“Vegetarian” is defined as someone who avoids all animal flesh, including fish and poultry. Vegetarians who avoid flesh but do eat animal products such as cheese, milk and eggs, are ovo-lacto-vegetarians (ovo = egg; lacto = dairy). The ranks of those who abstain from all animal products are rapidly growing—these people are referred to as pure vegetarians or vegans.
People are drawn to vegetarianism for various reasons. Some of us want to live longer, healthier lives or do our part to reduce pollution. Others want to help preserve our planet’s natural resources or because we’ve always loved animals and are ethically opposed to eating them.
Thanks to an abundance of scientific research that demonstrates the health and environmental benefits of a plant-based diet, even the federal government recommends that we consume most of our calories from grain products, vegetables and fruits.
An estimated 70 percent of all diseases, including one-third of all cancers, are related to diet. A vegetarian diet reduces the risk for chronic degenerative diseases such as obesity, coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and certain types of cancer including colon, breast, prostate, stomach, lung and esophageal cancer.
Multiple health benefits
Vegetarian diets—naturally low in saturated fat, high in fiber and full of cancer-protective phytochemicals—help to prevent cancer. Large studies in England and Germany have shown that vegetarians are about 40 percent less likely to develop cancer compared to meat-eaters.
Vegetarian diets also help prevent heart disease. Animal products are the main source of saturated fat and the only source of cholesterol in the diet. Vegetarians avoid these risky products. Additionally, fiber helps reduce cholesterol levels and animal products contain no fiber. When individuals switch to a high-fiber, low-fat diet their serum cholesterol levels often drop dramatically. Studies have demonstrated that a low-fat, high-fiber, vegetarian or vegan diet combined with stress reduction techniques, smoking cessation and exercise, or combined with prudent drug intervention, could actually reverse atherosclerosis—hardening of the arteries. Heart diets that include lean meat, dairy products, and chicken are much less effective, usually only slowing the process of atherosclerosis.
Control weight
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a division of the CDC, the National Center for Health Statistics, 64 percent of adults and 15 percent of children aged six to 19 are overweight and are at risk of weight-related ailments including heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
A study conducted by Dean Ornish, MD, president and director of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, found that overweight people who followed a low-fat, vegetarian diet lost an average of 24 pounds in the first year and had kept off that weight five years later.
Reduce risk of food-borne illnesses
The CDC reports that food-borne illnesses of all kinds account for 76 million illnesses a year, resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths in the United States. According to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), foods rich in protein such as meat, poultry, fish and seafood are frequently involved in food-borne illness outbreaks.
Live Longer
If you switch from the standard American diet to a vegetarian diet, you can add about 13 healthy years to your life, says Michael F. Roizen, MD, author of The RealAge Diet: Make Yourself Younger with What You Eat.” People who consume saturated, four-legged fat have a shorter life span and more disability at the end of their lives. Animal products clog your arteries, zap your energy and slow down your immune system. Meat eaters also experience accelerated cognitive and sexual dysfunction at a younger age.”
Reduce pollution and avoid toxic chemicals
According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), chemical and animal waste runoff from factory farms is responsible for more than 173,000 miles of polluted rivers and streams. Runoff from farmlands is one of the greatest threats to water quality today. Agricultural activities that cause pollution include confined animal facilities, plowing, pesticide spraying, irrigation, fertilizing and harvesting.
The EPA estimates that nearly 95 percent of the pesticide residue in the typical American diet comes from meat, fish and dairy products. Fish, in particular, contain carcinogens (PCBs, DDT) and heavy metals (mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium) that can’t be removed through cooking or freezing. Meat and dairy products can also be laced with steroids and hormones.
Reduce famine
About 70 percent of all grain produced in the United States is fed to animals raised for slaughter. The seven billion livestock animals in the United States consume five times as much grain as is consumed directly by the American population. “If all the grain currently fed to livestock were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million,” says David Pimentel, professor of ecology at Cornell University. If the grain were exported, it would boost the US trade balance by $80 billion a year.
Spare animals
Ten billion animals are slaughtered for human consumption each year. And, today most animals are factory farmed —crammed into cages where they can barely move and fed a diet tainted with pesticides and antibiotics. Farmed animals are not protected from cruelty under the law—in fact, the majority of state anticruelty laws specifically exempt farm animals from basic humane protection.
Save money
Meat accounts for 10 percent of Americans’ food spending. Eating vegetables, grains and fruit in place of the 200 pounds of beef, chicken and fish each non-vegetarian eats annually would cut individual food bills by an average of $4,000 a year.
October is vegetarian month. Why not try eating less meat or giving up meat temporarily to see if the vegetarian lifestyle suits you?