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Firstly, a little bug bear of mine. I think that we need to discuss what the difference is between Vegan and plant based. You can be plant based but not vegan but you cant be vegan and not be plant based. Clear? I thought not, there are plenty of people who believe that they are following a "Vegan diet" and this by default makes them vegan, this is sadly untrue. Here are a few examples of each and hopefully this will explain the difference.

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Person 1, lets call him Bob, who wants to be called person 1 anyway? and person 2, lets call her Lucy.

First lets look at Bob:

Bob eats a 100% plant based diet, Bob just went to the shop and purchased a brand new leather jacket, lucky Bob. Bob is not Vegan, Bob is plant based.
Bob eats a 100% plant based diet, Bob raises and sells animals for profit, after all he isn't doing the killing. Bob is not vegan, Bob is plant based.
Bob, eats a 100% plant based diet, Bob regularly attends social events that use animals as entertainment, ha ha, look at the tiger dance on the ball, tigers are smart, I love tigers. Bob is not Vegan, Bob is plant based.

Now lets look at Lucy

Lucy eats a 100% plant based diet, Lucy loves a make up brand but that brand test on animals, Lucy does not continue to purchase or support that brand. Good for you Lucy. Lucy is Vegan.
Lucy eats a 100% plant based diet, Lucy avoids attending social events where animals are used for entertainment like horse or greyhound racing. Lucy has educated herself in what happens to animals in these industries. Lucy is Vegan.
Lucy eats a 100% plant based diet, Lucy was involved in a car crash, the medicines and anaesthetic that was used on Lucy were tested on animals. Without them Lucy would have died. Lucy is Vegan.

Can you tell the difference between Bob and Lucy? I hope I have made it as clear as possible. Bob only eats plants but has no consideration for the animal world around him. Lucy cares deeply about animals, their health and where possible and practicable avoids anything that will cause them to be used in any way. This is a key difference in people who only eat plants I.E. Plant based and Vegan. The difference is an ethical one.

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Definition of veganism:

Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.

SRC

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Ok, I got it, so why Veganism (or at least plant based) is the future?

The Western diet is killing us.

"The western diet is rich in red meat, dairy products, processed and artificially sweetened foods, and salt, with minimal intake of fruits, vegetables, fish, legumes, and whole grains."SRC

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With a population of 65.64 million the figures for the UK can be extrapolated across other nations too. These would be average numbers for digestive tract cancers caused by red and processed meats.

Germany's population 84 million, would have 11550 fewer cancer cases.
Spain's population 46.5 million, would have 6325 fewer cancer cases.
France's population 66.9 million, would have 9198 fewer cancer cases.
USA population 325.7 million, would have 44783 fewer cancer cases.

If we look at Europe as a whole

European population of 741.4 would have 101942 fewer cancer cases.

Between the US and Europe alone we are looking at almost 150,000 preventable cancer cases. That is just one type of cancer! When we look at coronary disease and stroke the figures get even worse. We have been sold a lie for generations. Thankfully the world is waking up to the damaging nature of animal based foods and indeed the inverse healing nature of plant based foods. The solution to so many health issues we see in our modern world is to simply stop eating animals and their products I.E. Milk and milk derived products. In fact, connections have been established by the British medical journal between the consumption of red meat to an increase in death rates from nine different diseases: cancer, type 2 diabetes, stroke, Alzheimer’s, infections and diseases of the heart, liver, kidneys and respiratory tract. SRC

So what if these people die? the earth is overpopulated anyway! Actually the earth could support a whole lot more! The human population could increase to simply mind boggling numbers and be able to sustain itself with essentially small holdings. In this post by @rieki they discuss this exact thing. A very worthwhile read. This also leads us on to our next topic

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Current agriculture models are not sustainable.

Below is a graph, who doesn't love a graph? This graph indicates whole lifecycle total of greenhouse gas emissions for common protein foods and vegetables, expressed as kilograms (kg) of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) per kg of consumed product.

