The Virtues of Vegan Living
The Truth about Protein
• Humans were created as herbivores (blunt teeth, no claws), not as carnivores.
• It is a great misconception that “You need animal protein to be lean and strong” (buffalos, horses, cows, elephants, and even brontosauruses are/were all vegans).
• Spinach, spirulina, broccoli, bee pollen, hemp, brussel sprouts, almonds, and pecans are all very high in protein and will easily satisfy the body’s protein requirements.
• Spirulina is 60-65% protein, with complete amino acid content—the highest of any protein source.
• Protein deficiency is extremely rare, except in areas where people are starving.
• Meat diminishes physical and sexual performance because arteries and blood vessels get clogged.
• It is important to get protein without fat and cholesterol.
• Protein requirements are very easy to meet with plant foods.
• What smoking does to your lungs, meat does to your arteries. The link between an animal-based diet and heart disease is as strong as the link between smoking and cancer.
• Cancer and heart disease are most frequent where meat eating prevails.
The Truth about Calcium
• Broccoli provides more calcium than cow’s milk, and in an absorbable form.
• The dairy industry spends billions per year advertising the calcium in dairy, yet dairy is not high in absorbable calcium.
• Calcium deficiency of dietary origin is unknown in the U.S. Nonetheless, the dairy industry claims the U.S. has a calcium deficiency and therefore has to consume more dairy products.
• The dairy industry sets the calcium requirements for the U.S.D.A.
• The U.S. is the world’s biggest consumer of calcium, yet has the greatest incidence of osteoporosis.
• The primary cause of osteoporosis is a lack of weight-bearing exercise (due to sedentary lifestyle) and over-consumption of animal protein—both of which are hallmarks of many Americans’ way of life.
The Truth about Fat and Cholesterol
• You can get all the “good” fats (omega 3, 6, and 9) you need from green, leafy vegetables and raw seeds.
• Although fish contains “good fat,” it is packaged with PCB’s, cholesterol, and other toxins. In fact, the good fat in fish comes from the plants (plankton) which the fish eats!
• Our liver makes all the cholesterol we need. Therefore, the amount we need from our diet is zero.
• High cholesterol contributes to more deaths than all the wars, natural disasters, and disease epidemics combined.
• There is no difference between white meat and red meat. A 3-ounce steak has 75 mg of cholesterol, and a 3-ounce skinless chicken breast contains 72 mgs of cholesterol.
• Seafood is not a healthy alternative to red or white meat! Shrimp have 6 times more cholesterol than beef.
• 3 glasses of milk has the same cholesterol as 20 slices of bacon.
• Plant-based food has zero cholesterol.
The Truth about Dairy Food
• Humans are the only animals that drink milk after they are weaned.
• Because humans have no biological need for milk after they are weaned, at some point the pancreas very naturally stops producing the enzyme lactase (which breaks down lactose), which is why 75% of the global population is falsely classified as “lactose intolerant.”
• Humans are the only animals on the planet which routinely consume another animal’s milk.
• Cow’s milk carries the genetic blueprint to produce a ten-fold increase from birth weight in the cow’s first year of life, accounting for the extreme obesity in many children who were fed bovine formula.
• Bovine (and other) formulas deprive children of their primary source of their immune system—which is naturally, freely, and divinely provided by a mother’s breast milk.
Impact on the Environment
• Raising animals for food accounts for more than half of all the annual water used in the U.S. It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, but only 25 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of wheat. The average American uses 106 gallons of water per day. If that person also eats 1 hamburger, that figure increases to 3,106 gallons.• A vegan lifestyle saves 1 million gallons (3,780,000 liters) of water every year!
• 85% of all U.S. agricultural land is used to grow food to feed the animals we eat.
• 260 million acres of land in the U.S. are destroyed each year raising animals for slaughter.
• Raising animals for food requires more than 1/3 of all raw materials and fossil fuels used in the U.S. Producing a single hamburger patty uses enough fossil fuel to drive a small car 20 miles and enough water for 17 showers.
• Rainforests (which provide 90% of all our medicines, 60-80% of the world’s oxygen, and countless species of animals going extinct) are being destroyed at a rate of 125,000 square miles per year to provide grazing for animals raised for consumption. For every quarter-pound, fast-food burger made of rainforest beef, 55 square feet (5.1 square meters) of land are consumed.
• The fishing industry is taking fish out of the ocean much faster than the ocean can reproduce them.
• 15 out of 17 of the world’s fishing zones are now barren, due to the damaging and wasteful methods of fishing currently used.
• 80% of all fish caught through large-scale commercial fishing methods are dumped—dead—back into the sea (including thousands of whales/dolphin/porpoises trapped in those same nets).
• Of the 20% of all remaining caught fish, half of those are fed to farm animals. Translated: Only 10% of all the fish caught by large-scale commercial methods end up being consumed by humans!
• Animal feces are the cause of E. coli bacterial infections. There are hundreds of cases of food poisoning from meat and meat product recalls every year, mostly due to the unsanitary conditions and operations on factory farms (the true causes of which are almost never released to the public by/through the media).
• The reason why it is necessary to cook meat (particularly chicken) for so long is to kill the bacteria from fecal matter on the meat.
• The meat industry causes more water pollution in the U.S. than all other industries combined, because the animals raised for food produce 130 times more excrement than the entire human population—86,600 pounds per second.
• One typical factory pig farm generates the same amount of raw waste as a city of 12,000 people.
Source: L.D.D.F. - The Virtues Of Vegan Living
Also see: L.D.D.F. - Writings
