Reasons for being a vegetarian:
1. Eating fatty meat increases your chances of having a heart attack or developing cancer. It's much easier to become - and stay - slim if you are vegetarian.
2. Every minute thousands of animals are killed for meat all over the world.
3. Meat contains absolutely nothing - that the human body cannot obtain from a vegetarian diet.
‘Meat sausage' can include the tail, head and inner parts of an animal.
4. Half the rainforests in the world have been destroyed to clear ground to graze cattle to make beefburgers. The burning of the forests contributes 20% of all greenhouse gases.
5. Every year 440 million tons of grain are fed to livestock - so that the world's rich can eat meat. At the same time 500 million people in poor countries are starving to death. Every six seconds someone in the world starves to death because people in the west are eating meat.
6. The world's fresh water shortage is being made worse by animal farming. And meat producers are the biggest polluters of water.
7. Some farmers use tranquilizers to keep animals calm. Others routinely use antibiotics to stave off infection. When you eat meat, you are eating those drugs. If you eat meat, you eat hormones that were fed to the animals. No one knows what effect those hormones will have on your health.
8. Eating dead animals is barbaric.
Reasons for not being a vegetarian:
1. Red meat is rich in vitamin B12.
2. Our ancestors ate meat.
3. Consumption of red meat can prevent certain deficiencies.
4. Vegetarianism does not necessarily help with weight loss.
5. Animal proteins increase thermogenesis more than vegetable proteins, so the best calorie-burning foods are lean meats.
6. If people don't eat meat, they will need more grain, fruit and vegetables. People will need more arable land for crops and forests will be cut down for these purposes.
