TechnoHobbit said:
Ah, ok. In that case here are just a things I've learned in my years as a vegan.
I'll start off with some good things to know that I see people wanting to start eating vegan/vegetarian often forget/don't realize (not all things apply to everyone, still good to know, though).
- It isn't some miracle diet: As with all good things you will need to make an effort for it to work. Just because you are vegan/vegetarian doesn't automatically mean you will be healthy (there is a lot of awesome tasting vegan/vegetarian junk food out there and other foods that include junky ingredients), you will still need to practice healthy eating habits and exercise.
- It takes time: Even with practicing healthy eating and exercise change won't always be intimidate and you may occasionally move backwards. You'll need to stick with it in order to get the benefits.
- It's hard at first: It takes people a long while to get use to eating vegan/vegetarian. You'd be surprised how many things contain animal products, you need to do research in to vegan foods and brands. Thankfully it is easier than it once was as vegans/vegetarians are becoming more plentiful and the the demand for vegan products is going up and you'll also get more support. You'll also need to deal with people who have a vendetta against vegans/vegetarians and those who are misinformed about the facts and fear for you.
Now on to reason for going vegan or vegetarian (to a lesser extent for some of them) and this is just scratching the surface.
- Health: As long as you make the effort to pay attention to nutrition and practice healthy eating, a vegan/vegetarian diet can be extremely healthy and beneficial. Just to name a two basic advantages, vegans/vegetarian across the board have much lower cholesterol levels and blood pressure than meat eaters due to the nature of what they eat. And unlike many people still think to this day, getting protein, calcium, and iron (among others) is extremely easy with a vegan diet.
- Environment: A vegan diet is one of the biggest things you can do to protect the environment. It cuts down significantly on everything from greenhouse gas emissions to land and water usage. Cutting out fish also helps protect our vital oceans. The popular documentary Cowspiracy looks at this well and is a great watch for anyone interested in a vegan/vegetarian diet. Or if you don't have time, just look at their facts page.
- Sustainability: This ties in with above, thanks to the things like less land and water usage a vegan diet helps dramatically with sustainability. Moving towards a plant based society will really help with food and water shortages. Let me put it this way, instead of feeding billions of cows that will feed millions of people we can use that same food to feed billions of people. Cowspiracy also looks into this.
- Least amount of suffering and killing: Going with a vegan/vegetarian diet means less animals will be horribly abused and killed. You can look up what goes on in a factory farm, but be warned, it is horrific. Even outside of factory farms, while less horrible, the killing of animals is unfortunate and unneeded in this day and age in the developed world. Many of these creatures are just, if not more, intelligent as dogs and other pets we have.
Anyway, that's a quick overview. I've missed tons of things, but hopefully it is suitable.
That would be a great start. Even just making smaller adjustments to your diet by cutting things out bit by bit can significantly improve your health over time.
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