the benefits of a plant-based diet

In this blog post you'll learn about the advantages of being vegetarian, vegan, or celebrating Meatless Mondays

Image Credit: Louis Hansal

what does it mean to 'be vegetarian?'

If you're vegetarian, that means that you don't eat meat and fish. There are different words when it comes to diet. Vegetarian is one of them, but there are also others such as pescatarian (meaning that you don't eat meat but eat fish), vegan (meaning that you don't eat meat or dairy products), freegan (meaning that you eat out of the trash - it's a real thing. Actually, since there is so much food waste, you can have enough to eat. I'm sure you're imagining fishing for banana peels, but you'd be surprised on what you can find: Once, there was a bunch of whole chocolate bars found in the dumpster, and they were thrown away just because their packaging was in French. Yes. People dumped a bunch of chocolate - and all the hard work and money that went into making the chocolate went in the trash), gluten free (this one means you don't eat wheat. We aren't going to focus one this one for this blog because it doesn't really help the environment, but it doesn't hurt it, either), and finally, humynitarians.

Wait.

No.

Rewind.

Because vegetarian and pescatarian end in a 'tarian' makes you think that 'tarian' has to do with eating habits. So humynitarian must mean that you eat humyns. (If you're wondering why I'm spelling 'humans' like 'humyns' it's because huMANS has a 'man' in it, and we aren't all men).

However, humynitarian doesn't mean that you eat humyns. It means the opposite: that you're a kind person - yay! - who helps others and donates.

So don't be a cannibal and eat humyns.

I hope I didn't give anyone ideas.

Anyways, enough with the jokes.

how does changing your diet help the earth?

To answer the question on how changing your diet helps, we must look into the manufacturing of meat. Specifically, cows.

Cows need a lot of place to roam and eat grass, meaning that trees will have to be cut down so that humans can make fields.

However, that's not all of it. After you kill the cow to get the meat, you have to wash the meat. However, it takes a lot of water to wash meat, meaning that a lot of water is being used. Which isn't good for the environment. In fact, the amount of water used to go into a burger is equivelent to a 90 minute shower. Yes. A 90 minute shower. How long do you take a shower? Next time, plug the drain, and then see how much water you have, and imagine how much water would go into a burger.

And, meat is sometimes wasted. Let's say you got a big burger, and you plan to eat it all. However, suddenly you realize that you're not hungry anymore. 'That's okay,' you think before putting the burger into your fridge, 'I'll eat it tomorrow.'

However, maybe you forget about the burger tomorrow. Or maybe you're in the mood to eat lasagna. Or maybe you aren't hungry. Eventually your burger get's old. And moldy. And you throw it away carelessly.

But this isn't a thing to shrug your shoulders at! Remember: A cow was killed to make a burger. For the cow to be born in the first place, trees had to be cut down. Which means squirrels died. Plus every other animal who lived in the forest.

And when that burger get's thrown in the trash...

Maybe they died in vain.

This is the same for cheese, except that the cow doesn't die, but the cow needs food to produce that cheese. Chickens, pigs, and other eaten animals raised put up the same issue: people need to grow food for our food. Though an animal as small as a chicken doesn't eat as much food as a cow. Still, there is a large environmental impact due to the fact that people eat A LOT of chickens.

Also, there is an ethical factor to eating meat.

The ethical factor isn't that you're killing the animal to eat them. After all, other carnivores eat other animals. The ethical factor is something called factory farms. Factory farms are where animals are breed to be eaten, but they're confined to small areas, sometimes never seeing sunlight, and being stuffed with food to get fat and soon to be killed to be eaten. Know that not all farms are factory farms, so you don't have to buy meat from factory farms.

Ooh! Yes, fish. I forgot about fish.

Fish are caught in a large mass, meaning that a lot of fish are being killed for people. Fishing nets can catch other sea animals, like turtles, and they sometimes die because of it.

We get it - it's hard to change your diet

Changing your diet can be hard, especially when you're accustomed to eating meat and cheese. And we get it - cheese is delicious. Hopefully, though, these little tips will help you change your diet. And the most important thing to remember is: You don't have to do it quickly. In an ideal world, everyone would be able to change their di et just with a snap of their fingers, but that isn't reality. In fact, trying to stop eating meat and dairy all at once is probably more hurtful to the environment, because you'll keep going back to meat because you internally miss it so much.

tell us where you're at

Where are you at in your vegetarian journey? Are you already a vegetarian, or already a vegan? Are you trying to start, but it's hard?

We want to know where you're at! If you create an account on STEP, then we'll be able to give you a badge such as 'you're a vegan' or 'you're a vegetarian.'

Also, if you're at a stage where you're basically vegetarian, except occasionally you eat meat, then you can count yourself as a vegetarian.

Thank you for reading this article!

-the STEP team