There are strong health, environmental, and ethical reasons for choosing a vegetarian diet, while the reasons against are habit and convenience. When you think of the consequences of eating animal products in today’s society, it seems that vegetarianism is the prudent choice. (Stepatnik 28) Seven percent of Americans are vegetarians, they do not eat any meat; .5 percent of Americans are strict vegetarians - vegans - eating no animal products whatsoever. This paper is an introduction to why choosing a vegetarian lifestyle is essential for protecting animals, the environment, and personal health.

The animals in one factory can total ten

Factory farms and slaughterhouses are usually unsanitary and below FDA standards for conditions of the animals in them. In order to produce the maximum “meat” (muscle tissue), milk, or eggs from an animal at the lowest cost, cows, pigs, and chickens are crowded into the smallest space possible. (Brown) Up to six egg-laying hens live in a battery cage with a wire floor area of 1.7 square feet. An open spiral-notebook is about the same size.

Thus, dairy consumption leads directly to death. (Robbins 90)

Think about it: for an animal to become meat or to produce milk, it needs to eat, lots. 2.5 acres of land could yield enough potatoes to feed twenty-two people or yield enough grain to feed a cow enough for it to produce meat for one person. Consider water also, 5,214 gallons are needed to produce a single pound of beef! One-third of all agricultural non-point source water pollution is due to animal production operations. (Stepatnik 231) Irrigation, employed mainly for feed crops, uses more than eighty percent of US water and agriculture, in total, uses almost ninety percent of freshwater consumed annually in the United States. (Vegan Outreach) Obviously everything that goes in the animal must come out as well, and considering that nine billion are killed each year, the amount of excrement and sewage needing to be dumped is incomprehensible. Eating animal products contributes directly to deforestation (to make grazing land), water waste, and pollution. In the United States, for every acre of trees felled for urban sprawl, about seven acres are cut for grazing or to grow crops for cattle. (Stepatnik 211)

By not consuming the products that come from animal exploitation, each individual is making a statement against inhumane practices, undertaking an economic boycott, and supporting the production of vegan products with thei

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