Hi everyone! Good to see you are back at my blog!
This is the third post already! In my previous posts I told you about what I am planning on doing with this blog as well as how to get nutrients when on a vegan diet. I never told you why I want to do his challenge and possibly become vegan all together after the challenge. That’s what this post will be about. I have 3 main reasons why I want to try out the vegan diet, those 3 being, the environment, the well being of the animals and my own health. I will go over each reason and tell you why its better to go without animal-based products. This article is not written to convince you to be vegan, these are just my personal reasons!
The environment: I always try to pay attention to the environment, from bringing my own bag to the grocery store to walking when I can, and taking short showers to save water. Turns out you only save so much water by having a shorter shower. Not eating one pound of meat even saves more water than not showering for six months! Can you believe that? Even just a gallon of milk will use over 1000 gallons of water. So by not eating meat or using dairy products and eggs you can reduce your water footprint far more than by taking short showers. Also, the carbon dioxide produced by animal agriculture is more than that from all forms of transportation combined! Another problem is that the trees who make oxygen from the carbon dioxide are being cut to make space for animal agriculture. Which only produces more CO2! It’s a downward spiral and there has to be done something about it, I’ll start by reducing my own footprint. There are a lot more ways not using animal-based products will benefit the planet, make sure to check out the documentary Cowspiracy if you want to know more!
The well being of animals: Most people don’t know the cruelty animals have to live in to make sure you are able to have glass of milk with breakfast. I won’t go in on this too deep, if you want more in depth information make sure to check out ‘101 reasons to go vegan’. I’ll keep this bit to milk cows, as if I’ll describe all animals and the way they are hurting from animal agriculture you’ll be here for quite some time. As you might probably know, cows only produce milk when they’re pregnant. So the first step taken in to artificially inseminate a cow to make her pregnant. While pregnant the cow will give milk, and when her calf gets born it gets taken away immediately after birth. Now take this from me if I say its horrible to see how a cow reacts to her calf being taken from her. Imagine being a parent yourself and have your baby taken away, its terrible. Also, most cows get slaughtered after 2-3 years because they aren’t as productive as the younger cows. Being vegan you can save around 200 animals a year, doesn’t that sound amazing? And while not drinking milk, why not enjoy some creamy almond milk? I love the small bottles from AH to go, they are €3 a bottle.
My own health: A lot of studies show that being vegan has a lot of health benefits. A plant-based diet will lower the risk in hart attack to almost zero. This is one of the most important things to know for me as heart disease is not uncommon in my family. Another benefit is that your chances of getting obese and cancer will also lower. Its proven that when on an animal-based diet you have a bigger change of growing cancer cells when on a plant-based diet your cancer cells actually reduce. Besides that having a lower cholesterol, a clearer skin and sleeping better, being more aware of what you eat, you’ll also live a longer life. And who doesn’t want to live a long and healthy life?
So that’s it about my reasons on doing the vegan challenge and possibly staying vegan. What are your thoughts about it? Are you going to watch any of the documentaries I mentioned?
On another note, in my first post I told you I would be posting every single day doing the vegan challenge. Unfortunately my schedule for may will be extremely full with work, school and exams. Therefor I will keep up with my schedule to post once a week. I will however keep you updated on Instagram, so make sure to follow me on there if you want a more detailed look at my experience during the vegan challenge!
Vegan & Vinegar 