Vegetarian famous quotes

Famous vegetarians: Sacrates, Plato, Buddha, Jesus, Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, William Shakespear, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, George Bernard Shaw, Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Thoreau, Voltaire, Ben Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nicola Tesla,Mahatma Gandhi, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Jeff Beck, Michael Jackson, Natalie Portman, Oliver Stone, Samuel L.Jackson, Paula Abdul……

Quotes

The famous playwright George Bernard Shaw lamented that when animals are killed for food “man suppresses in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity –that of sympathy and pity towards living creatures like himself—and by violating his own feelings, becomes cruel.”

“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.” Sir Paul McCartney, Musician

“It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.” Albert Einstein (1879–1955),

“Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.”- Thomas Edison, inventor

“I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals.”- Henry David Thoreau

“The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.”- Leonardo Da Vinci, Italian sculptor, artist, inventor, (1519)

“For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.”- Pythagoras, Mathematician

“My refusing to eat meat occasioned inconveniency, and I have been frequently chided for my singularity. But my light repast allows for greater progress, for greater clearness of head and quicker comprehension.”- Benjamin Franklin, American statesman, inventor, (1706-1790)

“It is very significant that some of the most thoughtful and cultured men are partisans of a pure vegetable diet.” Mahatma Gandhi

“The earth has enough for every man’s need but not for every man’s greed”. Mahatma Gandhi

Meat Eaters Plight

Because meat-eating involves the needless slaughter of innocent creatures, it produces powerful negative psychological reactions.

Meat eaters are twice as likely to die from heart disease, have a 60 percent greater risk of dying from cancer and a 30 percent higher risk of death from other causes.
Could cancer lose its grip on modern societies if they turned to a balanced vegetarian diet? The answer is “yes,” according to two major reports, one by the World Cancer Research Fund and the other by the Committee on the Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy in the United Kingdom. The reports conclude that a diet rich in plant foods and the maintenance of a healthy body weight could annually prevent four million cases of cancer worldwide. Both reports stress the need for increasing the daily intake of plant fiber, fruits and vegetables and reducing red and processed meat consumption to less than 80-90g.

Research has shown that all meat eaters have worms and a high incidence of parasites in their intestines.

Nearly 80 percent of ground beef is contaminated with disease-causing microbes. The primary source of these bugs is feces. A study conducted by the University of Arizona found there are more fecal bacteria in the average kitchen sink than in the average toilet bowl. This would make eating your food on the toilet seat safer than eating it in the kitchen. The source of this biohazard at home is the meat you buy at the typical grocery store.
The new mutant bugs found in today`s meat are extremely deadly. For you to come down with Salmonella poisoning, you have to consume at least a million of these germs. But to become infected with one of the new mutant bugs, you need to ingest a measly five of them. In other words, a tiny particle of uncooked hamburger, making it from a kitchen utensil to your plate, is enough to kill you. Scientists have now identified more than a dozen food-borne pathogens with such deadly effects. The Center for Disease Control admits that they don`t even know the bugs behind most food-related illnesses and deaths.
The correlation between animal protein [intake] and fracture rates is as strong as that of lung cancer and smoking. -Dr. T. Colin Campbell

Meat is nothing but pieces of decaying animal corpses. Might as well cook up some road kill! Makes about as much sense. Clearly animals do not give up their lives so that we can have the luxury of eating their flesh. Since its possible for us to live healthy lives without eating meat, it is appropriate to ask whether meat eating is a moral & humane habit. Those who weep if their dog or cat is killed, yet still eat meat, silently condone the needless slaughter of millions of animals each year. Anyone who has visited a slaughter house can testify to the fact that animals suffer greatly before & during their slaughter.

Bhagavad-gita explains that meat eating produces severe Karmic reactions, resulting in future material suffering for the person responsible. If one causes violence & suffering to other living creatures, then by laws of Karma one must experience similar violence & suffering.

Here are 100 reasons for going vegetarian.

