When I made the change, I found that there are three major points that tip people to go vegan. They are: sustainability, health, and morality. And really the former two points boil down to the third if you think of it.

Eating animal products is terrible for the habitat which we call Planet Earth. Cows are one of the leading contributors of methane to the atmosphere, a gas that is 30-90 times more potent as a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. The IPCC is just now, as in the past few years, turning the corner on getting a handle on how to model CH4 as well as its contributing factors to global warming. Then you have to consider the other aspects of animal agriculture like resource demand and waste. Animal agriculture uses a disproportionate amount of water, not only for keeping the animals alive but also for growing the crops to feed the animals. Many times vegans actually raise the point that all the water we use to grow the soy and alfalfa for cows could be diverted to growing crops directly for human consumption. It’s much less water intensive to do so, and we know that some areas of the world are already experiencing climate change in the form of less snow pact accumulating on mountains, countributing to less snow melt and less river water from which we draw for animal agriculture and lots of other uses. If we want to truly grapple with our changing climate, we really ought to change our behaviors about how we use Earth’s natural resources. Ok, what about waste. I’ll talk about this in two ways. First, since more plant agriculture is dedicated to animal consumption and raising than for human consumption, there is a disproportionate amount of fertilizers and pesticides used on that portion of crops. And for farmers, one of the cheapest and most convenient ways to fertilize/innoculate their crops is to be super inefficient in using way more chemicals than what they need to to get the job done. These chemicals don’t holdfast in the soils (since our agricultural practices are also diminishing that too), so they wash off into canals, rivers, and eventually the ocean and aggregate just enough to accelerate local algal growths and deplete oxygen in the sea. This leads to dead zones where aquatic wildlife can’t breath and end up dying. Ok, that’s one aspect of waste. The other essentially follows the same casual relation, where manure if not captured by farmers drains off into waterways, carrying the same chemicals as were applied to the crops initially. Then you have other instances where farmers will manage animal waste and pump it into open pits where innate bacteria will try to reduce the toxicity of that substance over time. The other effect of these open pits is the stench they can originate and send for miles on end. Humans who live in areas nearby these farms have incredible distaste as they feel their quality of life, their clean air is polluted. Then we have to talk about animal agriculture and land use in general. Animal agriculture represents the largest biome on the entire planet. We as humans have domesticated the planet such that wild habitats are the minority today. There is less of the wild today than there has ever been in the history of the human species. These shrinking wild lands means that wild animals have less land to roam and exist in, leading to overcrowding, higher rates of disease contraction, higher rates of competition, and in general extinction. Many scientists attribute parts of the current extinction we’re experiencing, the Sixth Great Extinction, to the habitat lost to animal agriculture. A lot of essential, environmental services that ecosystems provide to help make this planet livable for humans are deteriorating, and who knows if and when we’ll reach tipping points that we can’t return from. Land use can also affect global weather patterns. The Amazon rainforest is one of the largest, single biomes on the planet, and much of it has been deforested to make way for animal agriculture. That rainforest contributes to global geography and meteorology as a sink for tropical storms from the Sahara desert. If the Amazon fundamentally becomes a different biome, then its function may destabilize weather patterns that might make weather worse for other areas in the same region. I haven’t even scratched the surface of environmental effects here.

Ok, then we turn to health. Consuming some animal products contributes to a greater chance of developing cancer, as the WHO classifies red meat for instance as a carcinogen. Another prominent disease that can develop on an animal/carnist diet is cardiovascular disease. People have heart attacks younger and younger as a result of this, which might be a contributing factor to countries like the US experiencing lifetimes decreasing as opposed to lifetimes increasing in other countries around the world. Let’s talk about the contamination issue. Animal products like milk, cheese, and meat all tend to be recalled more than plant products because of the associated risk of disease within the products themselves. And when plant products are recalled, it’s likely because there was cross contamination from animal products somewhere along the supply chain. Animal products also introduce more cholesterol to the human body than plant products. Cholesterol is one of the leading factors that contribute to cardiovascular disease, like I mentioned before, but in this sense animal products promote Low Density Lipoprotein (LDLs) production as opposed to High Density Lipoproteins (HDLs) in the blood. When you have more of the former and less of the latter, less cholesterol is swept up from the blood stream and taken to cells, meaning more free cholesterol floats in your veins. This free cholesterol is what contributes to plaques and blockages. There are more heavy metals concentrated in animal products too. It is often thought of by biologists that the more you ascend the food chain/web, the more heavy metals like mercury and lead build up. The is especially true with fish. So, if you eat animal products, there is a greater chance you introduce these poisons to your body that your body has to work harder to filter out and remove. People often say that vegans don’t get enough nutrients on their diet compared to omnivores/carnists. B12 is really the only nutrient that’s an issue there, with all other vitamins being supplied in abundance on a whole foods diet. Many omnivores/carnists are actually deficient in vitamins and minerals themselves, like in magnesium, zinc, and K2. A lack of magnesium, for instance, can lead to detrimental impacts on the brain over time (just as B12, mind you). Those are readily available from plant foods, but not so in animal foods. A lot of people suffer from allergies that develop from consuming animal products, and plant foods offer that escape to have good food without the downsides.

Lastly, we have morality. Animal agriculture existing is a form of genocide and oppression on a specific group for no other reason than to extract their resources for human pleasure/gain. This is no different than how humans treat other humans, especially so in the 3rd world. If anyone in this comments section believes in the emancipation of the Palestinian people, for instance, or of the countless others forced as slaves in the fishing industry (an added bonus against animal agriculture), sex work industry, agriculture, textiles, mining, etc., then your argument must also apply to animals. Humans are biologically capable of surviving and thriving on whole food plant based diets, and our choice to continue our damnation of animals is immoral and unethical. The leading practice for meat processors to turn live, emotion, morally worthy beings like cows, pigs, and sheep into commodity products is by first using gas chambers on them to asphyxiate and kill. The last time humans used gas chambers on other humans was during WWII when the Nazis mass slaughtered people of a common creed: the Jewish people. Nazis were and still are considered the absolute worst moral offenders in the entire history of the human species. The fact that we’ve continued their practices, this time only applying them to a group that has no voice to speak out against or warn others about is cruel, unusual, reprehensible, and condemnable. If you support animal agriculture today, you support Nazism. If you don’t, think about changing the foods you buy at the supermarket and order at the restaurant. And yes, animals have no voice. We slaughter them for consumption without their consent. We have them as pets without their consent. We take them away from their natural habitats, and use them as emotional support devices without considering what impacts doing so has on THEIR wellbeing. Humans breed animals like this so others might adopt them as pets later for profit, without considering how that impacts the animals themselves. Mothers and children are separated, often at birth, and fanned off to pet owners before those crucial, biological, sociological, psychological bonds develop between offspring and parent. This happens too when calves and piglets and chicks are separated from their mothers, causing distress for both individuals that can emotionally scar them for life. Again, if you were against what Donald Trump during his presidency did to Hispanic families trying to cross the southern border of the US, with border agents ripping children away from their mothers and fathers with no prospects of the two ever returning, then you MUST be against the same actions that happen to animals. Again, animals can’t communicate as effectively to us what they’re feeling or going through, so it’s even worse for them, and we have an even greater obligation to stop and do something about it. Animal agriculture also involves rape. Farmers often have to artificially impregnate cows such that they’ll produce calves, and the more coveted item, milk. I could go on and on and on but I’m out of text.