What?
Plant-based eating is defined as "a regimen that encourages whole, plant-based foods and discourages meats, dairy products, and eggs as well as refined and processed foods."
​
It is important to recognize that a plant-based diet is not a vegetarian or vegan diet. One can still occasionally eat meat and lead a plant-based lifestyle. This type of diet is not centered solely around eating a lack of meat but rather around filling your plate with vegetables, whole grains, fruits, beans, seeds, and nuts as opposed to less nutritionally-dense and environmentally harmful foods!
Why: Health Benefits
Following a plant-based diet preserves the health of the human body. There are numerous health benefits to adopting this way of eating such as...
- Strengthening your body's immune system
- Reducing your risk of developing cancer
- Helping you maintain a healthy weight
- Improving gut health
- Lowering cholesterol
- Stabilizing blood pressure
- And many more!
Why: Help Save the Environment
Excessive meat production, meat consumption, and the industrial processing of meat through factory farms imposes an unreasonable burden on the natural environment.
​
Producing plant protein generally requires less land, water, and energy compared to producing animal protein and results in less green house gas emissions in aggregate.
Therefore, adhering to a plant based diet is often considered "the most effective strategy for systematically reducing green house gas emissions."
Why: Put an End to World Hunger
More than two billion people currently suffer from "moderate or severe" food insecurity. Factory farming and the unsustainable production of meat for human consumption greatly exacerbates this issue.
​
About one third of the world's grain, along with over 90% of soybeans, is being fed to animals in feedlots instead of the billions of people suffering with food insecurity or nutritional deficiency. There is more than enough food on our planet to feed and support all human life, but too much of it is being fed to animals so that the richest members of society who can afford meat can indulge.
Research has found that "if humans consumed crops and followed a plant-based diet instead of feeding crops to animals to produce meat, the world supply would be enriched by approximately 70% more food, which would adequately support another 4 billion people." This surplus would successfully feed all the starving humans of our time.
Why: Ethics
Adopting a plant-based diet would help put an end to the brutal killings of animals in factory farms for human consumption.
​
This is a less significant benefit to adopting a plant-based diet as there are many ways to consume meat more ethically such as selecting pasture-raised meat from ethical suppliers.
Overall, if you consume meat occasionally, there is no need to feel guilty; however, following a plant-based diet is undoubtedly more ethical.