October is National Vegetarian Awareness Month… YEAH!!!!! And as part of the celebration, I received an email listing 30 reasons to go vegetarian/vegan and I wanted to share with you the ones that resonated with me most… (I guess, one per day of the month… but they left Halloween out. Why???)
This list was compiled by The Huffington Post.
- Because if you want to get healthy, you should start with food! Replace cancer-causing, fat, pesticide and hormone-laced meats with cancer-preventing, anti-inflammatory, cholesterol lowering foods like apples, broccoli, blueberries, carrots, flax, garlic, leafy greens, nuts and sweet potatoes.
- Because vegetarians are about 40% less likely to develop cancer than meat eaters.
- Because our meat-centric diet is woefully lacking in health-giving fiber, contained only in plant-based foods. A minimum of 35 grams per day is recommended; the typical American consumes only 12.
- Because four out of five Americans with cardiovascular disease who switch to a healthy (low-fat, whole foods) vegetarian diet reverse their symptoms completely.
- The news gets better. Heart and blood-vessel diseases, diabetes, and of course obesity are preventable for 95% of us if we follow a healthy vegan diet, exercise, and manage stress.
- Because of pink slime. PERIOD.
- Because we are going to run out of food if we keep growing most of it to feed animals, who in turn feed far fewer people than if we grew the food to feed directly to people. (One can feed 16 to 20 vegetarians with the same amount of natural resources as a single meat eater.)
- Because along with hundreds of scientists and many major media, the head of the U.N.’s Nobel Prize-winning panel on climate change urged people to cut back on meat to combat climate change.
- Because in ways that truly matter, we are all the same. Think about it. Whether human or non-human animal, we all seek happiness and pleasure, we all try to avoid pain and suffering. We all have rich and complex emotional lives.
Even if you’re not ready to take the plunge completely into a vegetarian lifestyle, I hope KarmaFree Cooking helps you see that a vegetarian lifestyle is something doable, delicious, and easy-to-follow. Cutting meat once a week, a few days a week, the whole work-week or everyday… whatever little change you make for the better will be an improvement to your health, your lifestyle and the whole world around us.
Help me spread the word…
KarmaFree Cooking 
Awesome!! I love finding fellow Latina Vegetarians!!
Thank you for bringing awareness as to why we should go vegetarian. I’ve cut down on eating chicken, and I exercise regularly. 🙂
I truly believe God gave us canines (teeth) to use, however I also believe we don’t have to use them everyday. Red meat once a week is plenty, and salads are wonderful. Now if we could only get the prices on fresh fruits and veggies to a buyable level…
canines help to eat carrots and apples too… 😉
Lo he pensado, but I’m a meat lover :S Maybe I can try for a week?
Try it… it will benefit you in more ways than you can ever imagine. Madelyn.
I am not vegetarian or vegan but I do try to mix it up and make more fish during the week and eat more salads, I will admit it’s the weekends when I’m running errands and on the run that are my weakest in terms of seeking out fast food, great reminder!
For how long have you been vegetarian?
About 15+ yrs now… it came gradually to me. Madelyn.
40% less likely? That’s a huge number!
Not ready to commit to the full-on vegetarian lifestyle? That’s ok. There are many levels of vegetarianism. We hope you’ll join us fully eventually, but in the meantime there are many ways to cut back your meat intake and start seeing the benefits of vegetarianism for yourself. Try “Meatless Mondays” – one day per week where you are guaranteed to go entirely meat-free in all your meals. After that, try cutting back to having meat no more than two days per week. Even that big reduction in meat consumption can have a significant impact on your health, your waist line, your pocketbook and the environment. We hope that you start to see the many benefits of vegetarianism and decide to take the plunge full-time!