What would happen if everyone went vegan?

What would happen if everyone went vegan?

The idea of everyone adopting a vegan diet might sound extreme, but in the last few years, the number of Britons following a plant-based diet has risen significantly. There are at least 600,000 vegans in the UK — although some sources put this figure nearer 2.7 million — while nearly 40 per cent of meat eaters say they’ve reduced the amount of meat they consume.

You can see this growing interest in vegetarianism and vegan diets all around us. From the explosion of dairy-free ‘milk’ alternatives on supermarket shelves to vegan options on menus – or even entirely vegan restaurants. What was once a more niche lifestyle choice is becoming increasingly mainstream.

For scientists, policymakers and economists, the idea of a vegan future is especially interesting – with one of the biggest drivers being the environment. Keep scrolling to get further information about vegan in https://thevegangarden.com/.

How does food affect greenhouse gases?

Your fridge might seem an unlikely setting for the fight against global warming, but did you know that food is responsible for a third of all manmade greenhouse gas emissions? What’s more, meat and dairy make up nearly 60 per cent of that carbon footprint.

The UN says that global farmed livestock accounts for roughly 11 per cent of all manmade greenhouse gas emissions (with methane from cows a surprisingly big culprit). But according to new research published in the journal Climate, if we all went vegan, the world’s food-related CO2 emissions may drop by 68 per cent within 15 years, The move, which the study’s authors admit is hypothetical, would also provide the cut in emissions needed to limit global warming to 2ºC.

However, going vegan is not the only way to reduce food-related greenhouse gasses. Regenerative farming improves soil health on a farm by diversifying the types of crops grown and integrating them with animals. For example, a farmer could graze cows or sheep on a field for one year, making use of their natural fertiliser while also giving the soil a rest.

The Soil Association says healthy soil can capture and store more carbon than degraded soil; around two tonnes more carbon in every football pitch-sized patch of farmland. The idea is gaining popularity – in 2021, the UK government announced plans to subsidise farmers up to £70 per hectare if they adopt regenerative agriculture techniques.

So, going vegan may be better for the planet but there are other ways to tackle carbon emissions and global warming that don’t mean cutting out meat and dairy.

What would happen if everyone went vegan?

Is a vegan diet healthy?

We know Western diets are linked to many health problems including heart disease, diabetes and obesity. In 2015, the World Health Organisation even categorised processed meat such as bacon as carcinogenic, along with asbestos, alcohol and arsenic. This might suggest that switching to a more plant-focused diet may be good for you as well as the planet.

An increasing amount of evidence shows the health benefits of eating more plant-focused foods, such as a reduced risk of dying from heart disease, fewer cases of type 2 diabetes and a lower risk of some cancers. A 2018 study by University of Oxford even concluded that switching to a plant-based diet could save up to eight million lives worldwide.

However, being vegan doesn’t necessarily mean you’re eating healthily. Some vegan products contain a lot of coconut oil, for example, which is high in saturated fat. The rise in vegan junk food, like burgers, ‘fish’ and chips, or sausage rolls, could also be fooling you into believing these foods are healthy. In fact, many are high in calories but lacking in essential nutrients, or are packed with salt and sugar.

Vegan diets may also miss out on vital vitamins and minerals, as they’re naturally low in calcium, vitamin D, iron, vitamin B12, zinc and omega-3 fatty acids. If you are vegan, it’s important to eat plenty of plant proteins from beans, lentils, chickpeas, tofu, and soya versions of ‘milk’ and yogurt to help boost your intake of those nutrients.

Peanuts are also a good vegan source of protein, while other nuts and seeds can provide minerals such as zinc and selenium – cashews, pistachios, flaxseeds, chia or pumpkin seeds are particularly valuable. Quinoa and buckwheat are often called pseudo-grains but are in fact seeds; quinoa is especially useful for vegans because it contains all of the 9 essential amino acids that we need for growth and repair.

It’s easy to follow a balanced diet as a vegan but you need to be aware of what – and how much – you’re eating: good advice for omnivores and herbivores alike.

Can going vegan reduce food shortages?

Would a vegan future make food poverty history? If it’s about freeing up space and resources for growing food, there is some evidence to back this up.

A meat-eater’s diet requires 17 times more land, 14 times more water and 10 times more energy than a vegetarian’s, according to research published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. This is principally because we use a large proportion of the world’s land for growing crops to feed livestock instead of humans – of the world’s approximately five billion hectares of agricultural land, 77 per cent is used for livestock.

This squeeze on resources is only set to intensify. In 50 years, the UN predicts there will be 10.5 billion people on the planet (the current world population is around 8 billion). To feed us all, we need to grow food more sustainably.

One of the counterarguments against this vegan solution is that some grazing land isn’t suitable for growing crops. That’s certainly true, but there’s actually a bigger problem with eradicating world hunger. Right now, we already produce enough calories to comfortably feed everyone on the planet, but more than 820 million people may still not get enough food.

In other words, having enough to eat is as much about politics and big business as it is about dietary choices, so there’s nothing to say that hunger would be a thing of the past in a vegan world.

Where would all the animals go?

If we no longer bred farm animals, what would happen? Would they become extinct? Would they overrun the planet?
Billions of farm animals would no longer be destined for our dinner plates and if we couldn’t return them to the wild, they might be slaughtered, abandoned, or taken care of in sanctuaries. Or, more realistically, farmers might slow down breeding as demand for meat falls.

Farm animals are bred far more intensively than they reproduce in the wild. As with all wildlife, any returned animal populations would fluctuate and eventually reach a balance, depending on predators and available resources in the wild.

It’s worth noting that not all livestock could simply ‘go free’. Some farm breeds, such as broiler chickens, are now so far removed from their ancestors that they couldn’t survive in the wild. Others, like pigs and sheep, could feasibly return to woodlands and grazing pastures, and find their own natural population levels.

On top of that, even if we stopped eating animals, our ongoing destruction of wild habitats would still reduce their numbers. As always with nature, it’s a question of balance.

Vegan on a budget

Vegan on a budget

Shopping for a balanced vegan diet doesn’t have to be any more expensive than shopping for a non-vegan diet. With our tips and your creativity, you may even find yourself saving money. Check our website https://thevegangarden.com/ ‘Vegan on a budget’ blog too, which includes ideas and recipes for living on a budget as well as how to help vegans who are struggling financially.

Vegan on a budget

Get creative

A majority of healthy vegan meals use the ingredients that you should already have in your cupboards and that most supermarkets offer as less expensive own-brand versions, including:

  • tinned beans and dried pulses of various kinds
  • vegetables (particularly seasonal ones)
  • potatoes
  • egg-free pasta and noodles
  • rice
  • bread (wholemeal is ideal from a health point of view)
  • dried herbs and spices
  • seasonal fruit
  • soya mince

These ingredients may not sound hugely exciting on their own but can be used to make a wide variety of dishes such as chillis, curries, stir fries, wraps or pasta dishes, so it’s possible to enjoy plenty of variety too.

Supermarket staples

Branded staples such as soya/nut milk and vegan-suitable margarine are similar in price to their dairy equivalents. However, supermarkets normally also offer their own brand plant-based milks, which are often cheaper than the own brand dairy equivalents.

Frozen veggie burgers, sausages and mince are often fairly inexpensive; particularly supermarket own-brand products (check the labels before buying though, as not all ‘veggie’ products are vegan and many contain egg).

Some supermarkets also offer dried veggie packet mixes (found near the seasonings and other dried pulses) for foods such as burgers and sausages, that you can happily experiment with. A packet of burger mix can be turned into ‘meatballs’ and tossed in tomato sauce to be eaten with spaghetti. Alternatively, a sausage packet mix can be rolled in some puff pastry (most cheap supermarket own-brands are vegan) and you can create vegan sausage rolls in no time. Perfect for snacking or picnics.

Check the ‘value’ products

Quite often products in low-budget supermarket ranges are vegan when their more expensive equivalents are not; for example, cheaper products that are made with vegetable oil or margarine when the more expensive ones use butter. Things like apple pies, garlic bread, dark chocolate and fruit crumble have been spotted as vegan ‘value’ versions in various supermarkets. If you take a minute to check the ingredients, you might be pleasantly surprised to find that it’s vegan.

‘Reduced’ produce

If you fancy cooking up a spontaneous meal, search your local shops for fruit and vegetable in the ‘reduced’ section and consider what you can make with them. You never know where your creativity will take you. If they’ve only been reduced by 20p or are still relatively expensive, then it might be worth giving them a miss, as you’d only be saving a small amount.

If you visit supermarkets and shops near closing time, you can often benefit from dramatically reduced prices on bakery and fresh produce. You can find anything from bargain bread buns to puff pastry and pots of houmous that are practically being giving away for pennies. Items such as pastry and bread can be put in the freezer and defrosted later to last the entire week.

Special occasions and deals

In many health stores you can find ‘specialist’ products such as vegan cheese or vegan meat equivalents, that are great if you’re craving such foods. Their costs may run a little higher than the supermarket own brands, but if you find them on offer (larger health stores such as Holland and Barrett offer some great deals), you can work them into a tighter budget.

Health-wise it’s better to view these as occasional additions to your diet rather than staple foods. This doesn’t mean a vegan diet is ‘expensive’ – if you based a non-vegan diet on expensive cheeses and cuts of meat, the costs would soon add up too!

Freeze and reheat

If you have access to a freezer, you can make up several portions of a curry, chilli or casserole with a big bag of supermarket ‘basics’ vegetables or potatoes – and freeze them. This is much cheaper than buying ready meals and is also convenient ie. just heat up a meal in the microwave if you don’t have time to cook.

Frozen vegetables can sometimes be cheaper than fresh – for example frozen peppers, broccoli or spinach – and taste just as good. They also keep for longer, meaning you don’t end up throwing any away.

Discovering cheap fruit and berries at local markets is great, but they may be nearing the end of their shelf-life. A quick and easy way to keep them fresh and edible is to wash, chop and freeze them. This means that they last a long time and are ready to be whizzed into smoothies whenever you want them. Also, if you find cheap bananas they can make a fantastic ice cream when frozen and blended.

Leftovers for lunch

If you can, make extra of your evening meal and use the remainder as a packed lunch the next day. It’s usually cheaper and more convenient than buying lunch when you’re out. Plus you’ll know it will taste good! If you get in to the habit of making extra and freezing it, you should have plenty of choice of what to eat the next day.

