Vegetarianism: Pointless or Positive? | Teen Ink

Vegetarianism: Pointless or Positive?

March 10, 2016
By rcs21 BRONZE, Hartland, Wisconsin
rcs21 BRONZE, Hartland, Wisconsin
1 article 0 photos 4 comments

Vegetarianism is a type of food diet that is restricted to only fruits, vegetables, and fish. You cannot eat meat. A vegetarian’s source of protein is found in beans, nuts, and non meat “meats”. Those include veggie burgers, chicken patties, tofu, eggs (not if you're vegan; they cannot eat animal-based products) and fish. Most foods that contain iron are beans, potatoes, nuts, broccoli, kale and tofu, which are full of calcium too.

A vegetarian body is very different than a meat eating body. First of all, when a person starts to become a vegetarian, they will most likely lose a few pounds, while on the other hand, meat eaters typically gain weight if their diet only consists of meat. In the health category, 76 thousand vegetarians and nonvegetarians of both genders were compared, and a large amount of the nonvegetarians ended up dying of heart disease. The amount of zinc a vegetarian consumes generally is low. John Salge Blake at Boston University states, “Vegetarians might need as much as 50% more zinc than carnivores.”

The main reason vegetarianism is beneficial for the environment is that raising cattle is wasteful. First off, raising cattle has the highest environmental cost. The feed, calves, and land we use is extremely wasteful. 6 pounds of feed only makes 1 pound of meat. The cow's digestive system creates heat in the room they are in, making the greenhouse gas prices higher. The amount of gas one cow produces in its life is equivalent to 235 gallons of gas burning from a car. Cows can have one calf litter and pigs can have up to 10. Calves and piglets use more resources than adult cows and pigs, meaning the outcome of meat we produce will decrease.

In conclusion, vegetarianism is beneficial for the environment because it is much more cost-efficient than meat eating. It is also rewarding to vegetarians as they have more health benefits such as reducing the chance of heart disease and type II diabetes which will most likely help you in the long run.
 



Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 0 comments.