Argumentative Essay On Vegetarianism

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“I always knew that becoming a vegetarian would help prevent cruelty to animals but I was not aware of the environmental consequences of a meat-eating diet.” writes Lillie Ogden, a writer for the popular recipe magazine, Vegetarian Times. The first part of her statement, about “cruelty to animals” is a familiar argument, and generally the one that surrounds the case for adopting a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle. However, this exhausted argument is ineffective in actually changing anyone’s eating habits. You can show me as many videos of suffering farm animals as you want, but that argument isn’t going to change the fact that at the end of the day I’m still going to enjoy a juicy, medium-rare steak. The reason being isn’t that I’m not a empathetic person or that I …show more content…

All through elementary school I can remember being taught how to save water: take shorter showers, don’t leave the faucet running, don’t use the dishwasher unless it’s completely full. However, no one ever told me about the more insidious way we waste water --our food choices. According to the Water Education Foundation, it takes 1,581 gallons of water just to produce 1 pound of beef. To compare, it only takes 138 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of wheat. There has been debate about the specific number of water it takes to produce anything because different studies have used different methods of calculations. However, the general consensus among all of these studies is that it takes a significantly higher amount of water to produce meat products than it does to produce non-meat products. The reason being is obvious -plants don’t consume things that need to be watered, animals do. In fact, 40% of the fresh water used in the US is to irrigate livestock feed, and only 13% is used for our every day to day use, like showering, or washing dishes

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