Explore new shops and markets

If you have shops near you specialising in food from other countries, go in and explore. You might find that some ingredients are cheaper there than in supermarkets. One example is tofu, which is normally a lot cheaper from Chinese supermarkets than from other shops. You can often find interesting noodles, cooking sauces and other ingredients too.

As we mentioned before, markets can be a good way of finding fresh produce for less than supermarket prices. If your local market has cheap vegetables on offer, try making them into a hearty, healthy soup and freezing it in portions.

Buy what you need

Food waste is a big problem in the UK and we can help combat that problem by only buying what we need. If you have spare fresh ingredients, see if it’s possible to freeze them for later. Some vegetables such as peppers and spinach or even tofu can be cooked up into spare portions of curry, chilli, soup or pasta sauce to be frozen and eaten another time.

Make a list and stick to it

We’re writing a list, we’re checking it twice! Lists are a good idea, particularly if you find yourself buying things that you don’t manage to eat in time, or if you get distracted and tend to impulse-buy products on your shopping trip.  If you plan your week’s meals, then write a list and only buy what’s on your list – and you’re less likely to overspend.

Don’t go food shopping when you’re hungry

You may have heard this before, but it’s true. It is much easier to resist non-essential food purchases when you’re not already hungry… after all, do you really NEED those vegan chocolate truffles?

Why Go Vegan? The top reasons explained

Why Go Vegan? The top reasons explained

Why go vegan? The elevator pitch laying out the best reasons crams several compelling points into just a few seconds. It goes something like this:

A vegan lifestyle prevents a tremendous amount of animal slaughter and suffering. It offers a potent way to shrink our environmental footprint, especially in regard to climate change. And a well-planned vegan diet can fuel the highest levels of fitness, while reducing our risk of various chronic diseases. Plus, the food is insanely delicious and it becomes more plentiful every year.

The above sentences get us off to a nice start, but they don’t begin to do the subject justice. Indeed, getting up to speed on every important reason to go vegan would require months of reading. You’d have to explore topics like plant-based nutrition, animal rights philosophy, and the exploitation of slaughterhouse workers. You’d also need to delve into the damage the meat industry inflicts on human health and the environment. There are dozens of other relevant subjects to explore, but you get the idea.

That said, we have to start somewhere. Learning the essentials doesn’t take long. This essay explains the strongest reasons to go vegan, and you can finish it in under an hour.

As we’re about to see, ridding your diet of animal products delivers remarkable benefits. You may never encounter a topic more worthy of your attention.

Defining a Vegan Diet

Vegan diets exclude all foods produced by or derived from animals: meat, fish, dairy products, eggs, and honey. Conversely, you can define veganism as a diet based entirely on plants.

Many vegans go beyond diet to remove animal exploitation from their entire lifestyle. They’ll avoid clothing made of wool and won’t buy leather furniture. Nor will they visit zoos or purchase cosmetics tested on animals. While such steps deserve consideration, to keep this essay concise I will focus entirely on diet.

Why Go Vegan? The top reasons explained

The Virtues of Plant-Based Diets

Even if this essay doesn’t persuade you to go vegan, it may inspire you to gravitate toward a “plant-based” diet. While vegan diets exclude all animal products, plant-based diets offer some wiggle room. If you see the appeal of going vegan but don’t feel gung ho about it, plant-based diets offer an easily-reached middle ground.

Pretty much every food politics writer worth taking seriously—including Michael Pollan, Mark Bittman, and Eric Schlosser—advocates diets based heavily on plants. All it takes to go plant-based is to make a point of eating vegan foods whenever convenient. You can follow a primarily plant-based diet and still eat Thanksgiving turkey or a summer barbecue.

Perhaps the best reason to go plant-based relates to the lack of a sensible counterargument. In all my years writing about food politics, I’ve never once seen anyone (other than a few paleo diet fanatics) deny the advantages of eating mostly plants. Eating more fruits and vegetables can significantly reduce risk of chronic disease. And of course, plant-based diets also keep farm animals from slaughter, while simultaneously protecting the environment.

Shifting to a plant-based diet often initiates a virtuous cycle. By eating plant-based, you’ll inevitably discover one healthy and delicious food after another. And that will in turn trigger a cascade of positive dietary changes.

The Joy of Exploring Plant-Based Foods

All it takes to eat plant-based is to regularly try new vegan foods. Inevitably, you’ll discover delicious possibilities that will become part of your everyday diet. So, as time goes by, your diet will become dominated by vegan foods without any concerted effort on your part. Plenty of current vegans transitioned by sliding down the plant-based slope.

A number of cute neologisms can inspire easy-yet-meaningful commitments: reducetarian, flexitarian, chegan, plant-strong, and even veganish. If any of these terms resonates with you, just grab ahold of it and start thinking along those lines.

Several other related concepts might also encourage you to eat more plant-based meals, including: Meatless Mondays, Mark Bittman’s Vegan Before 6:00 plan, or trying out a vegan diet for a week or a month.

Why Go Beyond Plant-Based?

Plant-based diets make all kinds of sense, but let’s also consider the advantages of going further and becoming vegan. When you eat vegan, you slam the door shut on countless disagreeable things—especially animal suffering.

Animal Cruelty in Agribusiness

Like vegans, most meat eaters recoil from animal cruelty and consider it abhorrent. Unfortunately, extraordinary cruelties occur throughout the meat, dairy and egg industries. And slaughterhouses—even the few that adhere to the best standards—are invariably horrifying.

Countless vegans spent decades blissfully devouring meat and other animal products until, one day, they encountered a slaughterhouse video. Just a minute or two spent watching any of these videos can inspire lifelong dietary change.

Writing cannot adequately convey the horrors of industrialized animal slaughter—the more detailed and accurate the written description, the more overwrought and implausible it sounds. So to truly understand what happens at slaughterhouses, you must actually witness the killing, rather than merely read about it.

Most slaughterhouses kill and butcher animals at breakneck speeds. One Tyson Foods facility in Indiana produces three million pounds of pork every day.  YouTube hosts dozens of videos showing the slaughter of every type of farm animal. Many people can only last a few seconds before turning away. But what happens to animals is right there for everyone to see, for anyone willing to look. If we’re going to eat meat, don’t we each share an ethical obligation to see for ourselves how it’s produced?

If you oppose violence, a vegan lifestyle deserves your careful consideration. Nothing that follows can adequately describe the realities of a slaughterhouse, but I can at least lay out the essentials. Cows, pigs, and chickens are each slaughtered using different methods. We’ll start by considering how these animals are stunned prior to slaughter.

Cattle and Pig Stunning

When a beef or dairy cow steps onto the kill floor, a worker puts a captive bolt pistol to the animal’s forehead. The trigger pulled, a steel rod shoots through her skull, instantly inflicting a massive brain injury. A chain then hoists the cow into the air, and another worker cuts her throat. Over the following minutes she bleeds out as her still-pumping heart gushes blood onto the floor.

Although horrifying to witness, captive bolts are the least inhumane slaughterhouse stunning method.

Some pig slaughterhouses also use captive bolts, but many instead knock the animals out with carbon dioxide, a gratuitously inhumane practice. Videos taken at these facilities show panicked pigs desperately trying to push their snouts out of the carbon dioxide chamber to breathe fresh air. Still other pig slaughterhouses jolt the pigs with electricity, which raises the question of whether the stunning adds to rather than diminishes total suffering.

Poultry Stunning

Chicken slaughter is especially heartless. Chicken producers say they stun their birds prior to slaughter, but they don’t, really. Their so-called “stunning” is actually done to speed up slaughter, and probably only compounds the birds’ misery. Let’s take a step back to look at what’s really going on.

In the United States, chickens are exempt from the Humane Slaughter Act. Anything goes, and the industry has no worries about facing cruelty prosecutions. The birds are hung upside down, with their feet inserted into steel shackles. They then whiz down the line at rates of at least 175 birds a minute. At three birds a second, chickens come down the line far too quickly for workers to be able to cut throats by hand, so it’s all done mechanically.

So how do you get a panicked, thrashing bird suspended upside down to relax her neck to be in proper position for the mechanical blade? That’s where the slaughterhouse’s “stunning” comes in. Just before reaching the blade, the chicken passes through an electrified water bath. The electric shock stuns the bird momentarily, just long enough for the head to hang limply to expose his throat to the blade.

If, however, the blade misses the neck, the chicken will be fully conscious a couple minutes later when he’s dropped into a tank of scalding water used to remove feathers from the carcasses of freshly-killed birds. Considering producers kill tens of billions of chickens a year worldwide, no doubt millions of these birds have scalded to death after a botched slaughter.

Kosher Slaughterhouses Don’t Stun

Not every farm animal is stunned prior to slaughter. Kosher and halal slaughterhouses refrain from stunning, since scripture requires the animals bleed out while fully conscious. This entails all sorts of deeply disturbing slaughterhouse practices, as one hidden camera investigation after another has revealed.

Whether or not animals are stunned, the underlying reality remains constant: all meat comes from animals who arrived at the slaughterhouse desperately wanting to live. When unloaded from the trucks, every cow or pig invariably looks frantically about, seeking a direction to scramble to safety. But their only path forward leads to the blade.

I can’t say it any better than I did in my first book: “I have to believe the knife is as sharp to them as it is to us.”

The Fate of Layer Hens and Dairy Cows

Meat obviously necessitates slaughter, but so does milk and eggs. The only difference is that meat comes from animals who have been killed, whereas milk and eggs come from animals who will be killed, guaranteed

Why slaughter perfectly healthy dairy cows and layer hens, who still have many years left to live? Because, as these animals age, their output sharply diminishes. By roughly one-third of their natural lifespan, milk and egg yields decline sufficiently to render the animals unprofitable. So they are killed and replaced by younger, more productive animals.

Slaughter methods for “spent” hens are especially troubling since the flesh is of low value or outright unsalable. Egg farms “depopulate” their hen-houses in particularly grisly ways, sometimes even asphyxiating the birds by spraying them with the sort of oxygen-absorbing foam found in fire extinguishers.

Crowding, Confinement, and Cruelty

As unsettling as slaughter is to contemplate, it’s only the starting point for considering the ethical issues surrounding animal agriculture. Most of the suffering that arises from meat, dairy, and egg production relates to how the animals are raised rather than how they are killed.

