Vegetarian Health Benefits

Based on the 2014 Meat Atlas of the Friends of the Earth and the Heinrich Boll Foundation, there are a total of 375 million vegetarians worldwide. Starting way back to early history, vegetarian Greek and Roman philosophers such as Pythagoras, Plutarch, Seneca, and Porfirio followed a meatless diet (Figus, 2014). These people believed that slaughtering animals are against the animal’s rights and that a meatless diet is much better for one’s health. A vegetarian diet consists mostly of fruits and vegetables followed by nuts, grains, seeds, sprouts and as substitutes for meat, they eat legumes, tofu, seitan, tempeh, and vegetable milk. Although health benefits such as a lower risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and hypertension can be acquired …show more content…
Vitamin B12 contributes in the development of red blood cells and in the prolongation of the central nervous system. It is also utilized by the body for protein metabolism. Vitamin B12 can only be found in animal meats. Vegetables do not have any vitamin B12 content unless it is fortified. Since a vegetarian diet consists mainly of vegetables, a vegetarian is not ingesting any vitamin B12 unless supplements are taken, which is unideal because it is unnatural. Vitamin B12 deficiency can cause anemia, loss of balance, numbness in the arms and legs, and weakness. This means that a vegetarian diet is not ideal to humans due to the vegetable’s absence of an essential nutrient in the body known as the vitamin B12 (Wax, …show more content…
But the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act approved by former United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1958 states that there is, in fact, a humane way of killing animals for its meat. The Law necessitates all packers selling to the government of the United States to give anesthetics or immediate stunning to unconsciousness by electrical or mechanical means before killing the livestock (Animal Welfare Institute, nd.). In this way, the animal will not feel the pain or suffering while being slaughtered. In other words, the animal will die peacefully. According to famous surgeon and veterinarian Dr. Daniel Denison Slade’s book called How to Kill Animals Humanely published in 1879, slaughtering animals for their meat can be done in three ways. First is by making the animal senseless through a powerful hit to the head. Second is by penetrating through or damaging the spinal cord, which is called pithing, so as to impair the animals’ mobility and sensation. Last is by slashing the throat to separate the blood vessels, with or without driving the blade into the heart, and minus formerly stupefying the animal. The animal can also be sedated with chloroform, the same substance used by kidnapers to knock people out. Slaughtering animals may seem unrighteous, but there are, in fact, proper methods to do so in such a way that the animal will not suffer the needless