21 Reasons Why You Should Go Vegan

A friend of mine is a Vegan and is incredibly evangelist about it and uses some of the same arguments the OP did. My family comes from a ranching background, and raising cattle on land, that otherwise would be useless, supported our family for over a century. This Vegan friend knows this and thinks that by telling me about factory farming and animal torture over and over and over somehow I will be converted.

The biggest benefit to eating meat is there are foods animals can consume that we humans simply cannot. The biggest being grass. Unfortunately the US is made up of 1/3 steppe/grasslands which we can't grow much on but can raise animals. Also half this world doesn't have long enough growing seasons needed for certain crops. Look at the Mongolian Nomad culture, they raise primarily animals for a food source because well it's hard to farm on a cold steppe climate. Also Europeans evolved to drink milk for a reason, an extra food source.

Yeah slaughtering and factory farming is cruel and I don't like it one bit, but crop farming is equally bad for animals with all the GMOs, Pesticides, Herbicides, Deforestation, and Over Fertilization. All farming is harmful to animals because you are replacing a natural habitat with one strictly controlled one to produce as much food as possible.

Nature is really just kind of cruel, I wish everyone could have a taste of rural living because you really understand nature when living out there. Animals need to eat to survive and some animals eat other animals.

I applaud the OP for making the choice that is beneficial to them but it is not for me.

Meh.. humans are predators .. predators eat meat ..
think will have some nice kobe beef for dinner tomorrow ..

I went vegan a few weeks ago. Am i doing it for the animals? Nope, screw them, I love meat. It's so...dang tasty.

I'm doing it for the health benefits. I'm 32, overweight, my blood pressure is steady hypertensive 1, and i think I might have early signs of the beetus. I don't want to live like this. The meat and junk are not worth my life.

My wife went vegan a year ago and has since lost close to 50lbs and in the best shape of her life. I do most of the grocery shopping and cooking so because of her I buy and eat a lot of vegan meals. It was very difficult in the beginning, but I'm used to it now so it's not much of a shock. My problem was binge eating crap when I had the chance and its literally killing me slowly. A year ago I was telling my wife she was crazy and was throwing all the typical arguments at her as why we as humans are supposed to eat meat and bla bla bla. Well a year later and watching her health go from about a 3 to good strong 10+ and me struggling to button my once great fitting jeans I realized that I was the crazy one and had to formally apologize to her for all the BS i threw her way.

I have dieted in the past with minimal results. The best thing about being vegan is its black and white on what you can and cant eat. Most of what you can't eat is bad for you, what you can eat it good for you. When you diet you tend to give in more than you should. Reasoning with yourself on cheating and eating bad. "Well I've been good this week so a lil piece of cake wont hurt." Yes, yes it will. Before you know it your in the corner smearing cake all over your body like a mental person. I have not don't that by the way yet it has crossed my mind. Don't judge me lol.

One of the things that crack me up with non-vegans is usually the first thing they ask is "Well how do you get protein?" Uuhhmmm...pretty much everything else I eat that's not meat. A lot of vegetables are higher in protein than meat. You just have to expand your list of vegetables beyond potatoes. Nuts and grains are great sources of protein as well.

I can't say say I agree with most of your reasons OP, but you can't deny the health benefits if you eat vegan and do it properly.

originally posted by: dreamingawake
Hemp protein is fantastic, implore even non vegetarian/Vegans to check it out and of course those non meat eaters to see it as a better alternative to falling into the soy and pasta trap.

I have yet to try the hemp protein and It's something I do want to try. I live in a rural hick town in Ohio and going vegan is difficult due to not having a lot of the harder to find products in the grocery stores. The nearest hippy stores like Whole Foods and what not are a few hours drive away from me.

I definitely agree with the soy and pasta trap. You have to branch out and keep them to a moderation. Pasta will cause weight gain faster than you can eat it. Also you have to get away from the faux meat products. You need to pull away from most of the heavily processed foods. Process things yourself from raw ingredients, they taste better with out all the chemical BS.

a reply to: SgtHamsandwich

I was vegan once, for about a year, about 20 years ago. It was really hard for me, because I love cheese, and there were no good cheese substitutes back then. Also, I worried about not getting good quality iron, or B12. I have been a pescatarian for the last 15 years or so - I eat seafood, but no beef, poultry or pork. The cheese substitutes are getting better these days, so I'm thinking of giving up dairy again.

The weird thing is, I have seen people go from unhealthy to healthy on those super low carb diets as well. I seen testimonies from people who eat high fat, moderate protein, very low carb. They go into ketosis, so their bodies start burning fat instead of burning carbs. They are usually super lean, with great health stats (low blood pressure, no heart disease, no diabetes, etc.).

I guess there really is more than one way to skin a cat. The thing I noticed while being a vegan was that I was hungry all the time - was always wanting to graze. I hear the people on high fat diets don't get as hungry. My body doesn't seem to like lots of fat, though. It seems to upset my digestive system when I eat a lot of fat in a day. So, other than cutting out dairy, I think I will stick with eating seafood, lots of vegetables, moderate amounts of fruit, and very little starchy carbs. Seems to work for me.

Technically I am a vegetarian and not a vegan however I will tell you one more benefit of being vegan that I have noticed. I live near the Gulf Coast which can be pretty hot, humid and miserable in the summer. I've noticed that if I don't eat dairy products in the summer the heat doesn't seem to bother me nearly as much.