PEOPLE
1. Every year in the UK we feed our livestock enough food to feed 250,000,000 people while in the world 30,000,000 people die of starvation
2. 20 vegetarians can live off the land required by one meat eater
3. Every 3 seconds a child dies of starvation somewhere in the world
4. If Americans reduced their meat consumption by 10% it would free 12,000,000 tons of grain – enough to feed 60,000,000 people (the population of Great Britain)
5. If all Americans became vegetarian, it would free enough grain to feed 600,000,000 people (the population of India)
6. Intensification in animal farming has displaced 1,000,000’s of people from their traditional lands – eg. indigenous people in south & central America, native Americans in north America & crofters in Great Britain – this is continuing today
7. People displaced from their lands into cities succumb to dietary deficiency, diseases, parasites & opportunistic diseases
8. In third world countries 1 in 10 babies die before their first birthday
9. The UK imports £46,000,000 worth of grain from third world countries to feed our livestock
10. Due to overgrazing 850,000,000 people live on land threatened by desertification & over 230,000,000 already live on land so severely affected that they are unable to sustain their existence & face imminent starvation
11. 1,000,000,000 people in the west gorging on meat & dairy, leave 1,000,000,000 to waste away & 3,500,000,000 teeter on the brink

LAND
12. If they continue to clear forests to raise cattle at the present rate, in 50 years there will be none left
13. 1 acre yields 165 lbs of beef or 20,000 lbs of potatoes
14. 8/10 of cultivated land in the UK is used to grow food for animals (14,732,000 hectares)
15. It takes 16lbs of high protein soya to produce 1 lb of beef
16. Since 1945 in the UK we have lost 95% of flower meadows, 50% of ancient woodlands, 40% of heartlands, 50% of wet lands & 224,000 km of hedgerows all due to animal farming
17. Pressure on land due to meat farming leads to soil erosion 6billion tons/year in the USA
18. If everyone went vegetarian up to 90% of land used for animal farming could be taken out of production & used to replant woodlands, leisure activities etc.
19. 25% of Central America’s forests have been destroyed for cattle grazing since 1960
20. Between 1966-1983 38% of the Amazon rain forest was destroyed for cattle grazing
21. 90% of cattle ranches established on cleared forest land go bankrupt in less than 8 years as the land becomes barren due to nutrient loss & overgrazing
22. Overgrazing by cattle is destroying the land & increasing desertification, nearly 430 million acres in the USA alone has suffered a 25-50% reduction in yield since first grazed
23. An inch of topsoil takes 200-1000 years to develop – yet in the USA they have lost around 1/3 of their prime topsoil in 200 years (around 7 inches) due to animal farming
24. Land will be lost due to rises in sea level due to global warming due to animal farming

AIR
25. The destruction of the rainforest by cattle farmers is destroying the lungs of the planet & reducing the worlds capacity to replenish our oxygen supply
26. The 1,300,000,000 cattle in the world emit 60,000,000 tons of methane per year (methane is a greenhouse gas & leads to global warming)
27. Burning of forests, grasslands & agricultural waste associated with animal farming releases 50-100,000,000 tons of methane per year
28. Combining these figures, 25% of methane emissions are due to animal farming (not including the billions of sheep, pigs & poultry so the real figure is much higher)
29. Fertilizer used to grow crops to feed to animals releases nitrous oxide – thought to account for 6% of the greenhouse effect
30. Fertilizer, weedkiller & pesticides sprayed on crops enter the atmosphere creating a noxious carcinogenic cocktail
31. CFCs are released into the air from refrigeration units used to store decomposing flesh (meat), milk & butter – CFCs are destroy the ozone layer
32. Ammonia from animal urine also pollutes the atmosphere
33. CO2 is released by burning oil & petrol in lorries, ships, abattoirs, dairies, factories etc. associated with meat & dairy production
34. Emissions from large chemical plants which produce fertilizer, weedkiller & other agricultural chemicals are also poisoning our air

