1. A whole food vegan diet—one consisting primarily of unprocessed plant foods—is arguably the healthiest way to eat. Eating a plant-based diet helps protect you from cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity thanks to antioxidants, anti-inflammatory properties and dietary fiber in plant foods.
2. Less exposure to harmful toxins. Most animals raised for human consumption are pumped full of hormones and antibiotics that are potentially harmful when consumed. Additionally, many animals are exposed through their feed and environment to toxins that concentrate in the fat cells. These dangerous toxins are known as dioxins, and end up in the human body through consumption of animal flesh. Dioxins are known to promote cancer growth in the body.
3. Plants are easier to digest than animal foods, and full of fiber. This makes them less taxing on the digestive system, and promotes a healthy intestinal tract and elimination of toxins.
4. According to the FAO (Food & Agricultural Organization of the UN), "livestock production is one of the major causes of the world's most pressing environmental problems, including global warming, land degradation, air and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity." A vegan diet is the best diet for our ailing planet. Less energy and fewer resources are needed to produce fruits and vegetables. Less pollution is generated in the cultivation of plants.
5. A vegan diet is the most compassionate way to live. Vegans do not support violence towards any species. Nor do vegans support the heinous and inhumane conditions in which factory farmed animals are raised. Fewer factory farms means LESS SUFFERING! As a vegan you take a stand for the more than 65 billion land animals that are annually slaughtered for food worldwide.
6. As a vegan, compassion extends to all living creatures, humans included. Consider that a third of all arable land on the planet is used for livestock (either to produce feed for livestock or for grazing). I am of the opinion that much of that land could be producing nutritious plant-based food for the more than 925 million people who are living in hunger. sources: - FAO article "Livestock impacts on the environment" http://www.fao.org/ag/magazine/0612sp1.htm - World Hunger Education "2012 World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics" http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm#Does_the_world_produce_enough_food_to_feed_everyone - One Green Planet "Animals Killed for Food in the U.S. Increases in 2010" http://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/animals-killed-for-food-in-the-u-s-increases-in-2010/ - Weston A. Price Foundation " Dioxins in Animal Foods: A Case for Vegetarianism?" http://www.westonaprice.org/environmental-toxins/dioxins-in-animal-foods