The arguments for leaving animals off our plates have never been stronger.
Plant-based eating has thoroughly infiltrated the mainstream and couldn’t be easier.
Still not vegetarian?
Here are six good reasons to ditch bacon in favour of ‘fakin’ bacon’ today.
1. It’s the best way to help animals
It’s a no brainer: the best way to show your respect for animals is not to eat them.
On today’s farms, animals are crammed into filthy wire cages.
These animals will never raise families, forage for food or do anything else that is natural and important to them.
Most won’t even get to feel the warmth of the sun on their backs or breathe fresh air until the day they are loaded onto trucks bound for slaughter.
2. It helps save the planet
Raising animals for food requires massive amounts of land, food, energy and water.
A United Nations report found that that eating meat is ‘one of the … most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global’.
Forget energy efficient light bulbs and hybrid cars – removing meat from our diets is the single best thing we can do to reduce our carbon footprint.
3. It helps prevent heart disease, the UK’s number one killer
Diets filled with animal fats are killing us, and the UK’s single biggest killer of men, heart disease, is linked to a meat-based diet.
Luckily, you can help prevent the majority of cardiovascular diseases – and other degenerative illnesses, for that matter – simply by adopting a plant-based diet.
4. It helps you fit into that little black dress
A vegetarian diet is the ultimate weight-loss diet, and vegetarians are one-third less likely to be obese than meat-eaters.
5. All the cool kids are doing it
The list of stars who shun animal flesh is basically a ‘who’s who’ of the hottest celebs.
Joaquin Phoenix, Natalie Portman, Skepta, Ariana Grande, Leona Lewis and Ellie Goulding are just a few stars who have made the decision not to make their bodies a graveyard for dead animals.
6. If you wouldn’t eat a dog, you shouldn’t eat a hog
If we’re horrified at the thought of stuffing Fido and Fluffy and roasting them, we should feel equally disgusted at the sight of a hog roast.
After all, pigs are just as loving, intelligent and capable of feeling pain and suffering as our canine companions.
Paul McCartney summed it up perfectly: ‘vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty.’