I know that thinking about animal suffering is extraordinarily unpleasant. It’s only natural to want to tune out the gory details. If you find yourself especially troubled by hearing about this awful stuff, perhaps that right there is the best reason of all to move towards a vegan diet.

As we’re about to see, factory farms carry out a multitude of indefensible cruelties. Each year, about 50 billion farm animals are subjected to the conditions I’m about to describe.

The Inhumanity of Factory Farming

Animal advocates use the term, “factory farming” to refer to the dominant methods of animal production used in industrialized countries. While there are important differences between how cattle, pigs, and poultry are kept, most of these animals are raised at factory farms.

Prior to World War II, farm animals lived under comparatively good conditions on small, family-owned farms. They typically received reasonable amounts of space. And most had at least some access to sunlight and fresh air. So, they enjoyed largely acceptable conditions even if their lives were destined to be violently cut short. Farmers of that era didn’t provide this level of care out of the goodness of their heartsthey did it because mortality rates spiked to unprofitable levels when their animals’ basic living needs weren’t met.

The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl era ushered in massive changes to America’s system of agriculture. Land grant agriculture colleges across the United States pioneered new methods of farming both crops and animals. Starting in the 1930s, these colleges began teaching farming with the same rigor applied to scientific disciplines. And as a new generation of farmers studied subjects like chemistry and biology, everything about plant and animal farming changed.

The petrochemical-based “Green Revolution” that occurred from the 1930s to the 1960s unleashed massively increased crop yields. Standards of living improved worldwide while surging agriculture production probably averted numerous famines. But within animal agriculture, the new farming methods pioneered during this period brought animal suffering to unconscionable extremes.

Meat, Milk, and Eggs Get Cheaper than Ever

The gigantic facilities that replaced small poultry and livestock operations are called CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) by industry, and factory farms by activists. Factory farming created efficiencies that significantly decreased the price of animal products. People responded by eating more meat, milk, and eggs than ever before—while animal welfare standards simultaneously collapsed.

As meat, dairy, and egg production switched to factory farms, only facilities that slashed costs to the bare minimum could survive. Starting in the 1930s and continuing for more than a half century, thousands of meat, dairy, and egg producers went bust every year.

The dairy industry offers a prime example of the relentless financial pressure that farmers face. Between 1980 and 2020, the number of U.S. farms with at least ten dairy cows dropped by about 75 percent. In 2017, one regional dairy cooperative sent out suicide prevention letters after two of its members killed themselves.

To stay afloat financially, meat, dairy, and egg producers cut expenses wherever possible. That means packing more animals into tighter spaces than ever before.

Crowding at Factory Farms

No farming cruelty exceeds those carried out by the egg industry. In countries and states that haven’t yet outlawed the practice, egg farms keep their hens in “battery cages” that provide less floor space per bird than a sheet of printer paper. These cages are too small to allow the hens normal movement or even to spread their wings. Worse yet, the flooring of these cages is crisscrossed wire. The hens sleep pressed against this wire, commonly developing open sores and extensive bruising, and never enjoy a moment of comfort.

They stay confined with four or five other hens in this cage for the rest of their lives. And each egg they lay robs their skeleton of more calcium. One survey of “spent hens” revealed 85 percent have at least one broken bone.

Pigs are likewise kept under appalling living conditions. Breeder sows have it especially bad, and often spend their entire lives in gestation and farrowing crates. Standard crates impede any sort of normal movement. In fact, they are so narrow that the sow lacks sufficient space to turn around.

What about cows and cattle? Whether in person or in movies, we’ve all seen cows grazing scenic hillsides. Beef cattle are the only farm animals that nearly always live the majority of their lives outdoors. Some dairy cows also spend much of their lives outdoors. But many dairies  intensively confine their cows for their entire lives, and never let them outdoors to graze.

Although they graze freely outdoors for the first part of their lives, beef cattle are invariably “finished” at feedlots. There, they live out their final three or four months crowded onto filthy, barren plots of land.

One such feedlot is the notorious Harris Ranch that’s adjacent to Interstate 5 in Southern California. Having driven this stretch of Interstate countless times, I have often smelled the stench of the feedlot from several kilometers away. The feedlot covers a vast expanse of land, with long stretches crammed with animals amassed on black manure-coated earth. If you’ve seen one feedlot you’ve seen them all. Any large feedlot is indistinguishable from what you can see at Harris Ranch.

Conditions are comparably dreadful at many dairy farms. There are two kinds of confinement-oriented dairies. One kind keeps the cows under roofing, and chained in stalls. The other kind is nearly indistinguishable from beef feedlots, with the cows fenced onto land coated with blackened trampled manure.

Intensively confined dairy cows have no opportunity to graze pasture, and are instead fed silage out of troughs. Twice a day, they’re herded indoors and hooked up to milking machines.

Mutilations at Factory Farms

Just as bullying and violence pervades poorly run schools and prisons, the same is true at factory farms. Extreme crowding incites aggressive behavior. The problem goes away if you provide adequate living space, but that’s an expensive remedy. Factory farms instead mutilate the animals in a variety of ways in order to keep them from injuring one another.

Pigs raised in crowded pens are apt to bite each others’ tails. Workers therefore cut the tails down to the nub and clip their “needle teeth.” While they’re at it, they also cut notches out of the animals’ ears for identification purposes.

Hens crammed into battery cages sometimes peck each other to death. So egg producers use a hot blade to sear off the pointy final third of their beaks—reducing the chances that a peck can draw blood. While a beak may appear woody on the outside, the hen’s mouth lies inside and is full of nerve endings. So beak searing entails a partial (and no doubt excruciatingly painful) amputation of the bird’s mouth. Some hens die after beak searing renders them unable to drink or eat.

In order to improve beef tenderness and also eliminate the “boar taint” stench in pork, male calves and piglets are castrated. I’ll spare you the details of how this is done, but interested readers can read this article or watch this video.

Unlike pigs and chickens, stressed out cattle don’t commonly attack one another. But ranchers do brand their cattle with a hot iron to prove ownership at auction. Some ranchers use a frozen iron that is just as permanent and probably just as cruel. At dairies, some farmers cut off their cows’ tails so they don’t interfere during milking.

Each of these mutilations, including castration, typically occurs without anesthesia. A local anesthetic would greatly reduce pain, but factory farm owners regard even the cheapest pain killers as prohibitively expensive.

Selective Breeding

Even when raised in good environments, farm animals commonly suffer painful health problems. That’s because decades of selective breeding have boosted egg output, milk yields, and muscle growth to staggering extremes. These breeding advances dramatically improve efficiency, but the animals pay a terrible price.

Early Deaths in Meat Chickens

No animal is more genetically revved up than chickens, and none suffers more as a result. Chickens raised for meat grow more than four times faster than birds raised in the 1950s. This rapid growth severely strains the birds’ cardiovascular system, and up to 4 percent of birds die from “sudden death syndrome.” Animal welfare organization Open Cages estimates that, in the UK alone, growth-related maladies prematurely kill more a million chickens every week.

Additionally, many chickens suffer from debilitating hip and leg problems brought on by their unnaturally fast growth. One large study found that more than 25 percent of meat chickens have trouble moving, with nearly 4 percent, “almost unable to walk.” Unable to access food or water, they die of thirst or starve to death. No one notices their plight or pauses to provide care—time is money, and chickens who will die anyway aren’t worth the attention.

Egg Industry Cruelties

Specialized facilities called hatcheries churn out the billions of chicks a year for the poultry industry. At hatcheries servicing egg companies, one unwanted male chick hatches for every female chick. These males are useless to the industry, as they aren’t of the breed that can grow profitably for meat. At some of these hatcheries the male chicks are tossed into garbage cans and left to smother. At others, newly-hatched males are ground up alive. In the United States alone, hatcheries kill about 200 million male chicks every year.

Just like every human pregnancy carries risk, complications can arise every time a hen lays an egg. Thanks to selective breeding programs, today’s hens lay far more eggs, and consequently face far more chances for something to go wrong. One common complication during egg laying is a “prolapse.” Here, the egg adheres to the hen’s internal organs, which will get pushed out during laying along with the egg.

Nearly all hens afflicted with a severe prolapse will suffer a lingering death from blood loss or infection. If they’re lucky, they’ll be noticed and discarded atop a pile of dead hens. But in most cases, they take their dying breaths trampled by cage-mates while lying pressed against their cage’s wire floor. In the United States alone, millions of hens die like this each year as a result of prolapses and other conditions.

Mastitis in Dairy Cows

Dairy cows likewise suffer numerous maladies brought on by selective breeding. Today’s cows may look the same as yesterday’s, but they produce over four times more milk per animal than did cows from 1950. These extreme milk yields cause a variety of health problems, the most common of which is an infection of the udders known as mastitis. Udder infections dramatically increase the number of “somatic cells” in milk. Laypeople have a more plainspoken word for somatic cells. That word is “pus.”

Thanks to their unprecedented milk yields, mastitis is pervasive among dairy cows. So if you want to ensure your milk contains no pus, you must choose a plant-based variety like soy milk.

Undercover Farming Videos

I’ve written two books that examine farm animal welfare standards. Writing them convinced me that words cannot do justice to the topic. In order to truly grasp what the animals experience, you really must visit factory farms yourself. Of course, factory farm owners don’t want the public to witness what’s going on. Most of these places therefore forbid visitors. Thankfully, the world has people like my friend Cody Carlson.

Cody switched to a vegan diet at age nineteen. A few years later, he took a job at a large dairy farm in Upstate New York. He worked there for a month, then left to work in a pig-breeding facility in Pennsylvania. After that gig ended, he got jobs at two different egg farms. Cody’s choice of diet was not the only thing that set him apart from his coworkers. The other difference was that, each day when Cody arrived at the job, he wore a hidden camera.

What happens when you take people who lack decent employment opportunities, pay them a pittance, and put them in stressful work environments with minimal supervision? All too often, they take out their frustrations on the animals. The atrocities that undercover investigators like Cody have uncovered at factory farms are endless. I’ve seen videos showing turkeys being sexually violated. I’ve witnessed mother cows punched in the face. I’ve watched animals kicked, jabbed with pitchforks, and laughed at while bleeding to death. I’ve even seen a worker strike a defenseless calf between the eyes with a pickaxe—on the orders of his boss. And all of this barely touches on the things that I’ve seen. I could go on and on with more examples.

