Why to become a vegan

Veganism has been a growing trend for a long time. Today, its expansion is so great that not only do almost all restaurants offer some vegan food, but there are also many restaurants, chains and shops that fully focus on this trend. But what are the reasons that lead people to become vegans?

Veganism is a way of life in which an individual does not consume animal products, and also does not use these products for normal consumption. There are many reasons for a vegan lifestyle, and veganism can be divided according to these reasons. In this article, we will describe only the three most important.

A healthy lifestyle is the first big reason to become a vegan. If we look at how our ancestors lived before the first agrarian revolution (about 10,000 years BC and more), we will see that 95 % of their diet was plant food.^[1] The human body is not built to eat as many animal products as we get into it today. Saturated fatty acids and cholesterol together with excessive amount of sugar clog our blood vessels and cause obesity, red meat and products such as ham and salami cause colon cancer, improper food preparation causes bacterial contamination and cancer, we get heavy metals into the body that even our body does not manage to clean and many, many other problems. In most cases, a plant-based diet has the opposite effect. It protects us from the consequences of today's civilization diseases, helps us digest faster and contributes positively to the activity of the intestine, slows down the aging process, strengthens immunity and defense and much more.

However, it must be emphasized that if someone is vegan, it does not mean that he is living healthy, and conversely, if someone is living healthy, it does not mean that he is vegan. If the vegan diet consists only of french fries and nothing else, he will be technically vegan, but he will not reach a high age and a healthy life. For example, according to a large study published in the Lancet, a list of the leading causes of death due to malnutrition is listed. Immediately after the high consumption of salt in the first place is the insufficient consumption of whole grains and in the third place is the insufficient consumption of fruit.^[2] Thus, the absence of a plant diet has a worse effect on our health than an excess of an animal diet.

However, a healthy diet alone does not guarantee a healthy lifestyle. Movement, rest, social background, cleanliness of the environment and many others further contribute to it to a greater or lesser extent.^[3]

The second reason for becoming a vegan has been the recent and increasingly mentioned global climate change. Livestock and all the work associated with their breeding are large producers of greenhouse gases, a total of about 15 % of world production. As much as a 28 % reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would be achieved if all people switched to plant food and unused feed farms would be naturally afforested. The total area used in agriculture would thus be reduced by up to 76 %, which is 3.1 billion hectares for the idea, i.e. territory about the size of Africa.^[4] The large utilized area intended for livestock or their feed is also associated with the loss of natural habitats of wild animals, which are going to extinct on a large scale. Together with other reasons such as overfishing, pollution and construction development, this all contributes to so-called the sixth mass extinction of species.^[5]

The last reason discussed in this article is the so-called ethical or moral veganism. Livestock have suffered from human domination since their domestication at the beginning of the first agrarian revolution. However, it was not until the 20th century that large-scale farming began to emerge, because as the quality of life of human society increased, so did meat consumption. High competition from large breeders and new scientific discoveries have made breeding more efficient. However, the welfare of livestock has declined to such an extent that animals are now seen as mere property without consciousness. Caged hens rip off feathers and attack each other, pigs are locked in cubicles without the slightest movement for the rest of their lives, calves are taken from their cows shortly after birth, most born males are massacred immediately after birth in crushers or suffocated with carbon dioxide, not to mention the lengthy process in the slaughterhouse, where the animals in the queues hear the last cries for life of the animals in front of them.^[6]

In a nutshell, it is possible to answer the question why to become a vegan as follows.

• Healthy lifestyle
• Global climate change
• Suffering of livestock