1. Lower your risk for heart disease and type 2 diabetes

Both of these conditions are amongst the most common chronic diseases in the Western world. And they are totally man-made! Nobody in this day and age (at least nobody with the privilege of having internet access) would need to suffer from either of them. What's the scariest part: The buildup of plaque in our arteries often times starts incredibly early in life (around age 10).

Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn has been able to reverse even very bad cases of cardiovascular disease by feeding his patients a low-fat vegan diet and saved countless lives. It's widely acknowledged, even by major health organizations, that animal products rich in saturated fat and cholesterol are a major contributor to both heart disease and diabetes. The same diet that improves our arteries can also improve and even reverse type 2 diabetes.

vegan health
2. Treat or reverse other current health conditions

Our health is our most valuable asset in life. Any chance to decrease our risk for disease and instead support our body’s healing mechanisms should be taken seriously. So many aspects of our health lie in our own hands! More and more mayor health organizations are now stating that it’s healthy to eat a well-planned vegan diet during all stages of life – and that it’s even favorable to do so because vegans have lower rates of cancer, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, strokes, and even Alzheimer's.

A plant-based diet is often times even more effective than medication and surgery when it comes to these diseases! The WHO stated that processed meat is a carcinogen and that red meat probably is as well and then there’s The China Study showing the connection between casein (milk protein) and cancer. All seems to point in one direction.

3. Get and stay slim effortlessly

Vegans are the only group of people who average a normal and healthy BMI – the more animal products people eat, the higher their BMI. There are a couple of reasons for this! First, the fact that animal products do not contain any carbs and are, instead, higher in fat. Dietary fat has more calories and is a lot easier converted into body fat than calories from carbohydrates.

Also, the overall calorie density of animal products leads to people overeating on them while we can load up our plates with potatoes and veggies and stay lean. There are also growth stimulating hormones naturally found in animal products which don’t help at all. So if you want to skip the starvation and counting calories, go for plants instead!

4. Showing kindness and compassion to sentient beings

Even though for some people, the ethical argument for veganism isn’t as strong – it can never hurt to be kind. Sparing someone’s life is always the right thing to do, especially if that someone is completely innocent. Unfortunately, there’s been a huge greenwashing campaign going on, initiated by the meat and dairy industry, in order to play with our conscience. Happy animals are shown on cartons and packages while the reality is a lot more sinister. There’s really nothing humane about animal farming or taking someone else’s life.

This doesn’t just go for meat products, though, because the dairy and egg industries are in the same niche working together in the animal agriculture. Dairy cows are forcefully impregnated, their calves taken away and killed shortly after, their milk stolen and, after a few years, they end up as hamburger meat. You have probably heard about little chicks being shredded or gassed alive, if not just thrown away on top of each other in a huge garbage bin as if they were inanimate objects.

vegan for animals
5. Resources and world hunger

We’re not just thinking about the farm animals, of course. Humans all over the world have to suffer because of the huge demand for animal products. How? As of today, we would have enough food to feed 10 billion people, while only 7 billion are in this world. But as it turns out, 50% of grains worldwide are being eaten by animals in the industries… while 82% of children living next to livestock are starving. The meat that's produced in these areas is then being shipped to the 1st world in order for us to eat.

Around 70% of the grain grown in the US alone is fed to livestock - that’s enough grain to feed 800 million people. At the same time, incredible amounts of water are being used to produce animal products. Being vegan could save up to 724,925 gallons of water per person each year. Think how powerful this change could be for everyone!

6. Animal products are dirty

Every time you sit down to a meal containing meat, eggs, or dairy products, you’re dining on known bacteria, antibiotics, hormones, dioxins, and a host of other toxins that can cause serious health problems in humans. An extremely high percentage of all the flesh butchered every year in the U.S. is contaminated with E. coli, campylobacter, listeria, or other dangerous bacteria that live in the intestinal tracts, flesh, and feces of animals.

They can cause food poisoning – there are 75 million cases each year, 5,000 of which are fatal. The USDA reports that 70% is caused by contaminated animal flesh. The abuse of pharmaceuticals in factory farms encouraged the evolution of new strains of antibiotic-resistant super-bacteria. But that’s not the only danger associated with dosing animals raised for their flesh with antibiotics. Roxarsone, an antibiotic commonly used on factory farms, contains significant amounts of the most carcinogenic form of arsenic.

The hormones naturally found in animal products can cause cancer development, gynecomastia (enlarged male breasts), and obesity. Even the label “organic” doesn’t do much here.

7. We have no need for animal products

The killing of farmed animals is unnecessary, and therefore a cruel act. We simply do it for pleasure and out of tradition. There is no proof, what so ever, that human beings must eat meat, dairy or eggs, in order to be healthy and thriving. Quite the opposite is the case. It’s a learned behavior, we are taught which animals are okay to eat – nothing that you would need to show a true meat eater like a lion or a bear. These animals aren’t as picky and show very different behavior and instincts than we as humans.

Let’s not forget that we are not baby cows either who require the milk of their mothers and there’s no need to consume any other secretion besides our own mother’s milk past the first years of age. Needless to say, animals don’t want to die, they love and appreciate life. Unfortunately, we just view them as “farm animals”, a faceless crowd without thinking of individuals with unique personalities and emotions – just like cats and dogs. Once we understand this connection and take appropriate steps, we can finally align our actions with our morals.

vegan for environment
8. Save the environment and stop climate change

Around 18-51 percent (depending on the calculation and source) of man-made pollution comes from the meat industry, putting factory farming ahead of transportation in contributing to the greenhouse effect. What's more, it takes about 40 calories of fossil-fuel energy to create every one calorie of feed-lot beef in the U.S. (compared to 2.2 calories of energy needed to create plant proteins).

1 pound of hamburger meat equals 75 kg CO2 emission which is about the same as using your car for 3 weeks (at an average CO2 emission of 3 kg per day). And the wild animals have to suffer the consequences as well – the current mass extinction of species is impacting 86% of all mammals, 88% of amphibians, and 86% of all birds. Many of them are facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the near future. It is very possible that we could see fishless oceans by the year 2048.

9. Try amazing new dishes

Have you ever had a Buddha bowl? Ho