Few jobs are as traumatizing as that of an undercover animal cruelty investigator. Yet many activists have stepped up to do this work. They’ve collectively shot hidden-camera videos at every type of animal farm, from chicken hatcheries to cattle feedlots to pig farms. Still other undercover investigators have taken jobs at slaughterhouses and fishing boats. No matter where these investigators show up, staggering cruelties reveal themselves.

YouTube hosts a vast assortment of undercover videos that expose the poultry and livestock industries’ unending cruelties. One video after another captures appalling conditions and sadistic behavior by workers.

Typically, whenever a new undercover video goes public, the guilty company clutches its pearls and promptly fires the workers caught abusing animals. While these firings are invariably well-deserved, they conveniently shift blame away from ownership. Yet the root of the problem is not with any individual worker. It’s invariably management that allows or even encourages these cruelties. Factory farms are owned and operated by people willing to inflict unfathomable suffering onto animals for the sake of cutting costs.

Mass Casualty Events

Not every farm animal dies in a slaughterhouse. Millions each year die accidentally or deliberately in mass casualty events. These include barn fires, sinking ships, and ventilation shutdowns.

Fires. Poultry barns are so densely stocked that just one fire can kill more than 100,000 birds. The Animal Welfare Institute calculated that fires killed more than 1.4 million farm animals in 2020 alone. That year, 300,000 birds died in one Michigan blaze. In 2022, a fire at a Minnesota egg farm killed 200,000 hens.

Sinking Ships.
 Just as chicken and livestock barns are prone to burst into flames, massive ships crammed with livestock commonly sink to the bottom of the ocean. In June of 2022, more than 15,000 sheep perished when an overladen transport ship bound for Saudi Arabia capsized. In 2020, a transport ship bound for Japan sank during a typhoon, drowning 6000 cattle and 40 crew members. In 2019, another transport ship overturned, and initially more than 13,000 sheep were believed to have drowned. It later emerged that the ship had secret decks installed that likely contributed to its capsizing, and that thousands more sheep perished than originally thought.

Ventilation Shutdown. When avian influenza outbreaks occur, authorities commonly order the immediate killing of every bird in the region. A worldwide avian influenza outbreak during the winter of 2021-22 caused the culling of 77 million chickens worldwide, including 38 million birds in the United States alone. To minimize labor costs, farmers often employ a shockingly barbaric killing method known as ventilation shutdown. Here, all ventilation is cut off, temperatures spike, and the animals cook to death. It’s like killing dogs by locking them in a car during a heat wave, only crueler, since the animals usually take three to four hours to die. Some farmers wheel propane heaters into the barns to hasten death.

Ventilation shutdowns were also used to kill thousands of pigs in 2020, when supply chain breakdowns arising from the COVID pandemic rendered farmers unable to transport animals to slaughter.

All the Edges Rough

Factory farms minimize expenses at every opportunity. These efforts play out in all sorts of distressing ways. No matter where in the system an animal may be, agonies and discomforts suffuse every moment. There is not one softer corner, nothing without an edge, no flicker of respite.

This essay is intended to be read in one sitting, and therefore lacks space to adequately explore the endless cruelties that occur within animal agribusiness. I haven’t room to talk about what happens to the hundreds of thousands of pigs and cattle injured during transport, who arrive at the slaughterhouse unable to walk. Nor can we linger here on the experiences of the dairy cows who watch their newborns taken away just a day or two after birth. We likewise lack space to reflect on the runt piglets who fail to grow profitably, and who are killed by having their heads slammed against concrete. No book and certainly no essay can do the topic justice. Factory farms inflict every variety of torment onto the tens of billions of animals in their care.

How do Vegan Diets Protect the Environment?

Vegan diets carry a number of environmental and public health advantages. These include:

  • Eliminating irresponsible veterinary antibiotic use.
  • Enabling more people to be fed using less farmland.
  • Substantially reducing air and water pollution, as well as methane emissions that contribute to climate change.

Let’s now look into each of these topics.

Antibiotic Use at Animal Farms

Factory farming imposes all sorts of massive hidden costs onto society. One of the greatest of these involves its constant incubation of new strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

The meat and pharmaceutical industries share a common interest. Meat producers want unfettered access to huge quantities of antibiotics, while pharmaceutical companies want the cash these sales generate. When added to animal feed, antibiotics significantly boost growth rates while reducing diseases associated with stress and overcrowding. So big meat and big pharma have teamed up to lobby the government to allow these antibiotic sales to continue, at great detriment to the public health.

Roughly 70 percent of the United States’ antibiotic supply is consumed by farm animals. This percentage has been steadily increasing for years. Worldwide, the meat and dairy industries combine to use more than 100,000 tons of antibiotics per year.  Many of these antibiotics, like penicillin and tetracyclines, have irreplaceable uses in human medicine.

Confining thousands of animals in one space and dosing them all with antibiotics inevitably increases microbial resistance. This in turn renders important classes of antibiotics ineffective for urgent human medical needs. It’s difficult to definitively link the emergence of a lethal strain of antibiotic-resistant bacteria to a particular animal farm. But no little doubt that meat production is associated with deadly bacteria like the MRSA superbug. A 2018 report from the Environmental Working Group found antibiotic-resistant bacteria contaminating the majority of beef, pork, and turkey samples.

Eating with the Planet in Mind

Written by Frances Moore Lappé in 1971, Diet for a Small Planet was the most influential food politics book of its generation. Through her writing, Lappé awakened the public to the merits of eating lower on the food chain. That means basing your diet primarily on plants, rather than on animals who in turn eat plants. Diet for a Small Planet was the first bestseller to explore how plant-based diets can shrink your environmental footprint.

Lappé revealed the extraordinarily inefficiencies connected to animal farming. She documented how feeding grain to poultry and livestock wastes tremendous amounts of food energy, protein, and other nutrients. On a planet racked by crop failures and famine, Lappé argued that it’s depraved to squander our food resources on meat production. Decades of subsequent research confirms the book’s thesis. For instance, a 2018 study determined that replacing all meat, dairy products, and eggs with vegan choices could feed an additional 350 million people.

Animal Manure and Water Pollution

In addition to its inefficient use of resources, the pollution that factory farms generate is a serious menace in its own right.

Cattle, pigs, and chickens produce mountains of manure. Even though this waste makes outstanding fertilizer, its high water content makes manure too heavy and therefore too expensive to truck to distant farmlands to fertilize crops.

So instead of putting it to productive use as fertilizer, factory farms usually get rid of their manure by spraying it onto surrounding fields, often at levels that go far beyond any legitimate need for fertilization. Predictably, this method of disposal tends to foul local water supplies, especially well-water.

Factory farms are often burdened with tons of raw animal waste. During heavy rains, flooding washes this waste into rivers, fouling water supplies downstream. In the United States, much of this runoff ends up in the Gulf of Mexico, with dire consequences. The massive influx of nitrates and phosphates causes algal blooms that create vast oxygen-free “dead zones.” The size and locations of the Gulf’s dead zones vary according to the season and the weather, but average more than 15,000 square kilometers. Whenever these dead zones move into new territory, virtually all fish and other marine life suffocate. The Chesapeake Bay, which is ringed by a large portion of America’s poultry farms, experiences problems comparable to what occurs in the Gulf of Mexico.

Animal Agriculture’s Contribution to Climate Change

Of all the environmental reasons to embrace a plant-based diet, the strongest was unknown until recently. Scientists consider livestock production a leading cause of climate change. The 74 billion farm animals raised worldwide each year collectively spew massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that traps at least thirty times more atmospheric heat than an equal amount of carbon dioxide.

Estimates vary regarding the percentage of climate change attributable to animal agriculture, but a comprehensive United Nations study pegged the industry’s contribution to the problem at about 14.5 percent.

Over the past few decades, improved efficiencies in livestock production have decreased emissions per animal. But regardless, animal agriculture is still a top of greenhouse gas emitter—and is undoubtedly the easiest leading source to curtail. Society can’t do away with gasoline and diesel powered vehicles overnight, nor can we abruptly convert to carbon-free sources of electricity. But switching to a plant-based diet is easy, and can deliver superior nutrition at lower cost. Plant-based diets therefore deserve recognition as the most realistic opportunity to rapidly cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Air Pollution Associated with Animal Agribusiness

Factory farms generate staggering amounts of air pollution, with grave public health consequences.

This hazard is most evident at indoor pig operations. The ammonia vapor generated by pig urine so degrades air quality that many pigs develop lung lesions. On top of that, workers have significantly elevated rates of respiratory problems. Even people living on properties adjacent to pig farms are more likely to develop impaired lung function.

Poultry and cattle production also contribute to the problem. A 2021 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences determined that upwards of 13,000 Americans die each year from air pollution generated by meat, dairy, and egg producers.

Summing Up Factory Farming’s Key Strategies

We’ve covered a lot of ground on the various costs of factory farming. So before we move on, let’s review some key points. Broadly speaking, the industry relies on five strategies to maximize growth and profit, each of which contribute to the harms suffered by society and animals:

  1. Breeding programs. Thanks to a century of selective breeding programs, today’s meat animals grow remarkably quickly. Dairy calves and layer hens produce unprecedented yields of milk and eggs. Output is further boosted through the use of antibiotics and hormones.
  2. Maximizing stocking density. Raising animals in crowded conditions plays a key role in reducing costs. Animals are likewise packed tightly onto trucks or ships when sent to slaughter.
  3. Automation. A variety of technologies and equipment cuts labor costs at every turn. These include milk machines, water dispensers, and feeding animals via conveyor belt. Slaughterhouse lines likewise run at high speeds to maximize productivity.
  4. Exploiting workers. The meat industry has a long history of recruiting foreign undocumented workers who work for low pay, and are unlikely to unionize.
  5. Lobbying. Whether it’s derailing environmental regulations or winning increased USDA subsidies, animal agribusiness lobbyists are adapt at gaining preferential treatment for their industry. In particular, lobbyists have had remarkable success enacting laws that prevent homeowners from suing, no matter how appalling the nuisances that factory farms inflict upon their neighbors’ quality of life. And since factory farms are often the key employer these communities, they consistently use their clout with local district attorneys to go after undercover investigators who expose and publicize animal cruelty.

Taken together, these strategies have made animal agribusiness huge, profitable, ruthlessly exploitative, and largely unaccountable for its wrongdoings.

