Eat Vegan On Earth Day, April 22!

This is a very informative article. Please take the time to read it. Not only will it "reduce disease risks, drastically lessen animal suffering, and substantially "green" the planet", it is a very healthy way to eat. I previously posted about eating natural foods. This ties in as eating vegan consists mostly of eating natural foods!!

Forget About Recycling on Earth Day

If you do just one thing to save the planet this Earth Day, please switch to a vegetarian diet.

Turning cows, pigs, chickens, and turkeys into "beef," "pork," and "poultry" is no simple matter. As E/The Environmental Magazine points out, "just about every aspect of meat production—from grazing-related loss of cropland, to the inefficiencies of feeding vast quantities of water and grain to cattle, to pollution from 'factory farms'—is an environmental disaster with wide and sometimes catastrophic consequences."

Consider this:

• Farmed animals generate more greenhouse gasses than SUVs, tractor trailers, trains, and jumbo jets put together. According to U.N. scientists, the livestock sector is one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide and the single largest source of both methane and nitrous oxide emissions. Nitrous oxide is about 300 times more potent as a global warming gas than carbon dioxide. The meat, egg, and dairy industries account for a staggering 65 percent of worldwide nitrous oxide emissions.

• Nearly half of the water used in the U.S. is squandered on animal agriculture. More than 4,000 gallons of water per day are required to produce a meat-based diet; only 300 gallons of water a day are needed to produce a totally vegetarian diet.

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