Why be Vegetarian

After Reading “the omnivore's dilemma” by Michael Pollan, the book opened my eye to such a big subject. We, as human beings, have a long history on this planet. We may not know how we started on this planet, but we know that we did all that we could to survive and live for another day. We had to kill other animals to eat and survive. However, after a very long time using the method of killing to live, we finally found another source of food that is good enough to keep us alive and healthy. That source is farming. We somehow learned how to plant seeds and get vegetables and fruits that can give us our need for protein and vitamins to live. With that said so, people should adopt a vegetarian diet because vegetarian food is better for the body, easier to have, and will save animals' life.

First, vegetarian food is better for the body. Comparing with meat, vegetables and fruits are better because they can give us our needs for protein and vitamins without fats or the risk of having cholesterol issues. For example, if we put meat vs beans, based on a paper published by Harvard Medical School, “a 5-ounce steak has 300 calories, while a cup of pinto beans has 265. But the steak comes with 44 grams of protein, 120 milligrams of cholesterol, and 12 grams of fat, much of it saturated. In contrast, the beans contain 15 grams of protein, no cholesterol, and only 1 gram of fat, which is polyunsaturated. The steak has no carbohydrates and no fiber; the beans have 26 grams of complex carbohydrates and 15 grams of dietary fiber.”

Also, it’s easier to have vegetables and fruits than having meat. We know that to supply meat we need an animal farm where we have to keep animals, feed them, and take care of them until they’re big enough to kill which makes the cost of selling this meat very high.

On the other hand, most of the fruit trees need to be planted once, and then all what if needs are water and been taking care of. The same tree could provide fruits for multiple years which makes the fruit inexpensive food to buy and therefore, it makes it more affordable especially for limited-income people. For instance, based on the Faunalytics4 website, plant-based agriculture generates around 1.5 trillion more pounds of “product” than animal agriculture in a smaller land and as they reported, “plant-based agriculture grows 512% more pounds of food than animal-based agriculture on 69% of the mass of land that animal-based agriculture uses.”

Last but not least, being vegetarian will save animals' life. To afford enough meat to meet the market requirements, animal farms need to kill so many animals that, if we were vegetarians, we could benefit from without harming it. For example, we can use cows to get milk, cheeps for its fur, chickens for eggs, and so many other examples.

To conclude, people need to be vegetarian to stay healthy, make it easier to afford food, and save the animals and benefit from it at the same time. It is not easy to change our way of eating and what we eat, but it is necessary so we can keep surviving in a better, healthier, and more ethical way.