Why Not Just Avoid Factory Farmed Foods?

Unless specifically labeled to the contrary, you can assume that every non-vegan food you purchase comes from a factory farm. As we’ve seen, an unending variety of cruelties occur at these places.

Millions of omnivores have pushed back against factory farming by demanding higher animal welfare standards. Most natural foods stores and supermarkets sell specially-labeled animal products from farms that promise better animal welfare. Additionally, small-scale meat, milk, and egg producers run booths at thousands of local farmers’ markets.

At their best, these smaller farms deliver genuine animal welfare improvements. That’s mainly because they refuse to partake in the cruelest farming practices, particularly with regard to confinement and crowding. And with this reduced crowding, farmers can eliminate mutilations like beak searing and tail-clipping. That’s because animals raised under good conditions rarely attack or bully one another.

Unfortunately, the substantial price premium commanded by higher welfare foods exerts an overpowering temptation on producers to cheat. Few people in business face so much incentive to deceive, nor can they get away with it so easily. All too often, farmers exaggerate or outright lie about standards for animal care. Just like at factory farms, every small-scale producer faces the strongest financial temptation to push limits. Since the cost of delivering genuinely good animal welfare is so high, there are always farmers willing to cut corners.

In fact, some so-called “organic” farms are actually factory farms in every sense of the word. While they may use higher quality animal feed and refrain from using antibiotics, animal welfare remains deplorable. At one point, several of America’s largest “organic” dairies exploited a regulatory loophole that allowed them to keep their cows confined indoors 310 days out of every year. In 2022, organic milk giant Fairlife agreed to pay $21 million for false advertising, after an animal rights group released shocking videos exposing Fairlife’s cruel treatment of cows.

Animal Welfare Certification Programs

To avoid breaches of trust, food service companies and groceries rely on a variety of animal welfare certification programs. Much like hotels are typically rated from one to five stars, one leading program offers five different tiers of animal welfare. That way, at least in theory, the consumer can decide for herself which animal husbandry practices are acceptable, and choose products accordingly.

Of course, every welfare certification system depends on farmers honoring their animal care promises. For these programs to succeed in their mission, it’s imperative that they quickly catch any farmers who cheat. This in turn demands careful monitoring and strict enforcement by the certification agency. It’s fair to say that, in the real world, such monitoring is expensive, occasional, and unreliable.

Checking Up on Your Local Farms

Alternately, you can do your own monitoring. This requires meeting the sellers of animal products at your local farmers’ market, and then personally visiting their farms to evaluate the conditions. Me, I have better things to do with my time. I don’t want to spend my precious Saturday afternoons driving out to distant farms. Much easier, I think, to simply avoid foods where egregious abuses of consumer trust and animal welfare are commonplace.

In this respect, laziness surely ranks as one of the most underappreciated reasons to consider a vegan diet. You undoubtedly have more pleasant ways to spend your time than investigating animal welfare compliance. And why expend all that effort when there exists such an abundance of delicious vegan food?

Animal Exploitation that Can’t be Remedied

And anyway, no matter how you strive to purchase only the highest-quality animal products, numerous problems remain unaddressed. As just one example, there is simply no way to eliminate slaughter. Even the highest-welfare producers kill their dairy cows and layer hens well before midlife, as yields decline. What’s more, many farms are legally prohibited from slaughtering their animals on-site. So, much of the time, “free-range” and “pasture-raised” animals end up at the very same slaughterhouses that kill factory farmed animals.

Diving a little deeper, the use of heirloom breeds is all but unheard of in commercial agriculture. So even at the very best “pasture raised” farms, the animals suffer the same breed-related health problems as their factory-farmed counterparts.

In short: the more you care about sourcing animal products free of needless suffering, the messier and more unsatisfying your task becomes.

Counter-intuitively, it’s therefore not vegans but omnivores who face the greatest inconvenience when it comes to conscientious eating. That’s because omnivores confront a barrage of tasks and expenses if they are to ensure acceptable welfare standards. By contrast, aspiring vegans have it much easier—their primary task is to seek out delicious new foods.

A Word About Seafood

Most vegan-related writing doesn’t devote much space to seafood, or else ignores the topic entirely. For people moving in a vegetarian direction, fish is typically the last food to go.

But there are strong reasons to avoid seafood. You can even make the case that seafood belongs at the top of the list of foods to give up. This is especially true for crabs and lobsters, since these animals are killed by being boiled alive. All evidence suggests their suffering is excruciating.

Can Fish Suffer?

What about fish caught by nets or fishing lines? Are they capable of suffering? And, if so, how severely?

Studies definitively prove that fish can feel pain. They usually die by suffocation, and deep water fish die a particularly agonizing death—as they’re pulled to the surface, their eyes bulge out and organs rupture from depressurization.

The Environmental Cost of Fishing

The fishing industry ranks among the world’s great environmental menaces. And the worldwide appetite for fish is insatiable. Since 1960, the amount of seafood pulled daily from the world’s oceans, rivers, and lakes has more than tripled.

As a result, fish populations are in steep decline. There simply isn’t enough fish to go around, and in some parts of the world, populations utterly depend on fish for survival. With all this in mind, if people must eat seafood, perhaps it should only go to regions that would face hunger without it.

Enforcing regulations against over-fishing poses intractable problems. Fishing boats commonly switch off their electronic tracking equipment to evade the enforcement of catch limits. And all too often, regulators do too little too late. One prime example involves the waters off Newfoundland, which were once among the world’s most abundant cod fisheries. While authorities dickered and delayed, over-fishing so ravaged the ecosystem that the cod forever vanished.

Fishing fleets decimate not just targeted fish, but every sort of marine life. The world’s fishing boats are constantly pulling thousands of kilometers of nets through the sea. These nets ensnare every sort of animal, suffocating countless dolphins, sea turtles, sharks, and even seabirds. Some shrimp boats haul in 4 to 6 kilograms of marine life for every kilogram of shrimp.

Fish Farms

Fish farms are no solution to over-fishing, and in fact exacerbate the strain on ocean resources.

What’s more, the crowding and welfare standards at fish farms are every bit as reprehensible as at any factory farm. Fish farms commonly suffer infestations of gruesome parasites called sea lice. These parasites attach themselves to the fish and eat away at the skin, causing open lesions.

Genetic modification, which is carried out to increase growth rates, causes widespread deformities and even deafness among farmed salmon. Perhaps most disturbing, these fish routinely escape into the open ocean where they mate with wild fish. This interbreeding corrupts the gene pool of native fish species, who are already threatened by over-fishing.

Animal Welfare & Animal Rights

Now that we’ve seen how brazenly the food industry exploits both farm animals and marine life, let’s consider how to address the problem. The two fundamental concepts of the animal protection movement—animal welfare and animal rights—offer powerful approaches.

Animal Welfare

Animal welfare is a simple but potent concept inseparable from common decency. Its core message is: if you’re going to use animals for food, cosmetics, or anything else, you are morally obligated to eliminate needless suffering. Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. A great deal of the suffering that stems from raising animals for food is expensive and difficult to eradicate. It’s also tricky to verify that farmers comply with welfare standards, since—as we’ve seen—they have strong incentive to cheat.

Animal welfare concerns inspire some people to go vegan, and others to switch to pasture-raised alternatives. Many omnivores who start thinking about animal welfare decide they can’t make peace with slaughter. This decision doesn’t just close the door on consuming meat, it also rules out eggs and dairy products, since virtually all layer hens and dairy cows go to slaughter as well.

Animal Rights

The animal protection movement’s most important ideas relate not to animal welfare, but to animal rights. Animal welfare condones the use of animals, as long as we attempt to minimize suffering. Animal rights, by contrast, proclaims that animals do not exist for our use. Just as it’s wrong to falsely imprison somebody, even if that prison is the Waldorf Astoria, animal rights thinking contends that raising animals for food is wrong regardless of whether the animals receive decent care.

The animal rights literature contains a number of challenging books. To survey this topic, I’ll introduce you to three crucial concepts: speciesism, subject of a life, and utilitarian thinking. Together, they address the “why go vegan?” question with some exceptionally clear thinking.

Speciesism

Speciesism is the most simple and most widely-used idea within animal rights. This word denotes attempts to justify exploitation based on an animal’s species. Such rhetoric inevitably ignores more pertinent facts. The question of whether rights are unjustly violated should start by evaluating each individual animal’s ability (or lack thereof) to think, feel, and suffer.

When an animal’s rights are violated, speciesist thinking is often to blame. An obvious example relates to the fact that, by all accounts, pigs are more intelligent than dogs. Yet the pork industry’s standard farming practices would generate a stream of felony cruelty convictions if it treated dogs in the same manner.

Speciesism is cut from the same cloth as racism, sexism, and classism. All of these “isms” violate an individual’s liberties on grounds that are fundamentally arbitrary. The only thing that sets speciesism apart from the others is that it provides an excuse to exploit certain types of animals rather than certain groups of people.

Animals as the “Subject of a Life”

Every human and every animal experiences their own “subject of a life.” We each have a unique biography and set of experiences. No matter what sort of body we’re born into, we’ve got one incarnation filled with moments related to companionship, family, and interactions with others. While the experiences of humans and other animals differs, we each have but one precious and irreplaceable possession: our own fleeting lives.

Let’s now reflect on why, across every culture, the punishment for murder is invariably severe. The answer is undoubtedly because prematurely ending someone’s life is a bell cannot be unrung. The victim is forever denied the experiences she would have otherwise had, and no remedy for this injustice exists. Certainly, if we agree that murder demands severe punishment because it has unjustly snuffed out a life, we become obliged to consider the implications of animal slaughter in this regard. To cut short an animal’s life is the ultimate violation of that being’s only opportunity to exist. And to do this for culinary pleasure seems especially problematic, especially when delicious alternatives abound.

The subject of a life approach to animal rights can lead people to look at a pig or chicken and decide, “It may not be much of a life, but it’s all they’ve got—and it isn’t ours to take.”

Animal Rights and Utilitarian Thinking

Finally, let’s consider the utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham. In his 1975 classic, Animal Liberation, Peter Singer applied Bentham’s thinking to animal rights with groundbreaking results.

Utilitarianism is based on the idea that morality is expressed by maximizing total joy and minimizing total suffering. It therefore seeks to evaluate every situation in order to produce the greatest amount of pleasure. For instance, more total happiness is created by giving ten people one sandwich apiece than by handing ten sandwiches to one person.

