I thought this was interesting… passed around from another blog (don’t know where it originated) and figured I’d repost.

1. Vegetarians have a 20% lower rate of mortality from all causes (i.e. they live longer & don’t get sick as often)
2. Meat is full of traces of antibiotics, hormones, toxins produced by stress & pesticide residues that become concentrated from all the crops they have eaten
3. The world health organization recommends a diet low in saturated fat, sugar, salt & with plenty of fiber - exactly what you get on a vegan/vegetarian diet
4. Farmed animals contain up to 50% saturated fat in their bodies
5. Vegetarians have 24% reduced risk of getting heart disease & Vegans a 57% reduction (heart disease is the biggest killer in the UK accounting for 50% of deaths)
6. Obesity is rare in vegetarians, obesity is related to many diseases
7. Vegans & vegetarians have lower blood pressure & cholesterol levels - high levels are associated with heart disease, strokes & kidney failure
8. Vegetarians have a 50% reduced risk of dying of diabetes
9. Vegetarians have a 40% reduced level of cancer than the general population thought to be because they have a higher intake of vitamins A,C & E
10. Vegetarians have a reduced risk of developing gall & kidney stones
11. 80% of food poisoning is due to infected meat (feeces, bacteria etc.) after all meat is decomposing flesh - most of the rest is due to salmonella in eggs
12. Osteoporosis due to calcium loss from bones is mainly due to the sulfur content in meat & casein protein in milk that cause calcium to be lost in the urine - the countries with the highest meat & dairy consumption are those with the highest levels of brittle bones
13. 50% of people do not have the enzyme to digest milk properly & milk allergy is related to asthma & eczema
14. Meat eaters have double the rate of Alzheimer’s disease as Vegans & Vegetarians - researchers also think that Parkinson’s disease is also linked to meat eating
15. Egg yolk is a dense concentration of saturated fat & the white is high in albumin protein associated with leaching calcium into your urine. Butter is 80% saturated fat, cream is 40% saturated fat & cheese is 25-40% saturated fat
16. Meat eaters are two and a half times more likely to get bowel cancer than Vegetarians
17. The cling film used to wrap meat in supermarkets & butchers contains chemicals linked to falling sperm counts in men
18. Chinese people (living mainly on a vegetarian diet) consume 20% more calories than Americans but Americans are 20% fatter
19. Of 2,100,000 deaths in the USA in 1987, 1,500,000 were related to diet (i.e. meat & dairy)
20. Meat/Dairy centered diets are linked to many types of cancer, as well as heart ailments, diabetes, obesity, gallbladder disease, hypertension, and more deadly diseases and disorders.
21. The National Cancer Research Institute found that women who eat meat on a daily basis are almost 4 times more likely to get breast cancer than those women who eat little or no meat.
22. Meat contains approximately 14 times more pesticides than plant foods; dairy products contain 5-1/2 times more pesticides than plant foods.
23. 15 million pounds of antibiotics are used in animal production every year- These drugs end up in your milk and meat.
24. 95-99 percent of toxic chemical residues in the American diet come from animal sources.
25. By reducing your consumption of meat, dairy products, and eggs by 50%, you reduce your risk of a heart attack by 45%. By following a pure vegetarian diet (no animal products at all) you reduce your risk by 90%.
26. Meat and dairy products raise the acid level in human blood, causing calcium to be excreted from the bones to restore the body’s natural pH balance. This calcium depletion results in osteoporosis. Contrary to the common belief that dairy products are necessary to prevent osteoporosis, dairy consumption actually increases the likeliness of this crippling disease.
27. About 30% of all pork products are contaminated with toxoplasmosis, a disease which is caused by parasites. It can be passed on to consumers.
28. The vegetarian diet is more likely to meet the government recommendations for fat, carbohydrate, and protein than a nonvegetarian diet. The government as well as many other organizations tell us to reduce our fat intake (especially saturated fat) and also to eat more grains, fruits, and vegetables. This is easy for a vegetarian!
29. On a meatless diet, you are less likely to get a bacterial infection such as E. coli, Campylobacter, and Salmonella.
30. Animals are able to feel pain just as we can!
31. About 7 billion farm animals die or are slaughtered each year in the U.S. for the production of flesh food.
32. There are virtually no laws against cruelty to animals raised for food in the U.S. The Animal Welfare Act, which governs the humane treatment of animals, excludes animals intended for food consumption.
33. Up to five hens are crowded into a cage with floor space hardly larger than a record-cover, for their entire life-time.
34. Many factory-farmed animals never see a blade of grass in their lifetime.
35. In the egg industry, male chicks are considered useless so are often thrown into a grinding machine- ALIVE!
36. Animals raised for food production are nearly always deprived of natural sexual, social, hygienic, and parental behaviors.
37. Reason for veal’s light color and tender texture: Veal calves are force-fed an iron-deficient, anemia-producing diet devoid of solid foods.
38. Bulls raised for meat-production are routinely castrated without any type of anesthesia or pain-killers.
39. The slaughtering process is inhumane. When the animals are stunned before they are slaughtered, it is not always reliable and the animals are in pain as they move towards their death.
40. For each quarter-pound fast food hamburger sold that came from cattle raised on former rainforest land, 55 square feet of rainforest was destroyed.
41. A lot more water is required in animal agriculture than in plant agriculture. It takes only about 25 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat and around 390 gallons to produce just one pound of beef. In fact, it takes less water to produce the food that a pure vegetarian needs for one year than to produce the food that a meat eater needs for a month.
42. Animal production requires a lot of fossil fuels. Fuels are needed to transport animal feed, to heat their housing, and to take the animals to slaughter, meat packing plants, and grocery stores. The burning of these fuels, as well as methane produced by the animals, is one cause of global warming.
43. Pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers used in the production of animals’ feed pollute land and water.
44. Many plants and animals become extinct due to the destruction of land.
45. 60 million people will starve to death this year - 60 million people could be adequately fed by the grain saved if Americans reduced their intake of meat by 10 percent.