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Vegetarianism

Vegetarianism. Diet for Humanity’s Long-Term Survival on Earth. Vegetarian – What Is It?. International Vegetarian Union Definition:

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Vegetarianism

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  1. Vegetarianism Diet for Humanity’s Long-Term Survival on Earth

  2. Vegetarian – What Is It? • International Vegetarian Union Definition: “Someone who lives on a diet of grains, pulses, nuts, vegetables and fruits with, or without, the use of dairy products and eggs. A vegetarian does not eat meat, poultry, game, fish, shellfish or by-products of slaughter.” • Origin of Term: Coined by the British Vegetarian Society in the mid-1800’s. Derived from Latin “vegetus” – vegetable as reference to “source of life” • Types: • Lacto-ovo-vegetarian • Lacto-vegetarian • Vegan – no food derived from animals; use/wear no products derived from animals

  3. World History of Vegetarianism • Early Times • Pre-history: - early humans mostly gatherers than hunters; digestive system resembling that of other plant-eating animals. • Antiquity:- Babylon, Egypt: Animals treated as kindred; Practised among religious groups related to karmic beliefs;- Greece: Pythagoras (580 BCE) – against cruelty to animals; health advantages; key factor for peaceful human co-existence; Plato, Socrates, Plutarch. - Asia: Hinduism and Buddhism: “Ahimsa” – total non-violence and respect of all life forms. • Christianity: Human supremacy over all living things (influenced by Aristotle); break-away unorthodox groups, such as Manicheanism (3 – 10 century AD), Bogomils (Bulgaria); persecution of heretics.

  4. World History of Vegetarianism • Renaissance and Enlightenment • Revival of Pythagorian and Neo-Platonic thought: animal sentiency; • Leonardo Da Vinci: denounced meat eating repulsed by slaughter; • John Locke: animals as intelligent creatures; • Voltaire, Rousseau: questioned man’s inhumanity to animals. • Romantics and Reformers (19th century) • Mary and Percy Shelley, Byron, Jeremy Bentham; • British Vegetarian Society (1809), American Vegetarian Society (1850). • The Twentieth Century • Mahatma Gandhi – vegetarianism and non-violence; • Peter Singer – Animal Liberation (1975) experimentation, factory farms; • PETA – Animal rights movement.

  5. Vegetarianism – Why? • Health benefits/Nutrition • Environmental concerns • Ethical/moral considerations

  6. Health Benefits • Cancer – lower risk of breast, colon, ovarian, prostate and other cancers; • Heart disease – low risk as a result of low saturated fat, and cholesterol; • Blood pressure – reduced blood viscosity; • Diabetes – prevents and reverses the disease; • Gallstones, kidney stones, osteoporosis – low risks; • Asthma – reduces severity; • Obesity – lower BMI.

  7. What About Nutrition? • Protein – Beans, lentils, tofu, nuts, seeds, tempeh, chickpeas, peas etc.; • Iron – Tofu, tempeh, spinach, baked potatoes, cashews, dried fruits, bulgur etc.; • Calcium – Broccoli, collard greens, kale, mustard greens, tofu, etc. • Vitamin B12 – Fortified foods: cereals, nutritional yeast, soymilk, veggie “meats”; • Children - Meets all nutrient needs for infants and children.

  8. Environmental Impact: Meat • Carbon footprint – livestock farming: 20% of total greenhouse gas emissions; • Water – livestock farming 8% of global water use; Agriculture: 73%; 1 kg beef = 13,000 to 100,000 l; 1 kg wheat = 1,000 to 2,000 l; • Land – 30% of earth’s entire land surface or 70% of all agricultural land used to rear animals; meat-eater – 2.5 times more land than a vegetarian (5 times vegan); • Oceans – in 2011, 154 million tonnes of fish (90 million from catch, 64 million from aquaculture); 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises killed every year as “by-catch”.

  9. Ethical/Moral Concerns

  10. Ethical/Moral Concerns Continued • Status: entity vs commodity; • Sentiency: criterion for compassion; • Human supremacy: by what decree of authority? • Religion: Christianity’s dualism; • Enslavement: human and animal; • Racism, Sexism, Xenophobia, Speciesism. • Animal rights movement: “Animals are NOT ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.”

  11. Famous Thinkers’ Thoughts • Pythagoras: “Animals share with us the privilege of having a soul”; “For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other.” “Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.” • Plato: “The gods created certain kinds of beings to replenish our bodies… they are the trees and the plants and the seeds.” • Gautama Buddha: “The eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great compassion.” • Leonardo Da Vinci: “My body is not a tomb for animals.” “I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.” • Voltaire: “Men fed upon carnage, and drinking strong drinks, have all an empoisoned and arid blood which drives them mad in a hundred different ways.” • Mary Shelley: “my food is not that of man, I do not destroy the lamb and kid to glut my appetite, acorns and berries afford my sufficient nourishment.”

  12. Famous Thinkers’ Thoughts Continued • Leo Tolstoy: “Flesh eating is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act, which is contrary to moral feeling: killing.”; “For as long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.” • Mohandas Ghandi: “I do feel that spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants.” • Albert Einstein: “Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on earth as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”

  13. Quotes On Animal Rights • Abraham Lincoln: “I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. This is the way of a whole human being.” • Alice Walker: The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.” • Dr. Albert Schweitzer: “The thinking man must oppose all cruel customs no matter how deeply rooted in tradition or surrounded by a halo… We need a boundless ethic which will include the animals also.”“Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.” • Charles Darwin: “The love for all living creatures is the most noble of attribute of man.” • Ingrid Newkirk: “When it comes to having a central nervous system, and the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.”

  14. Ethical Dilemma of XXI Century • Michael Pollan: “A growing and increasingly influential movement of philosophers, ethicists, law professors and activists are convinced that the great moral struggle of our time will be for the rights of animals.” • Jeremy Bentham: “The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk?, but rather, Can they suffer?” • Isaac Bashevis Singer: “To be a vegetarian is to disagree – to disagree with the course of things today. Starvation, world hunger, cruelty, waste, wars – we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it’s a strong one.” • Albert Einstein: “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”

  15. Vegetarianism Questions?/Comments!

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