Utilitarian considerations enable clearer thinking about animal use. Most of us can agree, for instance, that pepperoni is a delicious pizza topping. There is consequently some added joy that comes with being able to order your pizza with pepperoni. But from a utilitarian point of view, it’s unethical to value this added joy without weighing it against how the pig suffered to produce this pepperoni.

You can make a strong case that the animal suffering arising from a particular non-vegan food far outstrips any joy derived from its consumption. This is especially true today, given that vegan meats, dairy products, and eggs are more delicious and readily available than ever. With each passing year, the argument that non-vegan foods provide unique and irreplaceable pleasures becomes increasingly difficult to entertain.

Utilitarianism can inform not just your thinking about food, but also other lifestyle choices like cosmetics, fur, and leather. Nobody would pretend it’s possible to calculate joy vs. suffering with the precision of crunching numbers on a spreadsheet. But even so, utilitarianism offers a uniquely helpful framework for evaluating the ethics that pertain to any sort of animal use.

Choosing a Diet that Aligns with Your Values

The concepts of speciesism, subject of a life, and utilitarianism offer ample reason to eat more plant-based foods, or to go beyond that to embrace a vegan lifestyle. These approaches lead us to what I consider the crux of the matter: are you okay with taking a healthy animal who clearly wants to live, and cutting her throat?

Is slaughtering animals for food a violation of their rights, or is this part of the circle of life? Surely, we each owe it to the animals to give the matter some thought.

Why Go Vegan for Your Health?

No diet can guarantee a long and healthy life, but becoming vegan may improve your odds. That’s largely because a vegan diet eliminates a number of unhealthful foods—including red and cured meats—which are strongly linked to colon cancer.

Vegans also usually eat far more vegetables and fruits than non-vegetarians. Studies consistently show that people who eat the most fruits and vegetables tend to enjoy better health. Research also suggests that vegans suffer lower rates of heart disease and diabetes. This reduced risk is partly due to the fact that vegans are statistically leaner and much less prone to obesity than the general population, but this isn’t the whole explanation. Additional benefits probably arise from low saturated fat intake and from the healthful compounds in plant foods.

The Potential Benefits of Ditching Dairy

A surprisingly large number of vegans will tell you that quitting dairy changed their lives. Some people tolerate milk well, and can consume plenty of dairy products without repercussions. But milk products can cause all sorts of chronic health ailments, from migraines to acne to digestive problems. And people of Asian or African descent are often lactose intolerant, and suffer gastric distress after consuming dairy products. Many people suffer from these conditions for decades, yet never suspect that dairy products are to blame.

I can personally attest to the health benefits that may accompany going dairy-free. My lifelong severe nasal congestion forever vanished within weeks of eliminating milk products from my diet.

With all this in mind, even people unswayed by environmental and animal rights concerns might consider quitting dairy products. Given the potential rewards, why not go dairy-free for a couple of weeks to see what happens?

Vegan Diets Support High Levels of Fitness

Some people fret that a vegan diet might inhibit athletic performance, but that’s not a valid concern. A well-planned vegan diet can in fact support the highest levels of fitness. Both Rich Roll and Scott Jurek, two of the world’s most acclaimed ultra-endurance athletes, are long-time vegans.

But what about sports that require strength and bulk? The bodybuilding community is full of world class vegan athletes. And in 2018, fifteen members of the Tennessee Titans switched to a vegan diet.

Moving from “Why Go Vegan?” to “How to Go Vegan?”

Given the degree to which our food choices impact animals, our health, and our environment, this essay could offer only the briefest coverage of the most important issues. But you certainly now know enough to think productively about the topic.

If there’s one point that I hope this essay convincingly made, it’s that the way we eat carries enormous consequences. Our food choices matter immensely. Your appreciation for the magnitude of this issue will only grow as you continue exploring the topic, and I hope I’ve inspired you to dive deeper into learning about food politics.

Small Changes Beat No Changes

Many people succumb to all-or-nothing thinking when it comes to contemplating dietary change. For instance, if they decide they aren’t ready to go vegan, they’ll often take no action at all. But even the smallest steps in a plant-based direction can deliver important results, while laying the groundwork for future progress.

So if you’re not ready to commit to major dietary change, take a smaller step. Concepts like Meat Free Mondays, Reducetarian diets, and Vegan Before 6:00 offer something for everyone. If you there’s an animal product you presently eat that you don’t really enjoy, why not cut it out today?

Emphasize Exploration

Shifting your diet toward plant-based foods provides all sorts of rewards. If you try new vegan foods at every opportunity, your diet will automatically move in a positive direction.

Here’s my #1 piece of advice: don’t seek to cut out non-vegan foods from your diet. Instead, crowd them out by finding new vegan foods you prefer. The more new foods you try, the more quickly you will gain ground. As long as you make your transition fundamentally about discovery, switching to a vegan diet requires zero willpower.

I’ve followed a vegan diet for more than thirty years, so I hope you’ll take my word for this: as you incorporate more vegan foods into your diet, the amount of pleasure you derive from eating will grow by leaps and bounds. You’ll enjoy a wider variety of delicious food than ever before, and you’ll probably feel better as well.

Always Take the Easy Route

When transitioning your diet, give yourself every advantage. You don’t have to figure everything out on your own. A number of fabulous resources will show you the way, and a little reading pays off big time. My essay on how to go vegan will teach you most of what you need to know in just thirty minutes. After reading it, perhaps read my guide to vegan cooking, or explore the most vegan-friendly cuisines.

Above all, enjoy yourself. Food is undeniably one of life’s great pleasures. As you align your diet to your core values and beliefs, you’ll gain a whole new level of satisfaction from eating.

What Is a Vegan Diet Basics, Ethics, and Foods List

What Is a Vegan Diet? Basics, Ethics, and Foods List

A vegan diet, or veganism, tends to omit animal products for ethical, health, or environmental reasons.

Once considered a niche diet, veganism has gone mainstream — so much so that the number of people following a vegan diet has increased by 350% in the last decade, according to research from the U.K.

By definition, veganism is a way of living in which people exclude, as much as possible, all forms of animal exploitation and cruelty.

At first glance, a vegan diet may seem complicated or overly restrictive. Many of my clients who are considering switching over to a vegan diet are initially worried about finding suitable vegan alternatives to their favorite meals.

Yet, most find that once they get a few basics down, the transition is less difficult than they initially expected.

As someone enjoying a plant-based diet myself, I’ve noticed more and more vegan options appearing on supermarket shelves and restaurant menus in the past couple of years.

I’ve even recently come across a vegan version of pastel de nata, one of my all-time favorite desserts.

In this https://thevegangarden.com/‘s article, I’ll outline what veganism is and share a few basics about foods to eat and avoid on a vegan diet.

What Is a Vegan Diet Basics, Ethics, and Foods List

What is veganism?

According to the Vegan Society, the term “vegan” was coined back in 1944 by a small group of vegetarians who broke away from the Leicester Vegetarian Society in England to form the Vegan Society.

In addition to refraining from eating meat, they chose not to consume dairy, eggs, or any other products of animal origin.

The term “vegan” was chosen from the combination of the first and last letters of “vegetarian.” By 1949, the first definition of veganism had been born. It has changed slightly over the years to become what it is known as today.

According to the latest definition from the Vegan Society, veganism is “a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practicable — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing, or any other purposes.”

Many people use the term “vegan” to refer exclusively to diet. However, by this latest definition, veganism extends beyond eating a plant-based diet.

Those who identify as vegans typically aim to exclude animal exploitation or cruelty in all aspects of their lives, including the clothes they wear, the cosmetics they use, and the leisure activities they take part in.

As a result, many vegans avoid purchasing wool coats, leather furniture, or down pillows and comforters. They may also opt to visit animal sanctuaries instead of going to zoos, the circus, or animal petting farms.

Why do people go vegan?

People generally choose to avoid animal products for one or more of the following reasons.

Ethics

Ethical vegans strongly believe that all creatures have a right to life and freedom.

They view all animals as conscious beings that, just like humans, wish to avoid pain and suffering.

Because of this, ethical vegans are opposed to killing an animal in order to eat its flesh or wear its fur or skin.

Vegans are also opposed to the psychological and physical stress that animals may endure as a result of modern farming practices — for instance, the small pens or cages that animals typically live in and rarely leave between their birth and slaughter.

However, for ethical vegans, this sentiment extends beyond the cruelty of modern farming practices.

That’s because vegans are opposed to consuming products that heavily rely on the killing of other animals — especially because alternatives are available.

This includes the slaughter of calves that are considered surplus in the dairy industry, or the culling of 1-day-old male chicks that is common in egg production.

Moreover, ethical vegans generally believe that animals’ milk, eggs, honey, silk, and wool are not for humans to exploit, regardless of the living conditions afforded to the exploited animals.

This is why ethical vegans remain opposed to drinking an animal’s milk, eating its eggs, or wearing its wool, even in cases where the animals are free-roaming or pasture-fed.

Health

Some people choose a vegan diet for its potential health benefits.

Diets high in meat — especially red meat — have been linked to cancer, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes.

On the other hand, plant-based diets have been linked to a lower risk of developing or prematurely dying from these diseases.

Lowering your intake of animal products in favor of more plant-based options may also improve your digestion and reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

A vegan diet can also help minimize the side effects linked to the antibiotics and hormones used in modern animal agriculture.

Finally, vegan diets appear to be especially effective at helping people lose unwanted weight. Several studies link a vegan diet to a lower likelihood of obesity.

However, if you’re on a vegan diet, you may consume less of certain nutrients. That’s why planning is especially important.

Consider speaking with a healthcare professional, such as a doctor or registered dietitian, to plan a vegan diet that will help you get the nutrients you need.

Vegan diets tend to be low in these nutrients:

  • vitamin B12
  • vitamin D
  • calcium
  • zinc
  • iodine
  • selenium

People on vegan diets sometimes take supplements to provide nutrients they may not get enough of in their diet.

Environment

People may also choose to avoid animal products in an attempt to limit their environmental impact.

According to recent data, animal agriculture heavily contributes to greenhouse gas emissions (GHGEs), which cause climate change.

Meat eaters are thought to be responsible for 2–2.5 times more GHGEs than people following a vegan diet. This number is based on self-reported dietary patterns in the U.K.

