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Maria Isabel Butruce Candiota

Emily Litle

English Composition

29 November 2018

Veganism

Veganism in recent years has gained a lot visibility, both good and bad, for people who

have never heard and read anything about this lifestyle they affirmed that is too extreme. Beyond

all the food issue veganism goes way more far, they address a wholly healthy life, the end of the

industry that needlessly slaughters millions of animals a year, environmental issues that

veganism seems to be a solution and even antispeciesism. The number of people becoming

vegans grows on a large scale every year, even though the number does not even get close to the

number of people who eat meat, but it is still an enormous progress when people who never

heard about veganism before and now they are talking about it or seeing something on

Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. People should take veganism seriously for all the healthy and

community it has.

Even though veganism can point a lot of good issues not only for humans but also for the

environment, animals and the health of this planet, there’s an opposing side that are against it.

For people who don’t agree with veganism, they point some good and curious/interesting points

to show their opinion, first argument is that veganism is not that healthy because vegan people

don’t get enough amount of protein that they should be getting, animals died anyway so why not

should make it useful, if veganism were used all around the world there would be a huge impact
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on the economic scenario, a lot of unemployment would arise and it would definitely have a

crisis.

The definition of veganism is a way of life that seeks to exclude, to the extent possible

and practicable, all forms of exploitation and cruelty against animals. What veganism tries to

address is that the animals are not here in this world to serve us, to be used as food. They have

absolutely no interest on doing all those things (1). Animals live for them with their interests and

with their society, so veganism ideology is that the only way to live with animals is to live with

them, to enjoy their company, to be with them, to enjoy of their love. The industry who controls

this food market uses a variety of ways and means for to believe that the meat is eating on plate

is not an animal. The media and means of communication that these industries uses make people

not associate that meal with a corpse of an animal, an example of that is almost all meat

industries have as a brand photo or in the packaging a photo of a happy animal. That’s why so

many people get so shocked and scared when they see for the first time the cruel reality behind

all these.

A vegan diet can also be called “plant-based diet”. The base of this diet is to show that

human beings can find all the nutrients that their bodies needs in the vegetable world and that in

fact to eat meat in not healthy at all. First of all, fish is a mercury “magnet” and researches

shown that eating fish can raise the risk of heart attacks. The ingestion of fish in a human

organism can increase the incidence of heart disease, the neurocognitive function, skin, immune

system, human lungs are also in danger with the toxic effects of mercury and it can also increase

the chances of cancer because of the ingestion of dioxins and PCBs.

“Humans are not carnivores” can be a starting phrase to open the subject to red meat, but

biologically this sentence is completely wrong. The definition of the term carnivore is: refers to
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the living being that feeds on meat, the nutrition and energy demand to subsist in the ecosystem

are exclusively based on the consumption of meat or any diet where meat is its main source,

carnivores are predators (practice of predation) which consists in the hunting by a predatory

animal to its prey to feed on its meat (body). The anatomy of a carnivores is entirely built to be

ready to digest the meat, for example: carnivore’s spittle does not have digestive enzymes to

digest and they have fangs and teeth that are able to subdue their prey. The stomach acidity of

carnivores is twenty times more acid than the stomach of humans and herbivores. They have a

stomach two or six times larger than their body and it’s also flat, straight and short to make it

easier the passage and digestion of meat.

Since I described the anatomy of a carnivores, the animal anatomy that most closely

resembles of the human being is the herbivores. Their anatomy is characterized by: the

herbivorous saliva is alkaline with digestive enzymes and carbohydrates to help digest the food,

they have more molar teeth than sharp teeth to help at the time of chewing the food and ingesting

it better, the intestine of an herbivore is ten to twelve times bigger than their bodies and with

several compartments to absorb the nutrients better. After the description, it is clear that humans

have many similarities to herbivorous anatomy than to carnivorous anatomy, so maybe humans

are not meant to eat meat anyways.

And still many diseases are connected with eating meat like cancer, arthritis,

cardiovascular diseases, obesity and diabetes. A recent report by the World Health Organization

(WHO) has pointed out that overconsumption of bacon and other processed meat can be as

harmful to health as cigarettes with regard to the appearance of tumors. The US National Cancer

Institute also reported that ingestion of this type of meat is completely linked to other diseases

such as diabetes and heart disease like mentioned above.

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Besides harmful effects on humans there’s also a lot of harmful effects to animals, the

slaughterhouse is where the cruelty really happens, and this is where the antispeciesism enters.

The animals are confined in an extremely tiny space (where only 2 can fit but sometimes have

5/6 living the same space), in addition to being fed with a lot of toxins they live in a place of so

much stress that sometimes lead them to commit acts of cannibalism among their slaughterers.

At the time of the abasement, the majority are killed in an agonizing way without any kind of

anesthesia. The antispeciesism enters when humans lower the lives of other animals,

disregarding that they feel the same thing as humans. They are developed enough to understand

and feel the same pain, a research made by Cambridge University shows with tests that animals

react in a way that demonstrates their consciousness. They also affirm that explaining what

consciousness is it’s really difficult and a sign of the existence of consciousness among beings

from different races is the complexity of behavior. Humans put themselves above any other

animals’ life. (Bertuzzi 3)

Besides all the impacts veganism has in human life and the animals’ life, veganism has a

huge impact in the environment and its conservation. Right now, large livestock farming is

responsible for the destruction of tropical forests, species extinction, soil erosion, water,

contamination, desertification, organic pollution, greenhouse. All the activities in the world,

livestock farming is one of the most impacting human activity that causes serious damage, for

example deforestation is a practice that deforest large parts of the vegetation cover, generating

reduction in biodiversity, species and vegetable existence, erosion, desertification, reduction of

soil nutrients, contributes to global warming. For the environment, 80%of the corn and soil

produced in the US for example is designated for the animals that are in intensive livestock. (5)
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If they would use tis plantation for only the human consumption of these products it wouldn’t

have to use such a large territory. Veganism comes to a solution of these problems by not only

reducing environment problems, but also to rectory or improver the forests, other natural

habitats, and give time for species to recover from the damage caused.

In sum, we have seen that veganism address much larger issues than just food and

specially its importance on this planet. There is a lot more information out there for people to

look and read to see the size of this movement. We have to talk about veganism. It’s not only

something we can put aside and not give due importance. This is happening, natural resources

are decreasing, forests and vegetation are being deforested at alarming levels, lives will be saved

and then our planet can be in the right path again.

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Work Cited

Burghardt, G. M. (1985). Animal awareness: Current perceptions and historical

perspective. American Psychologist, 40(8), 905-919.

Prudencio, Nuno. “A industria de seres vivos: Um retrato da violencia nos matadouros”.

Euronews, 22 September 2016, https://pt.euronews.com/2016/07/22/a-industria-de-seres-vivos-
um-retrato-da-violencia-nos-matadouros. Accessed 28 November 2018.

Bertuzzi, Niccolo. “Veganism: Lifestyle or Political Movement? Looking for Relations beyond
Antispeciesism” PhD University of Milano-Bicocca, November 2017.

The Vegan Society. The Vegan Society, https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-

veganism. Accessed 28 November 2018.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. “Livestock Impacts on the
Environment.” November 2006, pp. 1-6.

“The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness”. Cambridge University, 7 July 2012.

http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf

Greif, Sergio. “Vegetarianism and the Preservation of the Environment”. Brazilian Vegetarian

Society (SVB), Brazilian Vegetarian Society, https://www.svb.org.br/home/205-

vegetarianismo/saude/artigos/17-vegetarianismo-e-conserva-ambiental/ . Accessed 3 November

2018.