The Purpose of Vegetarianism :: Healthy Lifestyle Essay

Being a strict vegetarian means making the choice to exhaust absolutely no amount of money, poultry, or fish. The health risks of being a vegetarian was a major concern, but it has been proven that non-meat foods can provide all the nutrients requirement for a healthy, complete diet. Jeanne Peters, R.D., the former nutrition specialist to Pritikin Systems, argues that Ascience has proved that a typeset-based diet is the healthiest (Finn 1). Many scientific studies have also proven that meat dramatically raises blood pressure and increases health risks such as union attacks and cancers. Also, growing concerns over environmental protection, personal health, and moral and ethical beliefs practically lead to vegetarianism. According to national polls, in the U.S. alone Athere atomic number 18 12.5 billion vegetariansB 7 percent of the population (Finn 1). Concerns are rising about the affinity between meat toil and our environment. Beef production is a actually inefficient w ay to produce protein. The amount of grain which is needed to Aprovide tetrad people with one serving of hamburgers could feed one person for over a week (R.F.B.V. 1). In Alberta Amore than 50% of the grain grown is cater to livestock (R.F.B.V. 3). This 50% of grain could definitely be put to practically better uses in a world where people starve to finish every sidereal daylight. In fact, Aproduction of the least energy-efficient plant foods are nearly cristal times more efficient as the production of the most energy-efficient carnal foods (Finn 2). For example, one acre of land planted with legumes yields ten times more functional protein than if that same acre was used for meat production. Furthermore, the production of meat wastes massive amounts of irrigate AIt takes an average of 10 tons of waterBthe amount a small town uses for all purposes in a month. An average chicken processing plant uses 100 million gallons of water in just one day enough to provide a communit y of 25,000 people for one day (R.F.B.V. 3). Not only is meat production wasting valuable production means, but it is also polluting our air. Cattle are a main denotation of methane gas, which is rapidly destroying our ozone layer. Vegetarians often replace meat and dairy foods with soy products. These foods are highly nutritional and contain disease-fighting properties. The National Cancer Institute has Aidentified particular(prenominal) substances in soy products called phytochemical that have anticancer properties (Finn 7). In 1994, the British aesculapian Journal announced that researchers have examined 12-year mortality rates of non-meat eaters and meat-eating suppress groups and found that cancer deaths were 40 percent less common among vegetarians then meat eaters.