Ruminant animals, such as cattle, sheep, and goats, appear to emit the largest amount of greenhouse gases per gram of protein they deliver. Therefore, diets that reduce or totally eliminate dairy also produce significantly fewer GHGEs.

One study suggests that a vegetarian diet produces 33% fewer GHGEs than a meat-containing standard American diet offering the same amount of calories.

A vegan diet has an even smaller environmental impact, producing about 53% fewer GHGEs than a calorie-matched meat-containing diet.

A large proportion of the plant protein currently being produced is used to feed animals rather than humans. Because of this, production of an animal-heavy diet requires use of more of the earth’s resources than production of a plant-based diet.

For instance, producing animal protein requires 6–17 times more land than the same amount of soybean protein.

Animal protein also requires, on average, 2–3 times more water, depending on factors such as the season and annual fluctuations in rainfall.

Because of all of these factors, experts estimate that, if nothing changes, our food system will likely exceed our planet’s resources by the year 2050. Switching over to a vegan diet may be one way to delay this outcome.

Types of veganism

It’s important to note that vegan doesn’t necessarily equal healthy.

The quality of a vegan diet depends on the foods that make it up. Thus, some vegan diets can have many health benefits, while others may not be beneficial for your health.

Here are a few subcategories of vegan diet that I’ve come across in my clinical practice over the last couple of years:

  • Dietary vegans. Often used interchangeably with “plant-based eaters,” this term refers to those who avoid animal products in their diet but continue to use them in other products, such as clothing and cosmetics.
  • Whole-food vegans. These individuals favor a diet rich in whole foods, such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds.
  • Junk-food” vegans. Some people rely heavily on processed vegan foods such as vegan meats, fries, frozen dinners, and desserts, including Oreo cookies and nondairy ice cream.
  • Raw-food vegans. This group eats only foods that are raw or cooked at temperatures below 118°F (48°C).
  • Low fat raw-food vegans. Also known as fruitarians, this subset limits high fat foods such as nuts, avocados, and coconuts, instead relying mainly on fruit. They may occasionally eat small amounts of other plants.

Whole-food vegan diets tend to offer excellent health benefits. If you’re interested in trying a vegan diet, consider speaking with a healthcare professional to find the right diet for you.

What do vegans eat?

Here are some essential foods people on a vegan diet tend to eat and avoid.

Foods that vegans eat

Avoiding animal products doesn’t restrict you to eating salads and tofu alone. There’s a wide variety of delicious foods you can eat on a vegan diet.

Here are a few ideas:

  • Beans, peas, and lentils: such as red, brown, or green lentils; chickpeas; split peas; black-eyed peas; black beans; white beans; and kidney beans
  • Soy products: such as fortified soy milk, soybeans, and products made from them, such as tofu, tempeh, and natto
  • Nuts: such as peanuts, almonds, cashews, and their butters
  • Seeds: such as sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, and their butters, as well as flaxseed, hemp seeds, and chia seeds
  • Whole grains: such as quinoa, whole wheat, whole oats, and whole grain brown or wild rice, as well as products made from these foods, such as whole grain bread, crackers, and pasta
  • Starchy vegetables: such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, beets, and turnips
  • Nonstarchy vegetables: such as broccoli, cabbage, asparagus, radishes, and leafy greens; these may be raw, frozen, canned, dried, or pureed
  • Fruit: such as apples, pears, bananas, berries, mango, pineapple, oranges, and tangerines; these may be purchased fresh, frozen, canned, dried, or pureed
  • Other plant-based foods: such as algae, nutritional yeast, fortified plant milks and yogurts, and maple syrup

There’s a good chance that many of the dishes you currently enjoy either already are vegan or can be made vegan with a few simple adjustments.

For instance, you can swap meat-based main dishes for meals containing beans, peas, lentils, tofu, tempeh, nuts, or seeds.

What’s more, you can replace dairy products with plant milks, scrambled eggs with scrambled tofu, honey with plant-based sweeteners like molasses or maple syrup, and raw eggs with flaxseed or chia seeds.

You can also choose from the ever-growing selection of ready-made vegan products, including vegan meats, vegan cheeses, and vegan desserts.

Just keep in mind that these may be highly processed. So while they are fine to eat in moderation, they should not make up the bulk of a healthy vegan diet.

Foods that vegans avoid

Vegans avoid all foods of animal origin. These include:

  • Meat and fish: such as beef, chicken, duck, fish, and shellfish
  • Eggs: whole eggs and foods that contain them, such as bakery products
  • Dairy: milk, cheese, butter, and cream, as well as foods made using these ingredients
  • Other animal-derived ingredients: such as honey, albumin, casein, carmine, gelatin, pepsin, shellac, isinglass, and whey

Checking food labels is generally the best way to determine whether a food contains animal-derived ingredients. Many vegan foods are now also labeled as such, making it easier to recognize them when you’re shopping.

The bottom line

Vegans tend to avoid animal products for ethical, health, or environmental reasons or a combination of the three.

On a vegan diet, you’ll likely find yourself replacing meat, eggs, and dairy with an abundance of plant foods, including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, and fortified products made from these foods.

Transitioning to a vegan diet is easier than most people think. That said, it does require a little additional nutrition knowledge.

So if you’re interested in making the switch, consider seeking advice from a registered dietitian specializing in plant-based diets to make sure you’ve got your basics covered.

Depending on your knowledge, budget, and culinary skills, you may also want to consider taking certain supplements to ensure you’re providing your body with all the nutrients it needs.

Why do a Juice Cleanse

Why do a Juice Cleanse?

Why do a Juice Cleanse – A juice cleanse provides a detox for the whole body and a variety of benefits! It is helpful in increasing good bacteria in the gut and allows your digestion to reset. Based on a study done at UCLA, they found that a three-day juice cleanse increases nitric oxide in the body (which promotes healthy blood flow and lower blood pressure). Most pressed juices provide significant amounts of nutrients and enzymes that improve energy after the first cup.

Why do a Juice Cleanse?

If you want to pair your juice cleanse with additional food, including a plant based diet in your meal plans aids in reducing IBS and allergens. Implementing a juice cleanse in a healthy nutrients packed diet helps control cravings and provides an energizing boost throughout the day! Juice cleanses are not only used to aid in weight loss, they are helpful if you are wanting to detoxify your liver, kidney, digestion, etc. Including spices such as ginger and turmeric in your meals and juices helps reduce inflammation, swelling and provides natural supplements for detoxification.

Juice cleanses made from all-natural raw foods allows you to retain all healthy nutrients such as B vitamins and anti-inflammatory enzymes. It also aids in There are a variety of options at The Vegan Garden for juice cleanses including 5 day cleanse, three day cleanse and a plant-based meal plan that includes juices in the plan.

Overall, there are many benefits to doing a juice cleanse to reset and help detoxify the body of harmful bacteria in the gut, liver and kidneys. The Vegan Garden https://thevegangarden.com/ offers a variety of organic nutrient-rich options that can be paired with a juice cleanse for a healthy diet!

The Difference Between Vegan & Vegetarian

The Difference Between Vegan & Vegetarian

The Difference Between Vegan & Vegetarian – Switching up your diet to cut out meat can be a challenge, but it can also be a great way to get healthier, save money and do your bit for the environment.

If you’re thinking about cutting out meat, you might also be thinking about cutting out animal products like milk and eggs. Generally, a diet excluding meat is labelled as vegetarian, while a diet excluding all animal products is labelled as vegan.

Read on to find out more in this website https://thevegangarden.com/ about the differences, and to prepare for your new diet.

The Difference Between Vegan & Vegetarian

What is a vegetarian?

A vegetarian is someone who doesn’t eat any meat, fish, or meat products like gelatine. Vegetarians still eat animal products like milk, cheese, butter and eggs.

It’s not hard to get all the essential vitamins and minerals you need on a vegetarian diet, but if you’re switching over from eating meat for the first time, it’s important to do some meal prep. You’ll probably need to bulk out your diet with vegetarian sources of protein like pulses.

This page from the NHS gives a detailed guide on what should be included in a vegetarian diet.

Type of Vegetarian

Lacto-vegetarian

A lacto-vegetarian is a vegetarian who doesn’t eat any eggs, but does eat dairy products like milk, butter, cheese, cream and yoghurt.

Ovo-vegetarian

An ovo-vegetarian is a vegetarian who doesn’t eat any dairy products, but does eat eggs.

Lacto-ovo-vegetarian

The most common type of vegetarian is lacto-ovo. This is where you eat eggs and dairy products. Eating this type of diet is a good way to make sure you’re still getting plenty of protein and key minerals like calcium and vitamin D.

What is a pescatarian?

A pescatarian is someone who eats fish and other seafood, as well as dairy and eggs. Pescatarians don’t eat red meat, game or poultry, but they’re not classed as vegetarians because they still eat fish. If you’re looking to make the move to vegetarianism, you can start out by trying a pescatarian diet.

The good thing about a pescatarian diet is that it can incorporate oily fish like salmon and mackerel, which are rich in essential nutrients. The NHS recommends eating two portions of fish each week, one of which is oily.

What is a vegan?

A vegan is a someone who doesn’t eat any animal products, including:

  • Red meat
  • Poultry
  • Game
  • Fish and seafood
  • Eggs
  • Milk, cheese, butter and yoghurt
  • Meat products like gelatine

According to The Vegan Society, a vegan diet should also exclude honey, materials derived from animal (e.g. leather), and products that are tested on animals.

Benefits of a vegan diet

Switching to a vegan diet can have lots of benefits. If you’re worried about animal cruelty or the environmental issues associated with farming, veganism is a great way to reduce your meat consumption.

On a health front, veganism is a good way to be more mindful about what you eat, simply because it requires more preparation. A vegan diet also tends to be lower in saturated fats (often found in animal products) and include more fruit & veg.

If you eat a lot of meat and you’re trying to lose weight, changing to veganism might be a good option. Read this article to learn more about veganism and weight loss.

Do vegans need supplements?

Cutting out animal products can make it harder to get protein and essential nutrients like vitamin B12, iron and calcium. If you’re keen to make the switch, try to plan a diet that’s balanced and varied, and includes key, nutrient-rich foods. Find out how you can get enough protein on a vegan diet with our vegan protein sources article.

Vegans who struggle to get all the nutrients they need might need to take supplements. Find out more by reading this article.