WATER
35. 25 gallons of water to produce 1lb of wheat & 2500 gallons to produce 1lb of meat
36. UK farm animals produce 200,000,000 tonnes of slurry (liquid excrement) every year, the majority of which ends up in our rivers
37. Bloody waste water from abattoirs ends up in our rivers
38. In the USA every second humans produce 12,000 lbs of effluent while farmed animals produce 250,000 lbs
39. Nitrates & pesticides used on crops grown to feed livestock end up in our rivers
40. Meat & dairy farming uses 70 litres of water per day per animal in the UK or 159,250,000,000 litres per year in total
41. The water used to produce 10 lbs of steak is equivalent to the average consumption of water for an entire household for an entire year
42. Depletion of groundwater reserves to grow crops for animals & to supply abattoirs will lead to greater water shortages
43. Aquafers (stores of underground water) in the San Joaquin valley in the USA are being drained at the rate of 500,000,000,000 gallons/year to produce meat
44. 18% of all agricultural land in the world is irrigated & as global warming increases (partly due to animal farming) it will cost $200,000,000 to keep these systems going
45. The water used to produce a 1000 lb beef steer is enough to float a Destroyer battleship
46. The liquid waste from the various parts of the meat & dairy industry flow into the rivers & from there into the seas polluting them & encouraging huge algal blooms to grow

EFFICIENCY
47. To produce 1calorie of energy from meat takes 60 calories of petrol, whereas growing grains & legumes to directly feed people produces 20 calories for each calorie of fuel used ( thats 1200 times more efficient)
48. Meat & dairy farming uses billions of gallons of oil to run tractors, fuel ships & lorries (to move animal feed & animals), pump billions of gallons of water to irrigate fields & run slaughterhouses, power refrigeration units to prevent the corpses from decomposing & to power sewage plants to clean up some of the pollution produced
49. Cattle convert only 6% of their energy intake (mainly grains & soya) into flesh, the remaining 94% is wasted as heat, movement (which is why they keep many animals in very close confinement), hair, bones, faeces etc
50. 1lb of beef takes 1 gallon of petrol to produce
51. A family of four eating beef for a year uses enough petrol to run a car for 6 months (obviously depending on how far you drive!)
52. If the full ecological cost of meat was passed onto the consumer – the price would be quadrupled (at least)
53. The EC spends œ100,000,000’s to subsidise animal production resulting in lakes of unwanted milk & mountains of unwanted meat & butter. This money could be better spent encouraging organic fruit, vegetable & grain production
54. In the USA in 1979 145,000,000 tons of crops were fed to cattle resulting in only 21million tons of animal bodies – the cost of the wasted crops was $20,000,000,000
55. Between 1950 & 1985 grain production in Europe & the USA increased massively but 2/3 was fed to animals
56. 70% of all grain is fed to animals
57. Eating vast quantities of animal flesh, eggs, milk & butter is a luxury that most of the planet can not afford

