It's an ephemeral choice that does it follow trends or is it a deeply ethical choice? Humans have always dealt with food in relation to its availability and its symbolic meaning since rites have been the main manifestation of the relationship between the earth and the sky and food he was the intermediary.
Humans have long been asking questions about consumption of animal meat and on the meaning of this gesture, changing approaches in relation to different cultures. There are many reasons to think it's important today to reflect on the choice not to consume animal flesh.
We summarize them.
The environmental choice
It is well known that intensive livestock farming is one of the main causes of the climate crisis, producing around 15% of greenhouse gas emissions, requiring enormous quantities of water and consuming feed taken away from human nutrition.
The ethical choice
Respect for the life and sensitivity of animals must grow, because animals experience emotions—fear, pain, affection, and a desire to live. Farm animals are no different, as animals, from companion dogs and cats. Every year, billions of animals are killed, often due to the lack of even basic rules for their respect.
Farming conditions are often such that they do not allow for a respectful life for the animals, with very limited space and mutilations, resulting in the spread of diseases due to close cohabitation (this applies to land animals and fish).
Choosing veganism is a morally coherent choice, as vegans do not wish to contribute to violence against sentient beings. Animal exploitation is also linked to human exploitation: underpaid workers on farms or in slaughterhouses, the destruction of indigenous communities for animal feed production, etc.
Health
Scientific studies have widely demonstrated how a diet based on the consumption of animal meat leads to greater benefits, reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes and some cancers – colon, breast and prostate.
Being vegan doesn't automatically mean being healthy: like any diet, it must be carefully planned, balancing your diet with the necessary vitamin and mineral supplements.
The vegan choice is perseverance
Becoming—and especially staying—vegan over time requires deep motivation, perseverance, and a certain esprit de finesse. Vegans, in fact, don't live in an ivory tower or a homogeneous community; they live in a unique social context, built on traditions, habits, cultures, and daily relationships.
If you interpret your choice with a rigid esprit de géométrie, you risk encountering many difficulties and ending up or returning to analysis, because the relational dimension is an essential part of being vegan. The renowned historian and thinker Yuval Noah Harari, a lifelong vegan, likes to define himself as "tendentially vegan." As an internationally renowned intellectual, he frequently attends public and private events, and if at the end of a dinner he's served a dessert containing eggs, he doesn't refuse it or send it back. This is why he adds the "tendentially" element, which stands for a tendentially relational element.
The insurmountable limit
There is, however, one insurmountable limit: meat. For a vegan, meat consumption implies an act of direct violence, and on this point there is no compromise in any context, not even on Robinson Crusoe Island. Ultimately, the foundation of being vegan is a nonviolent choice and the sharing of a pantheistic worldview: this is the profound motivation that allows one to remain faithful to a vegan ethic over time.
Choosing vegan is a conscious choice to reduce your impact on the planet, promote respect for animals, and improve your health.