Typical vegan diet

A vegan diet should be balanced and varied, and include:

  • Five portions of fruit and vegetables each day
  • Starchy carbohydrates like potatoes, wholegrain bread, and brown rice and pasta
  • Dairy alternatives like soya and nut milks
  • Beans, pulses and other protein sources

You can get detailed help with planning your vegan diet by checking out the Vegan Eatwell Guide from the The Vegan Society.

Why not try Veganuary?

January can be a great time to make a change to your diet. If you’re looking to shake things up, why not spend January eating vegan food as part of Veganuary? The idea is to cut all animal products from your diet until the end of the month.

Remember, even a partial change is a good start. If you’re not ready to make the change all in one go, try eating two or three vegetarian or vegan meals a week. You can work up from there!

The Best Gifts for The Vegan in Your Life

The Best Gifts for “The Vegan” in Your Life

Need some holiday inspiration for gifts this season?! Check out https://thevegangarden.com/ in the links below to see our vegan gift guide for some vegan and all-natural product ideas!

The Best Gifts for The Vegan in Your Life

  1. Kinder Box: A monthly subscription box that consists of a variety of vegan and cruelty free products! The boxes consist of two full size products and Kinder donates a portion of the funds to animal rights and environmental charities.
  2. Pura Botanica: Eco-friendly candles that are hand poured made with soy wax! The packaging is biodegradable and free of paraffins, pesticides and herbicides. These candles come in a variety of scents including: Chai, Rose, Mint and Citrus.
  3. Vegan Handbags: Looking for a fashionable gift to exchange this holiday season? The search is over Sole Society offers a wide variety of vegan leather bags that are perfect for this season!
  4. Vegan Makeup: if you were needing guidance in the vegan makeup world, look not further! There are plenty of brands who have transitioned their products to be cruelty-free and contain no animal byproducts. Some of the brands include: Cover FX, Kat Von D Beauty, Elf Cosmetics and so many more!
  5. Tokibox: this monthly subscription box contains a vegan friendly products! Including vegan snacks, cruelty-free beauty supplies, vegan lifestyle tools and so much more!
  6. The Vegan Garden: What better way to show Christmas cheer than giving the gift of nutrition to friends and family?! We have a surplus of vegan meal prep options that you can sign up for monthly or a one time purchase! We also offer gift cards so your loved one can choose what delicious meal they want on their own!
Healthy Milk Alternatives

Healthy Milk Alternatives

Plant based milks! Everyone has a favorite and they are quickly gaining popularity even in the non-vegan world. Approximately 65% of adults are considered lactose intolerant. Many more experience digestive distress upon consuming dairy products. Of course, anyone practicing a vegan lifestyle does not consume dairy products. The majority of adults are seeking an alternative milk in order to indulge in delicious creamy desserts, enjoy a bowl of cereal, or grab their favorite coffee shop drink without the high percentage of fat that dairy milk contains. Plant-based milks are the perfect solution!

The most popular plant-based milks are almond milk, soy milk, coconut milk, oat milk, and pea (yes, pea) milk. Each one is unique in its own way, and understanding the differences can help you to pick which is the best substitute for your diet. For instance, if you’re looking for healthy alternatives, it’s important to know that many of the popular brands can have added sugars and ingredients you do not need. The best way to pick a healthy, plant-based milk is to choose one with the least ingredients and look for the words “unsweetened” or “0g sugar added.”

Healthy Milk Alternatives

  • Almond milk is one of the most popular milk alternatives. Made from blending almonds and water together, it is easy to make at home. Many store bought brands also include emulsifiers and fortifying nutrients as well as countless flavors. Almond milk is one of the thinner plant-based milks, so not the best for creamier dishes and carries a nutty flavor wherever it is used. Almond milk is good for baking, cereal, smoothies, and coffee.

  • Soy milk is made from pressing cooked ground soybeans. It is thick and creamy and feels more like dairy milk. While it is one of the most naturally nutritious alternatives, many people choose not to use it because it contains phytoestrogens. Studies are inconclusive as to whether or not the phytoestrogens affect hormone balance, but many people steer clear as there are milk alternatives that do not contain the plant compound. Those who do use soy milk enjoy it as an alternative to everything dairy milk can do, as it holds together in much the same way and naturally has one of the highest protein counts of the plant based milks. It works well in cooking, baking, coffee, cereal, smoothies, and anything else you can imagine.

  • Coconut milk is a great option for anyone who has an aversion or allergy to nuts. Made from water and coconut cream, some brands can taste tropical, and, well…coconutty. It can also have a more subtle taste than other alternatives. It is creamy and comes in full fat and reduced fat options. The naturally sweet taste of coconut milk makes it perfect for an ice cream base, coffee “cream,” smoothies, and canned coconut milk is also a great base for soups. Many recipes call for canned coconut milk which has a consistency close to condensed milk, so be aware that the carton coconut milk may not be what you need in those situations.

  • Oat milk is made from blending oats with water and straining so it is another easy one to make at home. It is thicker than almond milk and naturally sweet from the sugars in the oats. Oat milk doesn’t have an overpowering taste like almond or coconut milk, so it is a nice addition for both baking and heartier recipes like vegan mac n “cheese” or sauces. It’s becoming wildly popular as the go-to alternative milk in coffee shops. Pro tip: when baking, use a little less than you would if you were using cow milk because oat milk is starchier and may affect the texture of whatever you are baking.

  • Pea milk is a newcomer to the plant based milks but is rising in popularity. It is as creamy as soy milk with fewer calories, and a milder taste than almond milk. It is made from pea protein isolate, water, and other emulsifiers such as sunflower oil, and guar and gellan gums. Pea protein is quickly becoming a favorite for a vegan source of energy and pea milk is no different. One serving can pack a whopping 8 grams of protein, compared to the 7 grams soy milk contains. When cooking and baking with pea milk, note that it has a much lower fat content than cow milk, so you may need to add in a plant based fat to maintain the same texture.

Plant based milks are growing and developing quickly as people are realizing the benefits compared to more traditional milks. With so many options and additional flavors, they can meet any need in the kitchen of https://thevegangarden.com/ and can help you to maintain a healthy diet without sacrificing food options or taste.

How Vegan Food Helps Your Immune System

How Vegan Food Helps Your Immune System

These days, we are all looking for ways to stay healthy and shield ourselves from illness. The most powerful way to be in tip-top, virus-fighting shape is to nourish your body with foods that boost your immune system. The stronger your immune system, the better your chances of avoiding infection or fighting off illness with only mild symptoms. Following a vegan meal plan, like any of our Vegan Garden Meal Packages, is an active way to make sure you are getting the nutrients your body needs to stay healthy!

Fruits and vegetables are simply bursting with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that are truly irreplaceable in strengthening your immune system. Orange veggies such as pumpkin, carrots, and sweet potatoes contain a powerful nutrient called carotenoids that aid in the production of infection-fighting cells in our bodies. Cruciferous veggies are high in calcium and zinc, so they are great for your bones as well as for boosting immunity! Zinc is crucial in fighting illness and is also found in pumpkin seeds, lentils, tofu, and whole meal pasta.
Lemons, strawberries, and oranges are packed with vitamin C, which we all know bolsters immune function. But you can also get that powerful vitamin from cruciferous vegetables, bell peppers, and tomatoes!

How Vegan Food Helps Your Immune System

And then there is garlic. Ah, garlic. Add a little or a lot to your dish to transform not only flavor but also your immune system! Garlic stimulates and activates your white blood cells, supercharging their powers and keeping you safe and healthy. It also contains antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties to fight both infection and inflammation in your body.
Of course, we can’t forget to talk about protein! Protein is vital for a robust immune system and some of the best protein sources such as nuts, lentils, and seeds are also full of many other essential vitamins and minerals.

In these overwhelming times, who has time to think about which foods are best and prepare nutritious meals? Let us do all the hard prep work! Check out our meal plans and packages created in https://thevegangarden.com/ by our chefs with only the best ingredients just for you. We cook and clean and all you have to do is enjoy your fresh, healthy, delicious, guilt-free cuisine and know you are keeping your body healthy and strong!

Self Care Tips During Shelter in Place

Self Care Tips During Shelter in Place

Let’s talk about self-care. The world is constantly changing right before our eyes. We are battling issues we never imagined. Our lives and personal routines are shaken up. It is now more important than ever to stay on top of your self-care! Here are five very important ways to take care of yourself during this scary and stressful time.

Self Care Tips During Shelter in Place

1. Move Your Body
Limited social gathering and shopping opportunities along with Stay Home orders are causing us to reside indoors, often sitting around. We are all more sedentary than we are used to. It is vital to get up and move multiple times a day. Go for a walk. Work at the computer standing up. Explore Youtube for an at-home workout. Turn on some music and just DANCE! Not only will you get the blood pumping, but you will also feel more motivated and happier once you get those endorphins going.

2. Stay In Touch
We are a social species. We thrive on the energy and interaction of those around us. Fortunately, it has never been easier to electronically communicate with other people. Check-in on your friends. Schedule up regular video chats. Set alarms on your phone to text or call 5 people per week. You will feel connected and rid yourself of the lonely feeling that comes from social distancing.

3. Eat Healthily
We tend to have two responses when stressed: eat all the things, or eat nothing. Neither of these is good for your body or your mental health. It is vital to fuel your body and mind with regular, healthy meals and snacks. The Vegan Garden healthy meal delivery service makes this a breeze! You don’t have to worry about shopping, cooking, or cleaning. We prepare everything organically and all you have to do is heat and eat! Check out https://thevegangarden.com/ for our multiple packages and plans to find the right one for you. Also, be sure you are drinking enough water! A water bottle with time markers is a great way to motivate yourself to drink more.

4. Routine
Having a structure to your day is the difference between feeling lost and feeling in control. When we are home more often, we tend to let routine fly out the window and let stress and loneliness take over. Find a good morning and night routine that you stick to at least during the week. Providing yourself with a sense of stability is essential in this time of uncertainty. Get up and take a shower and get dress. Don’t stay in your pj’s all day every day. Set aside time to read every day. Start a new skincare routine. Clean up your space at the end of every day. Trust me, waking up to a clean home is one of the best ways to feel on top of things.

5. Hobbies
You always said you would start if you had more time. Well, guess what, here it is! Spending some energy and time on a new hobby will make you feel good and relieve stress! Work on your baking skills, start painting, learn a new language. Buy yourself that thing you’ve been admiring