ANIMALS
58. Fishing with drift (and other modern) nets weakens & destroys ecosystems by indiscriminately killing billions of sea creatures & disrupting the sea bed
59. Fishermen’s nets kill 10 times as many other animals as the fish they are hoping to catch
60. Fish caught in nets die an agonising slow death of suffocation
61. Each year 15,000,000,000 land animals are slaughtered for food & an unknown but much larger number of sea creatures (including 1000’s of dolphins caught accidentally)
62. Chickens are crammed into battery cages with upto 3 other birds, they are unable to even spread their wings & many can not even stand up
63. Unwanted male chicks (because they can’t lay eggs) are gassed or pulped while their sisters go to the battery sheds
64. Chicks are debeaked without anaesthetic to prevent them injuring each other in the unnaturally confined conditions they are kept in – this is equivalent to having your fingernails pulled out without anaesthetic
65. Modern farming methods using growth hormones & artificial lighting mean that many chickens out grow their bones, resulting in fractured & broken legs
66. Sows are kept tethered in stalls 1.3 x 1 metre on concrete or slatted floors – they can not even turn around
67. Poultry raised for meat are kept in windowless broiler sheds, with around 20-30,000 in each shed, they live in an area of 10-20 cm square – fighting due to overcrowding is common & like battery hens they commonly suffer from supperating bed sores
68. Broilersheds are artificially lit 23 hours a day to produce rapid growth
69. Animals travel between farms & to slaughter in overcrowded transporters with no food or water – resulting in stress, injuries & deaths – legal requirements are widely ignored
70. 95% of poultry suffer injuries before being killed & 30% suffer broken bones
71. Problems with stunning practices mean that many animals have their throats slit while still conscious (around 6% of cattle or 200,000 per year) & are then dipped in tanks of scalding water (to loosen feathers, bristles etc.) again while fully conscious
72. 4000 animals die spurting their blood out every minute in a British slaughterhouse
73. Calf leather comes from animals killed at just 2 weeks old
74. Cows were fed on the ground up remains of other cows & sheep – the result is thought to be BSE (mad cow disease) in the USA cattle are fed partly on recycled plastic pellets
75. Cows only give milk for 10 months after they have a calf – so they are routinely artificially inseminated (ie. mechanically raped) to keep them pregnant & milking – their calves are taken away (usually at 12 hours old) for meat or export to veal crates
76. Cows would naturally live upto 20 years but are slaughtered after 5-7 years when their milk production begins to fall
77. In the UK animals are killed by first being stunned with electricity or a captive bolt gun (ie. a bolt is fired into their heads) before having their throats slit & being plunged into boiling water – all this happens on a production line with the animals being hung upside down from a moving conveyor belt – this is factory farming
78. “Animals are those unfortunate slaves & victims of the most brutal part of mankind” – John Stewart Mill (philosopher)
79. Veal calves are confined in stalls in the dark, unable to move & are fed on pigs blood , chocolate & dried milk (we are drinking the rich fresh milk of their mothers)
80. Cows naturally produce 5 litres of milk per day for their calves – under the intensified systems of modern farming they produce 25-40 litres per day – resulting in swollen & inflamed udders – at this rate they are soon worn out
81. Large areas of land are under monoculture to grow crops to feed to animals – these areas are wildlife deserts supporting fewer & fewer species.

HEALTH
82. Vegetarians have a 20% lower rate of mortality from all causes (ie. they live longer & don’t get sick as often)
83. Meat is full of traces of antibiotics, hormones, toxins produced by stress & pesticide residues that become concentrated from all the crops they have eaten
84. Fish contain heavy metals & other pollutants -many of which originated on farms
85. The world health organisation recommends a diet low in saturated fat, sugar, salt & with plenty of fibre – exactly what you get on a vegan/vegetarian diet
86. Farmed animals contain upto 50% saturated fat in their bodies
87. Vegetarians have 24% reduced risk of getting heart disease & Vegans a 57% reduction (heart disease is the biggest killer in the UK accounting for 50% of deaths)
88. Obesity is rare in vegetarians, obesity is related to many diseases
89. Vegans & vegetarians have lower blood pressure & cholesterol levels – high levels are associated with heart disease, strokes & kidney failure
90. Vegetarians have a 50% reduced risk of dying of diabetes
91. Vegetarians have a 40% reduced level of cancer than the general population thought to be because they have a higher intake of vitamins A,C & E
92. Vegetarians have a reduced risk of developing gall & kidney stones
93. 80% of food poisoning is due to infected meat (faeces, bacteria etc.) after all meat is decomposing flesh – most of the rest is due to salmonella in eggs
94. Osteoporosis due to calcium loss from bones is mainly due to the sulphur content in meat & casein protein in milk that cause calcium to be lost in the urine – the countries with the highest meat & dairy consumption are those with the highest levels of brittle bones
95. 50% of people do not have the enzyme to digest milk properly & milk allergy is related to asthma & eczema
96. Meat eaters have double the rate of Alzheimers disease as Vegans & Vegetarians – some people also think that Parkinsons disease is also linked to meat eating
97. Egg yolk is a dense concentration of saturated fat & the white is high in albumin protein associated with leaching calcium into your urine. Butter is 80% saturated fat, cream is 40% saturated fat & cheese is 25-40% saturated fat
98. Meat eaters are two and a half times more likely to get bowel cancer than Vegetarians
99. The cling film used to wrap meat in supermarkets & butchers contains chemicals linked to falling sperm counts in men
100. Chinese people (living mainly on a vegetarian diet) consume 20% more calories than Americans but Americans are 20% fatter