around or lie down
comfortably. They are deprived of exercise so that all their
bodies' energy goes toward producing flesh, eggs, or milk
for human consumption. The giant corporations that run most
factory farms have found that they can make more money by
cramming animals into tiny spaces, even though many of the
animals get sick and some die. Industry journal National
Hog Farmer explains, "Crowding Pigs Pays," and
egg-industry expert Bernard Rollins writes that "chickens
are cheap; cages are expensive."
They are fed drugs to fatten them faster and
to keep them alive in conditions that would otherwise kill
them, and they are genetically altered to grow faster or to
produce much more milk or eggs than they would naturally.
Many animals become crippled under their own weight and die
within inches of water and food.
When they have finally grown large enough,
animals raised for food are crowded onto trucks and transported
over many miles through all weather extremes to the slaughterhouse.
Those who survive this nightmarish journey will have their
throats slit, often while they are still fully conscious.
Many are still conscious when they are plunged into the scalding
water of the defeathering or hair-removal tanks or while their
bodies are being skinned or hacked apart.
Request a vegetarian starter kit from PETA
(http://www.goveg.com/order.asp).
The above article is reprinted with the
permission of People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
|
