The Vegan Kind !
Being vegan nowadays and admit it is quite often something that non-vegans don’t take well. It is like you are saying “I am vegan “and they actually heart “I am the strangest person in the Universe, I want to harm myself by torturing my body with non-animal food and I will judge you for the way you are living”.
Being vegan is a personal choice of how you see and treat the world around and this is the most normal thing you can do with your life. It is just who you are and who you want to be. Every human being should search for the ultimate truth for themselves. We live in the age of the Internet and enormous amount of information and we should be curious and willing to find our own truth among all the truths. Nowadays there are unlimited options of who we can be and we are privileged to live in this world right now and to have the chance to change it. Vegans have just find their way of going through live and like everyone else they should not be treated differently because of that.
People are usually scared by the word “vegan” and this is either a lack of information, not fully understanding or inability to do it themselves.
So, why a vegan decides to be a Vegan? Here are 3 of the main reasons :
1. Health!
To eat animal products or not? That is the question! Out there you can find billion of people opinionated enough against eating animal products and an equal amount advocating for eating whatever parts and liquids from animals you want. Both parties have their logical reasons behind their theories and this post is not about who is right and who is wrong. It is, again, our personal choice what fits better to our mindset.
Vegans believe that eating animal products is unnatural and unhealthy for human body.
Firstly, the meat is a type of food that is so hard to digest that instead of giving us energy it takes more for processing it. In addition to this, in the meat you can find a lot of antibiotics that have been given to the animals in order to be healthy and also you can find toxins that the animals release before being killed.
Secondly, eggs are so high in cholesterol that eating one egg a day is as harmful as smoking 5 cigarettes.
Last but not least- milk and dairy. There is a simple logic behind not consuming milk from other animals : babies are those supposed to drink milk because they need it to grow and strengthen their immune system - so human babies should drink human milk, calves should drink cow’s milk, baby elephants should drink elephant’s milk etc. This is just how the nature has created us. However, what happened between the nature’s plan and our own human version of it is a mystery to me :) . Moreover, vegans believe that the benefits of drinking milk to our bodies are overestimated and are even a marketing trick. As mentioned above, the milk is supposed to make babies grow faster and there is a decent amount of grown hormones in it. Different species grow differently and need different hormone dose. Imagine a human baby - it is tiny, around 2-4 kilograms, when it is born and it needs mother’s milk to grow 3-4 times in the first 2-3 years. Now imagine a calve whose weight at birth is 20 kilograms and should, just in around half an year, reach proper adult weight which usually reaches up to 500 kilograms! Now guess the amount of hormones our body takes with only a glass of milk! Believe me the hormones are still in the milk we consume, they have not disappeared magically because that is the main and only purpose of the milk. This high level of hormones won’t make us grow in a positive way. Our body is just not able to process the milk because its structure and nutritious are unfamiliar, we already had all the milk we needed as babies and we don’t need it anymore and a lot of people even lack the enzymes to process milk. All that unprocessed hormones will stay in our body and will create the perfect environment for some hungry tumors, cancer, bad cholesterol and for gaining some weight. In addition, in the milk you can find a few billion pus cells. Yes, pus! Below this post you can find a few links with all the information that has been mentioned above especially about milk.
Once again, this is one way of seeing the world around and vegans strongly believe in their choice and in the reasons behind it. At the end of the day, our body is the only thing we own and is our home. We should take a good care of it to live longer and happier life. No matter how hard and stressful our days are, the first thing we should care about is our health. It is a priceless gift and without it nothing else really matters. Veganism is one way to be healthy and if you do it the right way – ie by eating a lot of fruits and vegetables and home prepared food and making sure that you take enough calories and nutrients - there is no reason why you should not experience some good-looking and good-feeling body full with energy and sparkling for a gorgeous life.
2. The Animals!
Vegans believe that every living being has the right to live and there is actually no animal which wants to die. Animals can feel pain, fear, love and only a person who have never had a pet can claim the opposite. As simple as it is, vegans do not want to support and be part of an industry that kills animals for the sake of producing meat, eggs of milk. People do not own the Earth and the creatures on it so it is arguable that it is the former who have the right to decide which animal can live or shall be killed. There is nothing strange and crazy about not wanting a living being to be killed and made to a burger and there is nothing wrong with you if you think like that. Animals are not products and we do not have the right to treat them like that. The whole mass production of meat, milk and eggs puts the animals in cruel conditions and these innocent beings live miserable lives - full of torture and suffering.
If you find that vegans are too passionate about not killing animals it is just because it is quite normal to feel sad when another living creature gets miserable or killed. Usually, we decide to close our eyes and pretend that the chicken in our plate has got an amazing life and suddenly decided to sacrifice a wing for our diner. Vegans know the truth and dare to challenge and to fight it. With all the food we have at our disposal conveniently located across the street in a supermarket, it is no more a necessity to hunt for our survival and there is no need for animals to die because of us. We can live a healthier and happier live without meat, milk and eggs - we just have to make the right decision!
3. The Environment
Raising animals for food causes air pollution and requires resources such as water and land. Here are some statistics:
Live-stock cows produce 9% of CO2 emissions, 40% of CH4 emissions and 65% of NO2 emissions.
Raising all cows for milk takes the amount of food required to feed the entire human population.
The amount of land that produces enough food for 20 vegans is enough to feed only one meat-eating person
More land is used for growing food for the animals in the milk, meat and eggs industries than for raising food for humans. To be more specific, 30 % of the land on the Earth is used for raising animals for food and that is about the size of Asia.
Nearly 60 % of the water we use is used for raising animals for food.
Change is never easy but when it is for a good it is worth the effort. It is easy to be capsulated in your own life with your own problems but the change should happen in each one of us. There is a bigger picture and meaning of life. We are blessed to live now in this particular moment when we have the right to choose to be better and to make the world a better place for us and our kids.
I prefer to be a peaceful and understanding vegan but with a strong point of view. Going vegan is a personal preference and there is no way to make someone take your steps if they don’t want and don’t fully understand you. The right way is to show the way you see the world around you, show the good examples of your own life and experience, stay behind your arguments and hope for the best.
Vegans are not crazy and being a vegan is not scary. What is scary is what the world would look like if we choose to keep our eyes closed...
All the information I have is a result of years of self-educating and my own research on the Vegan topic. It is in no way all the reasons, all the facts and a full list of information. This post is a reflection of my personal reasons and the facts that made me do the change for myself. If you are interested in the veganism and want to find more about go and check Freelee the Banana Girl and her YouTube channel ( https://www.youtube.com/user/Freelea ). Her videos are very informative and inspirational.
