At the age of 16, I became a vegetarian. It was a time when my consciousness was awakening to both animal rights and ecological issues. I also had trouble digesting meat as a child and had naturally avoided it.
My daughter chose to be a vegetarian around the age of five. Prior to that, she was allowed to eat fish if it was available. Why she made this choice is for her own personal reasons. I did not preach my dogma to her, but I am sure my lifestyle choices and values influenced her.
Yesterday, I was sent this graphic demonstrating that “raising of animals for food & their consumption by humans takes a serious toll on the environment”.
Infographic by CulinarySchools.org
I am not a vegan, but I do not eat a lot of dairy. We have to do what feels right for our bodies, as well as consider our impact on the planet. With the growing population on Earth and the resources needed to feed us, a diet that is more vegetarian than not becomes necessity.
I think children should be educated on the above information in order that they can make their own decisions.
Unfortunately the chart is misleading. Those numbers are based on factory farmed animals and not organic, pastured. A farm like polyface in virginia actually builds topsoil whereas a vegetarian’s soybeans and wheat uses fossil fuel fertilizers and strips the earth of top soil. a worthwhile read is “the vegetarian myth” by lierre keith. I was vegan for a while and haven’t eaten red meat in over 20 years. we could all use to lower our consumption of meat but a vegetarian diet is not the savior to the earth. we need animals and their manure, bones, etc. as fertilizer to get off fossil fuels which will be gone all too soon and causing run off pollution into the ocean causing major dead zones. a very interesting and controversial topic here.
Thank you for such a thoughtful comment!
I am a dentist, but I am not a vegetarian.
In my dental cases, I find that the people’s teeth who eat more vegatables are much better than those who eat more meat.
This is another reason