Benefits of a plant-based diet
What have I told you? That we can change the world through our food choices. I challenge you to open your minds and your hearts to the power of plant based eating fact that animal agriculture, raising of animals for food has grown to be one of the most damaging industries on our earth, but to increase your awareness and important information which you don't know. Going greener with your diet most powerful and transformative decisions in your life, for three important reasons.
It has tremendous benefits for your health. It's critical to the sustainability of our planet, and it will widen your circle of compassion. Health. We've all listened, you are what you eat.
This is number one reason of death in our country. You guessed it. It's our diet. Our standard American diet, also known as Sadd, has put our country at the top of the list in the world for obesity, which increases the risk for serious health problems. The consumption of meat and meat products to different diseases.
Health costs related to meat consumption in our country have skyrocketed to a staggering $50 billion every single year, and the World Health Organization now places red and processed meat at the same danger as cigarettes.
Meat is the new tobacco, and this was last November's issue of time magazine.
Studies over the past few years are links to the public's growing awareness that how meat can be harmful to our health. So, we may ask, why are plant based vegetarian and vegan diets the healthier one? There are so many reasons. A wide range of nutrients. Beneficial fiber found only in plant foods. Antioxidants and hundreds of thousands of phytochemicals that protect the body and support good health.
Vegetarians have a longer life chances and less rates of heart diseases. High blood pressure, type two diabetes, cancer, obesity, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and the list goes on. But don't take my word. Support for vegetarian diets comes from numerous organizations, including the American Cancer Society, American College of Cardiology, the Mayo Clinic, Harvard School of Public Health, and the National Institutes, which says vegetarians may be missing out on grilled hamburgers at picnics, that plague many Americans. Just take a look at the difference in heart disease, the number one killer of Americans between those who eat meat and those who are vegetarian and vegan, and the progression of many diseases.
Not only can be halted, but reversed, sometimes in as little as just 2 to 3 weeks by switching to a plant based diet, reducing and eliminating the consumption of meat and meat products with a greener diet rich in fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and whole grains will lead to a healthier world. The earth. It's not only the health of our bodies that's at stake. It's the health of our planet.
This is what we're facing now at critical levels. Climate change and global warming.
Deforestation, depletion of our resources. Soil erosion. Species, habitat loss, ocean dead zones, water and air pollution and world hunger. These are not things we can put off dealing with. We must now urgently reverse imminent, catastrophic environmental damage.
Certainly, environmentalists and legislators are rightly focusing on reducing carbon emissions, and they're investing in alternative and renewable energy sources.
But all of this would take decades to implement, be enormously expensive in the tens of trillions of dollars. And there's the complexity of social, economic and political issues which must be dealt with at a global scale.
Because of this, you need to know there is one thing that is a major cause of all of these global problems, and that is animal agriculture. Here are just a few facts. Animal agriculture accounts for 51% of greenhouse gas emissions. It's also the number one cause of species and habitat loss due to deforestation for grazing and growing of feed crops in our country. It's the main cause of water pollution. It uses half of our water, 70% of our grain, and 80% of our agricultural land is used to feed the 10 billion land animals that are killed every year for food. By contrast, you can cut your carbon footprint in half by going vegetarian. The Stanford Environmental Law Journal states that our reliance on animal products is a leading cause of everything. This industry is destroying our planet. And the United Nations Environment Program strongly states that a substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change away from animal products. While policy leaders and even environmentalists are largely overlooking this issue, there is something you can do right now the single most powerful action you can take to help save our environment and resources is to shift to a plant based diet. Compassion. I'm going to tell you the story of an animal in a factory farm. Worldwide, every year, 56 billion land animals and 90 billion marine animals are killed for food. But I'm not going to show you any graphic images or videos. You can easily find these on the internet.
Instead, I want you to imagine and visualize in your mind what I have to say. This is the story of a Sao. My entire life, I'm kept in a mental gestation crate in half darkness on a grated concrete floor.
I can't even turn around. I suffer depression, frustration, and neurotic behaviors. My limbs are swoll, and I'm lying in my own way. After giving birth from being forcibly impregnated. My babies are taken away from me and I'm slaughtered at the age of only 3 to 5 years old. We pigs, like the other animals in factory farms, are supposed to be stunned into unconsciousness before being killed. But many of us are still alive as we are hoisted upside down, our throats slit. Just like you I have a sense of self. I'm more intelligent than other creatures . I'm a highly social creature, emotional, just like you.
I have memories and I can recognize myself in a mirror just like you. I love to play computer games just like you. I care for my young that's as strong as human mother, singing to my babies during nursing. I am not something I am someone I am not porque I am not bacon. So how many of you have pets?
There must be a lot of you that have pets. And how many of you love your pets as family members? I know I do. We all have an innate compassion for animals. I challenge you to realize and put at the front of your awareness that every animal in a factory farm, like the pig I just described is just as any of your pets. All animals have the will to live. The capacity to suffer and are equally capable of receiving our love. We may therefore ask ourselves the question, why love one but eat the other? Our choices regarding animals and diet are shaped by perception. The fact that we see different animals in different ways, and there are a number of reasons for this habit and culture for one. Initially, most of us didn't make the choice to eat meat. It was a given, right? We continued the habit, almost mindlessly accepting it as normal.
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I ate meat for half of my life, and when I was growing up, I never even gave it a thought. I never questioned it. It wasn't until I was well into my college years that I decided to become vegetarian.
Another reason has to do with a coping process that psychologists call psychic numbing, pertaining in this case, to loss of life on a massive scale. Even though at some level we are aware that animals are being slaughtered for food, we avoid the emotional pain of empathizing with them as individuals. It's really like a kind of denial where we disconnect ourselves from the experience.
This is what a slaughterhouse worker says. I don't think of farmed animals as individuals. We simply don't see the face on the plate. Look at these products from the grocery store shelf. How do these images of happy animals and pleasant surroundings distance us from the animals suffering? We also accept the eating of meat, because what goes on behind the scenes of meat production is largely invisible. It's difficult for the public to find the locations and addresses of factory farms, even though. Does anyone want to venture a guess how many factory farms there are in this country? There are 20,000 of them, 20,000? In our country, 317 animals are killed every single second. But for these factory farms, their only goals are efficiency and profit. The animals are seen only as units of production. So I ask, the next time you're in the dining hall, dare to be aware of the animal that was killed to become someone's meal. Going greener with your diet. It's not about giving anything up. It's not about becoming a different person. It is about embracing something that's already inside of you. Your innate sense of empathy, kindness, and compassion. And you won't be alone. The power of plant based eating is the far reaching and deep impact it can have upon the direction of the world. It's up to you and you can make a difference. Thank you.
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