I often get asks why I decided to become vegan many years ago and why I still follow this lifestyle now. And the short answer is: it’s just better for everyone.
The longer answer however is that until I saw all those well-known documentaries, I was unaware of the impact of our ‘regular western diet’ on the planet we live on and on ourselves. I wasn’t unaware of the fact that I was eating another being, that used to be alive, but let’s just say I thought it was ‘just the normal thing’ to do.
I’ve met and spoken to many people that also follow a vegan lifestyle and identify themselves as vegan over the past years and can tell that there are many different motives for someone to become vegan. The ones listed below are the ones that are most important to myself.
Vegan for the environment
Maybe you have already heard about the study that found that the single best thing one person can do to decrease their environmental footprint is to adopt a plant-based diet.
So why exactly has switching to veganism such a great impact onto the planet?
Here are the top reasons in a nutshell:
- Reduction of CO2, methane and nitrous oxid production through decrease of livestock.
- Saving and preserving of water through less animal waste and polluting fertilizers.
- Prevention of deforestation of the tropical rainforest as less land is needed.
However, we want to point out that not all vegan diets are always automatically environmental friendly. If you really want to decrease your environmental footprint with your diet it is important that you focus on seasonal as well as local produce as well. Because any type of fruit or vegetable (think of avocado for example!) that got flown over half the planet will not really have a low carbon footprint. Also there are some food items that simply need way too much water to be grown at this point that we can not call them environmental friendly anymore (e.g. almonds and cashew nuts).
Vegan for health reasons
It would be absolutely wrong to say that a vegan diet is always healthier than any other type of diet, but we want to give some background on when this is the case and how human health is positively impacted.
When following these guidelines, plant-based nutrition has plenty of health benefits:
- Ensure the intake of a sufficient amount of calories every day.
- Focus on eating and preparing whole foods rather than processed foods.
- Eat foods from every part of the food pyramid (veggies & fruits, whole grains, pulses and nuts, dairy substitutes and fats).
- Ensure sufficient B12 intake (through fortified foods or pills).
Health benefits of plant-based diets include:
- Lower intake of saturated fats, which has a positive effect on preventing cardiovascular diseases.
- Higher intake of fibre, which promotes a strong, healthy gut microbiome and increases chances of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and bowl cancer.
- Overall lower blood pressure & cholesterol.
- Stronger psychological health supported by better physical health and often physical activities.
These lists are of course all examples and the findings from medical studies of a group of vegans, or people who follow a plant-based diet for a specific amount of time. This means that it is firstly very important to monitor your nutrient intake when starting with a plant-based diet to ensure nothing is being missed and second of all also that other lifestyle choices might also impact health which means that it is totally possible that someone on a vegan diet has for example high blood pressure.
Vegan for ethical reasons
Most people that are vegetarian or vegan have made this lifestyle change because they do not want to harm any animals. It does not make sense to them to treat a dog like ‘your best friend’ (at least in western nations) but only feed a cow or pig in order to slaughter them later.
The ideology behind this simply is that all species deserve to live like any other species.
Due to the way eggs and dairy are produced, which causes animal suffering, vegans also avoid the consumption of these products.
Therefore the choice of a plant-based diet for ethical reasons is a moral decision.
Vegan for social reasons
It’s probably not new to you that the world-wide population is growing (even despite the pandemic). More people means more food needed and plant-based food is just perfect to feed the entire planet and avoid starvation in developing countries. Growing plants, pulses, grains, seeds needs in general much less land and water (there are some exceptions to this) compared to producing food from animals (such as cows, chickens etc.).
- The entire population of the planet can be fed more easily.
- Avoiding that people are starving to death.
- When done right, world-wide health problems would decrease due to healthier diets.
These are only a few reasons – but of course there are also downsides that would come with such a big world-wide shift in eating behavior. Whilst people in the animal-derived food industry (think about cattle and diary farmers, butchers etc.) wouldn’t necessarily loose their job, they would for sure have to adapt to the new standards. But this generally takes place when big changes happen. Imagine if one day we would only have driverless cars – clearly taxi drivers would loose their job, but they would be needed elsewhere (street security, artificial intelligence for example) instead.
With the growing amount of world-wide vegans and plant-based food alternatives there are of course also people that only switch to a plant-based diet or become a flexitarian due to social pressure but not necessarily due to their own believe in the overall good cause. It’s those people that mostly choose to eat whatever they like when they are at home, but who option for a plant-based meal when dining out with family, friends or colleagues.