The online citizen has an article by George Jacobs, the president of vegetarian society Singapore.
Three key reasons given for topping up the plant component of our diet are as follows:
1) Health
2) Environment
3) Animals
Check out the article here
Tian Yuan Vegetarian
3 years ago
1 comment:
The health argument should be the last of the big three, because:
(1) It's a selfish reason
(2) It's likely possible to consume small amounts of animal flesh and still be very healthy.
(3) It's possible to eat a fully plant-based diet and end up with deficiencies. Junk food vegan, anyone?
(4) The health benefits of vegetarian diets are not as clear cut as many vegetarian proponents would like it. In the scientific literature there are many studies that do not show any advantages of being vegetarian/vegan, and some even show that vegans/vegetarians are worse off. There are many explanations behind this, junk-food vegans being one of them, but regardless there will always be studies showing benefits of not going vegetarian/vegan. Consequently, as soon as we use the health argument, the opponents will combat using articles showing the opposite result. This is the kind of discussion that (a) will never end, and (b) will have no winner, as such, there is little point entering this debate. All we need to show, and this evidence exist already, is that vegan diets are at least as healthy as the average omnivore diet.
The environmental argument is better than the health argument, but similarly, it may be possible to exploit non-human animals, and still be "in harmony" with nature (excluding the poor exploited beings, of course).
No, the vegetarian movement must turn all discussions towards compassion/justice as soon as possible. We must promote veganism, also within vegetarian circles, or else the paradigm will continue indefinitely.
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