Have a meat free Monday

Today is Independence from Meat Day and the perfect opportunity to go meat free. Whether you’re only quitting meat for one day or making a permanent lifestyle choice, try out the vegetarian lifestyle and see how it goes.

In case you’re having trouble finding a reason to go vegetarian for a day. Here are a few:

1. You’ll help animals and also the worlds’ hungry.

If everyone went vegetarian and meat plants shut down, not only would we be able to feed the hungry with the grains we currently feed slaughterhouse animals but we’d be able to plant crops in the space meat farms once took up. This would produce much more food for the world’s population, possibly even ending world hunger.

2. Eating meat supports cruelty to animals

Old MacDonald’s happy farm is now a distant memory. Most meat comes from factory farms where animals are mass produced and stuffed into filthy windowless sheds and cages. These animals don’t get to have families, run around, build nests, feel the sun on their backs or any of the other things animals are meant to do. Many won’t even breathe fresh air until they’re loaded onto trucks headed for the slaughterhouse where they’ll likely experience painful, inhumane deaths.

3. Eating meat destroys the environment

Meat farms account for 40 per cent more greenhouse gasses than all the world’s vehicles combined. A recent United Nations report said that the meat industry is a major problem when it comes to issues of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortages and water pollution as well as a loss of biodiversity.

4. Being vegetarian has many health benefits

A vegetarian diet lowers the risk of heart disease, cancer, obesity and many other health ailments. It’s also a myth that vegetarians can’t get enough protein as there are many plant based sources of protein.

5. World Peace

Great humanitarians like Leo Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi advocated vegetarianism as the only way to make the world a kinder place. By eating a more peaceful diet, many argue that people will be encouraged to be more peaceful themselves.

Sir Paul McCartney summed it up beautifully when he said: “If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat. That’s the single most important thing you could do. It’s staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty.”

Will you try being vegetarian today?

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