Sal

a reply to: sekerofknowlege

a reply to: kaylaluv

Everybody is different. If it works for you then that's awesome. That's the problem most people have is they don't find what works for them. I for one have low will power with sweets due to a sweet tooth the size of a house. I always failed miserably with past diets due to this. I have found it SOOO much easier to turn down such things as doughnuts, cake, and such simply because most of that stuff has non vegan ingredients. There is no self reasoning and personal battle with myself. There is a clear cut, valid reason on why I can't have it and I am okay with that. So far its working for me.

I've seen lots of folks be very successful on the low carb diets. I have also seen lots of folks fail on it. One actuality was hospitalized for a week. It's a great diet with good and bad science behind it IF you do it properly.

There is nothing wrong with grazing. It's good to eat multiple times a day like that as long as you eat health foods and proper portions. It actually will promote a faster metabolism. The down side is learning to live with that constant feeling of being hungry, hence my mood on my avatar...lol

a reply to: theyknowwhoyouare

I agree, the prideful "I'm a Vegan" point may seem a little "smuggish" but i don't mean it how you think i do. Look at it like this, if you ran a marathon, you would be pretty prideful about it right? I mean, It's a feat that less than 1% of the human population can complete. It also takes countless hours of training, and a mental discipline that's second to none. Being vegan is similar, it really does take a marathon running type discipline to deal with the amount of criticism you receive on a regular basis from people like, well, you (no offence )! So if you can overcome all the temptation to just give in and eat "normal", the social criticism your guaranteed to receive , and resist the urges to eat your old, favorite foods and still be a vegan, it's something to be proud of. Not many people can do this.

a reply to: ladyinwaiting

No pressure Lady - and I try very hard not to proselytize. If I'm asked I'll launch into the topic, but mostly I try to mind my own business

I just wanted to say that for a while I was surrounded by vegetarians - both family and friends. I toyed with the idea for a long time...

What it took was one story and that was it - that was my tipping point. It was incredibly easy once I made the decision. Afterwards I wondered why I waited so long. If you do it it will be when it makes sense to you

If you like to cook (which I do) you'll realize that you can still make amazing food without meat - and many of your favorite recipes can be rearranged to substitute other things for meat

Most of these reasons aren't really related specifically to being a vegan, in other words the improvements you speak of happen with any healthy diet, not just veganism. A few stuck out that really don't make much sense however:

#10 eating a vegan diet has nothing to do with GMO foods. Most of the veggies and grain you find all over the country are GMO as well so you aren't going to avoid that stuff by avoiding meat. If you want to avoid GMO you are going to have to buy specialty products, which you can also do with meat.

#11 Avoiding sugar and carbs require far more discipline than avoiding meat for most people. While people crave meat, I don't think too many people eat like 4-5 steaks in one sitting, plenty of people eat portion after portion of mac n cheese, slice after slice of pizza, or other carb loaded foods because once you start it's hard to stop, and carbohydrates don't tell your brain to be full like meat does.

#12 How is this related to being vegan?

#14 Complete hogwash. Care to list what toxins and poisons fruit will rid your body of?

#15 Don't really need to say anything about this one, do I?

#16 Totally misleading. Cattle can be raised where crops cannot be grown. Cleaning forest for crop land is far more common than clearing forest for cattle grazing. Cattle can eat grass, something that humans don't generally eat. Farmers are paid to NOT plant corn because of SO much of it being produced. People starve because of money and politics, not because cows are eating all their food. Not to mention other meat like Chicken and Pig that, once again, don't need any human food and can be raised in places where you can't grow crops.

#17 More meaningless stuff

#19 More meaningless stuff. Do you suppose the Lion's meal was happy about his sacrifice? Are you suggesting ALL the predatory animals on earth are suffering some sort of psychological damage due to them scaring the animals they eat? Prey animals live in a constant state of fear regardless of human intervention. Nature is rough and unforgiving without human intervention. This holds no water.

#21 This is goofy as hell anyway, but I'll bite. They don't want you eating meat. They want you eating grain. Grain is cheap, grain makes you emotionally unstable and easier to control. Meat has always been what the elite of society eat, the peasants are the ones forced to eat grain to survive. They aren't going to want you eating what they want to save for themselves. Companies selling food feature meat because people want meat. Society in general is against meat, all the "official" suggestions for diet say to limit your meat consumption and replace it with grain. Aside from not even making sense "they" aren't pushing meat on you, they are pushing a low-meat diet on you. Hmmm, wonder why.

If you want to be a vegan, that's great, have at it. But the obvious intention of the thread is to suggest other people join you, and the reasons given are either bunk or unrelated to veganism. You could try to deflect and say "I'm not telling people what to do" if it wasn't for the fact your thread was titled "Why YOU should..." You must know you aren't going to convince anyone to become a vegan with this thread, so there doesn't seem much other purpose beside "Look at me I'm better than you and this is why"

And you wonder why people don't like Vegans.

I always feel a very big fatigue when I am not eating any meat/fish.
I think completely vegan should not be a lifetime choice. Also I think buying real meat/fish aka grass-fed is #loads better than the industrial crap. The price is significantly higher in Germany but worth it.

I am fed up with people that don't really care about eating actual "food"! A lot of people are waking up now though.