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Vegetarianism: For the Planet and our People

Teah Hammet
Apr 21, 2016
5 min read

What's up! My name is Teah Hammet and I am the founder of FED; the teen driven, environmental movement of Future Environment Defenders who are fed up with society. We are enraged by the ignorance in the approach towards environmental issues on our governments behalf and infuriated by the education system who fails to teach us, the youth, the importance of our planet. Not once over my 11 and a half years of education have I taken a class which has specifically outlined the ways in which renewable energy, for example, is cost effective and is actually being implemented successfully all over the world, apart from Australia, nor how major food and clothing corporations deplete our environment behind closed doors. But the most aggravating of them all, is that I was never taught that simply eating meat contributes to global warming and does extreme damage to our environment. How are our youth, the future leaders of this world, deprived of such fundamental knowledge? How can we be expected to save the planet if we are not equipped with the foundation of education necessary to conquer nature’s challenges? I believe that putting an end to the consumption of meat and in the process, aiding in the eradication of climate change and promoting healthier lifestyles for our people must become a mainstream lifestyle that the public are aware of and educated on. The current youth must take the first step in the formation of a generation who are able to think for themselves and are motivated to repair our planet and the easiest and most effective way to begin this, is to become a vegetarian.

The rates of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart attacks and cancer are horrifying in our modern day society. All of the doctors and scientists that the government has invested millions of dollars in have produced findings that urge us, the people, to take whatever means necessary to avoid these terminal illnesses. But the simple solution, to just ‘not eat meat’ is rarely encouraged. Oxford recently conducted a Vegetarian Study and the results were shocking; “Meat eaters are twice as likely to die from heart disease and have a 60 percent greater risk of dying from cancer.” Not only this, but a medical journal published by the American College of Physicians states that children have a 60% increased risk of developing Leukemia if they consume meat products. This is more than enough evidence to confirm that eating meat risks our long term health and there is no reason that it should be argued in favour of being ‘essential to the human diet’! Let’s do a quick analysis. Humans do not have large mouths or long pointed teeth, instead we have short flat teeth for chewing fibrous plant based foods, not meat. We do not have short intestines like carnivorous animals, we have long intestines to allow slower digestion of plant foods, not meat. And last but not least, carnivorous animals have a liver that is able to detoxify the excess vitamin A found in a meat based diet, instead the recommended care for a human liver is to pack the diet with antioxidants like berries, nuts, not meat. As stated by the American Academy of Nutritions and Dietetics, humans have ‘No inherent biological or nutritional need for animal products’. We need to stop believing this conspiracy that meat aids our health; it endangers our children putting them at risk of terminal illnesses and it endangers you. We must make the plant based diet of a vegetarian mainstream within society, as it is the healthiest choice on a long term scale.

The agricultural processes involved in producing livestock are depleting our planet. In fact, methane gas output due to agricultural activities is the second largest contributor to green house gas emissions in the world and the largest greenhouse gas emission by economic sector. Due to the agricultural industry’s horrifically unsustainable practices; from energy and water consumption to land use, the industry is literally fuelling global warming. Did you know that cattle consume 16 times more grain than they produce in meat?! It takes massive amounts of the earth’s precious resources to produce the copious amounts of food livestock require so they're ‘fattened up’ to the ideal weight for your plate. I wonder how successful McDonald’s burgers would be if they advertised their hamburgers with the facts on the packaging; ‘on average costs the planet approximately 1750L of water and 2.5 acres of land and 766 grams of carbon dioxide’. There is no way a sane person would pay for that. There is also opportunity here to end world hunger. If the world eliminated animal products from their diets, 6.3 billion people would have access to food. All the water, the crops and grain and the energy put into raising animals in order to kill them should be invested in the unbelievable amount of human beings who live under the poverty line. You have the choice to remain oblivious to the severity of this global crisis that we will inevitably and eventually be faced with. Or, you can make a difference, now. By making a simple lifestyle shift and becoming vegetarian, you have the ability to directly and positively influence the planet and aid our people on a global scale.

The youth are the future. We will be the generation that inherits this planet when our water supply is threatened, when our air is unbearably polluted and when poverty-struck communities experience famine at its worst. We will be that generation. If we don’t start pushing for change now, we have no chance of ensuring the survival of our planet or its people. Challenge FED’s core value of education + awareness = change and utilise these facts; go vegetarian! It is one of the many initiatives that has the ability to positively influence our planet through the reduction of greenhouses gases, water and energy consumption as well as improving our personal health. People need to wake up to reality of the condition of our planet and go vegetarian; for the future of the Earth and its people is in our hands.