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Did you know that animal agriculture causes more greenhouse gas emissions than that of all transportation? Lamb contributes 39.3 kg of carbon per 1 kilo of meat consumed[1], Beef contributes 39.3 kg carbon per 1 kilo of meat consumed[2] SRC 1 & 2. Conservative estimates put animal agriculture at 14 - 18% where as transportation is only 13.5%. That is just Co2, we also have to factor in Methane. Methane is 20 times more potent as a Co2 in terms of greenhouse gas. Methane accounted for about 16% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2015, according to the IPCC (UN’s Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change)[3]SRC 3. When we look at the huge strides we take towards reducing our carbon footprint in the transportation sector we would be foolish at best to ignore the footprint or should I say hoof print of our food. But that is only some of the story....

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Where are we going to keep all these animals?

Land usage for meat and dairy production is hugely inefficient. "Livestock is the world’s largest user of land resources, with pasture and land dedicated to the production of feed representing almost 80% of the total agricultural land. The sector uses 3.4 billion hectares for grazing and one-third of global arable land to grow feed crops, accounting for more than 40% of world cereal production. 26% of the Earth’s ice-free terrestrial surface is used for grazing."SRC. That was the 2014 numbers, or around 318.8 million tonnes of meat. The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) Estimates puts meat production for 2050 at 455 million tonnes!

Can you see where this is headed? We are going to raise and slaughter Billions more animals every year by 2050. The knock on effect of this is catastrophic to our environment. Is that cheese burger really worth not having a planet to live on?

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If we look at the graph above we can see that in 2011 50% of habitable land was used for agriculture, 77% of this was used for animal agriculture. Yet only 17% of the total calorific food supply comes from meat and dairy. This is a totally unsustainable model of generating a food source for a global population. If we continue down this route we will have no habitable land left for people with the entire habitable land mass taken up by "food" animals. Not forgetting that every increase in food animals also increased their greenhouse gas emission. If we move to at least a plant based model we will not only reduce our need for land which simply is not available but we could also mitigate the effects of animal agriculture on our climate. It is a win win situation.

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The graphic above shows the land required for diet type by country. I have had to copy the image but you can visit the interactive map here The red countries indicate the land required if the world ate as that country. If we look at the US we would need 137.65% of the entire habitable land just to raise "food" animals. If we look at New Zealand we would need 191.2% almost double of the available land on the earth just to raise "food" animals. But if we look at a more plant based country I.E. India we would only need to use 22.2 precent% Even my home country of Ireland fails, it would require 105.8%. This is not to mention the huge live export trade that Ireland has.

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So cant we just eat fish instead?

With industrialised fishing decimating dwindling fish stocks we are set to have more plastics in our oceans by 2050 than fish. This report predicts that, on the current track, oceans will contain more plastic than fish by 2050. Recently a team of scientists at NUI Galway, Ireland, found 73% of deep water fish had ingested plastic particles. The full study can be found here. This is really bad news for the fish that are left in our oceans. The team examined the stomach contents of the 233 deep sea fish they had gathered, which ranged in size from 3.5 to 59 centimetres. One small Lanternfish, just 4.5 centimetres long, had 13 microplastics in its stomach. These smaller fish are a food source for larger fish, who eats the larger fish? You guessed it people do. We are in the process of poisoning the oceans at an alarming rate. Did you know that land animal agriculture is also responsible for oceanic dead zones?

Dead zone is a more common term for hypoxia, which refers to a reduced level of oxygen in the water. Aquatic life that is mobile can move but aquatic life that is not, suffocates. The video below is from NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). It shows how dead zones are created and what effects that these zones can have on all life, not just aquatic life.

https://youtu.be/a8ae2vq45eA

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When faced with the information that is available there really is only a handful of logical choices available to us as a species. Removing animals from our nutrition equation is going to be a huge part of the solution to our future on this planet

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All images unless otherwise sourced and noted as such are my own. They are typically taken with my HTC ONE.

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