Why Choose Vegan

Veganism is a social justice movement committed to creating a world in which animals are not exploited for food, clothing, entertainment, or any other purpose. Although concern for animals is the foundation of veganism, there are many other benefits: plant-based agriculture is a more efficient use of the world's scarce resources, can feed more people, is better for the environment, and is also good for our health.

Animals matter

Many people like to keep animals as pets; we care for them and understand their personalities and needs. We form emotional bonds with animals and even regard them as members of our family - most people really do care about animals. Although we do everything we can to care for a dog or cat, most of us have a completely different relationship with the animals we eat (such as cows, pigs, chickens, and fish). Yet all animals have the capacity to feel emotions such as joy and pain, captivity and loss. Most of us believe that unnecessary violence toward animals is unacceptable, so why do we eat and wear animals and use them in other ways?

Dividing other animals into the ones we love and the ones we eat has been described as cognitive dissonance, moral schizophrenia, and carnism. Each of these terms tries to describe how and why people who care about animals justify using them for food, clothing, entertainment, etc. Once we realize how our history and culture have shaped us in this way, and we know that it is not necessary for humans to kill or exploit animals, we are on the path to becoming vegan.
Animal agriculture tries to give us the impression that the animals you eat live well-fed on small family farms. The reality is that farmed animals are regarded merely as commodities, and most live in terrible conditions on factory farms. So-called "humanely raised" animals are treated little differently from those on factory farms. They still suffer many of the same painful treatments and are still transported to the same slaughterhouses in the same way. Eating so-called "happy" animals is not an ethical choice. They are not happy to be exploited and killed for our pleasure. Whether or not all animal products are produced on factory farms, they inevitably bring injustice and suffering.

Dairy cows are taken away shortly after birth and are doomed to die soon; when milk production is no longer high, the cow is put to death.
Hens raised for eggs are kept in small cages or crowded sheds. They are bred to lay eggs at an unnatural rate, their bodies quickly become exhausted, and they are killed before their normal lifespan. Like sheep raised for wool, they are also treated as property, raised and enslaved as products for humans. Being treated as a product means little consideration is given to the life and interests of the sheep. Likewise, sheep are genetically bred to increase the wool they grow, maximizing the farmer's profit. Removing a sheep's wool increases the frequency of injuries, lambs undergo painful limb amputations without anesthesia, which also leads to parasite infestations, and when sheep no longer produce wool they are sent to the slaughterhouse - like chickens, they too are killed after their "productivity" declines.

Helping the environment
Animal agriculture production is a major cause of environmental destruction, including global warming. The damage to the world's environment caused by the billions of animals we raise and kill each year is enormous, and the animal industry has now been identified as "one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems," including global warming, species extinction, freshwater loss, rainforest destruction, spreading deserts, air and water pollution, acid rain, soil erosion, and habitat loss. Vast areas of forest are cleared to grow crops to feed livestock. The methane these animals produce is the largest cause of global warming, greater than all transportation activities worldwide. The large amounts of excrement produced by animal agriculture leak into rivers and oceans as pollution.
Freshwater has become a scarce resource and is used in large quantities to produce animal products. The lack of freshwater is a major cause of disease transmission, especially among the world's poor. If we eat plants directly, it is much more efficient and less harmful to the environment than growing crops to feed the animals we later eat. This would feed five times the population, provide large amounts of freshwater, help reverse global warming, reduce fossil fuel use, and reforest large tracts of land.
Producing meat uses large amounts of energy and water in the process, and converting plant protein into animal protein is very inefficient. Ruminants also produce large amounts of methane, a far greater greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, which in turn leads to global warming.
Today, most people recognize the importance of considering the environment by saving water and energy, driving fuel-efficient cars, and using renewable energy. But one of the simplest yet most important choices we can make to reduce our environmental impact is to switch to a vegan diet. Veganism is an organic farming system that avoids using or exploiting animals as much as possible. It is also a way to help the Earth recover by replicating the biodiversity found in natural environments.
References:

1. Producing one kilogram of beef (50,000 to 100,000 liters) requires 20 times more water than rice (about 2,500 liters), fruit, or vegetables.

2. Producing one liter of milk requires an average of 800 liters of water, almost four times that of one liter of soy milk.

3. The food consumed by the world's livestock is enough to feed 8.7 billion people, more than the entire human population.

4. Animal agriculture consumes more protein and calories than it produces.

5. Animal agriculture is a major cause of global species loss.

6. A vegetarian diet consumes far less energy than a diet based on animal products, and therefore contributes far less to air pollution, acidification, oil spills, habitat destruction, and global warming.

7. By choosing to be vegan, you will not only help the environment but also help all the animals living on Earth.

For humanity
Every day, forty thousand children in the world die from a lack of food. While we overeat, we are feeding grain to animals to make meat. Due to malnutrition, more than 20 million people will die this year, and about 1 billion people (most of them rural women and children) suffer from chronic hunger. Conversely, much of the food currently used to feed animals could be used directly to feed the world's hungry people. Producing just one kilogram of beef protein requires at least seven kilograms of grain and other plant protein for feeding. If the crops used for livestock production were instead used for human consumption, more than 10 times as many people could be fed. 80% of hungry children live in countries that actually have surplus food; these children remain hungry because farmers use surplus grain to feed animals. Worse still, sometimes developing countries raise animals to sell to wealthy nations, because this is more profitable than growing fruits, vegetables, and grains that could feed local people. Einstein once said, "Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."

Beneficial to health
A well-planned 100% plant-based diet is healthy. A plant-based diet is not only as healthy as any diet containing animal products, but is also more beneficial to human health in many ways. A vegan diet is both healthy and nutritious, suitable for people of all ages. Animal-food alternatives such as nuts, seeds, legumes, and tofu add variety to the diet and can provide valuable, affordable protein and other nutrients. People who strictly follow a vegetarian or vegan diet, as long as they meet nutritional and energy needs and eat appropriate varieties of plant foods throughout the day to ensure adequate iron and zinc intake and optimize the absorption of iron, zinc, and calcium - nuts and seeds are rich in energy and nutrients. Besides protein and dietary fiber, they also contain large amounts of unsaturated fatty acids and are rich in polyphenols, phytosterols, and micronutrients including folate, several valuable forms of vitamin E, selenium, magnesium, and other minerals, making them nutritious alternatives to meat, fish, and eggs that play an important role in plant-based, vegetarian, and vegan foods and diets.
A vegan diet can help reduce the risk of disease. A plant-based diet can help reduce the risk of illness and provide all the protein, minerals, and vitamins your body needs. A vegetarian diet based on vegetables, legumes, whole grains, fruits, nuts, and seeds can help reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and certain cancers.
More and more people now advocate vegetarianism, and vegan products will become sought-after best-sellers.