Have you ever thought about reducing your meat and animal product intake? Perhaps not. But maybe you don't approve of horrible treatment of the animals. You KNOW your hamburger lived in a stall with cold cement and an occasional hose-down, until it was beaten to death with a sledge-hammer or shot through the forehead. Maybe you are concerned with the health issues surrounding meat. There are many good reasons for adopting a vegetarian diet. And regardless of why, it is very beneficial to you, your health, our economy, the environment, animal rights, and many more.

Simply reducing (or eliminating) the meat in your diet helps. Meat is a huge waster of resources. A few of the things that we could save if we cut back on meat consumption in the U.S. are: water, food, trees and other natural resources.

In Fact:

-Over 50% of the fresh water consumed in the U.S. goes to livestock.

-The grains and soybeans that are consumed by U.S. livestock alone could feed approximately 1.3 billion people.

-About 260 million acres of forest in the U.S. alone, have been cleared for livestock and their feed. It has been estimated that one acre of trees is spared each year for each person who adopts a pure vegetarian diet.

-1.6 million tons of livestock manure is produced each year, of which less than half is recycled as fertilizer. The other half seeps into the soil and groundwater. Polluting the U.S. fresh water supply.

-Livestock produce an insane amount of methane which is the second most potent "green house" gas. Thus contributing to global warming.

Human beings are omnivores, this means that we CAN eat foods both vegetable and animal. That doesn't mean we HAVE to. Actually everything from the way our mouth and teeth are placed to how our digestive tract functions suggests that we are better suited for vegetarian diets. You might also want to consider that meat is high in saturated fat and salts and is aslo a major cause of colon cancer, heart disease, senile dementia, "mad cow disease" and many others. I'm not even going to get into all the chemicals and toxins that are in processed meat.

If done correctly, vegetarianism is generally healthier than a meat-based diet. Have you ever seen somebody having a triple corinary bypass? No. Well it involves getting strings of fat pulled from your veins? That's animal products. And you don't hear about people having heart problems from eating vegetables. It's all the saturated fat and cholesterol in meat.

As with many things it is a personal choice. Just don't sit there and be apathetic about it. At least think it over. I wouldn't eat a human being, I wouldn't eat a cow, and I wouldn't eat a pig. Many people see a difference, but is there one? They are all living, they all feel pain and they all die when you smash their brains apart.