vegetarian confessions

Health is a primary reason.   In fact, I researched vegetarianism when my dad expressed interest in it as a diet, and fully believe that meat consumption puts one at higher risk levels for heart disease, stroke, cancer, etc.   More intrinsically I believe the human body is designed to be primarily herbivorous, due to the structure of our teeth and intestines, as well as the adverse chemical reactions that occur due to a meat diet.   (Devoid of fiber, meat takes so long to get through the human digestive tract that it is toxic to the body by the time it is through).

In egg factories male chicks are killed by being stuffed into plastic bags where they die by suffocation, or they are ground up alive to be fed to livestock.   The processes to produce 'crate' veal and foie gras, considered delicacies by meat eaters, is extremely brutal.   Animal rights alone is a strong enough issue to keep me a vegetarian for life, but there's more.

The final tenet to my vegetarian philosophy is environmental.   Land degradation, erosion, and runoff into vital waterways are natural by-products of cattle.   Much of the Rainforest and other vital forest land is cleared for the purpose of cattle raising, which is so harmful to the soil that they will require new land quickly and leave the soil unable to revert to forestland for years, and Rainforest never again.   Cattle are a double offender, because while they destroy trees, they also contribute an alarming amount of methane gas to the atmosphere.   Beef production even places a strain on our fossil fuels, being a prime source of energy in each step of cattle raising, transporting, and processing.