Talking Points: 30 Reasons to Go Vegetarian
Wednesday July 4, 2007
Why vegetarian? Your friends and family have probably asked you this thousands of times. Now, there is a quick video that sums it all up. You can refer your concerned loved ones to this video online, or, watch it yourself to understand some of the many reasons people go vegetarian or vegan, from health benefits, to animal welfare concerns. There are even environmental reasons to go vegetarian.
The video is called Chew on This: 30 Reasons to Go Vegetarian. Its just about 7 minutes long, or, you can read about the 30 reasons here..
Why are you vegetarian? Readers respond.
Is thirty not enough for you? Need even more reasons? VivaVegie, a New York-based vegetarian group has published 101 Reasons to Be a Vegetarian (it's a PDF file and may take a few minutes to load).
Need some help getting started? You can find resources for vegetarian beginners in the Vegetarian and Vegan 101 section, or start by reading my tips on How to Go Vegetarian or Vegan.
Comments
Hi—Jolinda: Is the video at all explicit, does it contain any animal violence?
While I am still about to give up meat for my own reasons, I wasn’t too impressed with this list of 30 reasons. It was the same 2 facts rephrased over and over: meat is unhealthy and killing animals is violent.
Not much to really inspire anyone.
No, its not particularly graphic, though there is a moment or two. It does focus more on the overall reasons, rather than just showing slaughterhouse footage. The video you’re probably thinking of is Meet Your Meat.
Pythia is right on; I was also not impressed with the list of reasons - it’s quite repetitive. I don’t think it represents the mindset of most vegetarians as it seems as if it were written by some extremist. This is not good propaganda to use to actually reason with our carnivore friends.
The video clip and the PDF that list 30 reasons to go vegetarian are from Peta; an organization that isn’t exactly known for its subtlety.
Although most of the things Peta says/writes in their publications are true, I fear that the way in which they spread their message is perceived as aggressive and negative by a lot of people.
Excess negativity tends to alienate the general public.