by Wes Taylor

Created on: February 22, 2007   Last Updated: April 20, 2007

Veganism, a form of vegetarianism, is a lifestyle and ideaology that avoids using animal products in day-to-day life. Vegans do not eat any animal products (notable, meat, fish, poultry, dairy, etc.) and also avoid using non-edible animal products such as leather and silk.
Choosing a vegan diet requires numerous lifestyle changes but has been shown to have a positive impact on both person, and environmental health.

Due to the fact that a vegan diet includes no animal products, vegans tend to consume far lower amounts of things such as saturated fats and cholesterol while also partaking of the benefits of elevated levels of carbohydrates, potassium, antioxidants, and fiber.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine found, in a study, that vegan diets can reduce blood cholesterol, and also significantly reduce the complications of Type Two Diabetes.
The American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada state that "Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence."
Several studies in Japan have found that increased consumption of some animal products coincided with a decrease in risk for some forms of cerebrovascular disease and stroke mortality. Also, one researchers from the 1990 epidemiological study, "The China Study," said "Even small increases in the consumption of animal-based foods was associated with increased disease risk."
Livestock feeding practices also pose risks to the animal product consumer. During a lecture at MIT in January 2004, Dr. Michael Greger noted that each year more than one million tons of animal excrement are fed back to farm animals raised for human consumption in order to lower feed costs. Also, 10% of blood from slaughtered livestock is mixed into animal feed, and 30% of poultry blood is mixed back into feed.
In November 2006, the United Nations released a report linking animal agriculture to environmental damage.
The report, titled "Livestock's Long Shadow-Environmental Issues and Options," concludes that the livestock sector of agriculture(primarily cows, chickens, and pigs) emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to our most serious environmental problems, at every scale; from local to global.
It shows that livestock agriculture accounts for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalents. In comparison, all transportation accounts for 13.5% of CO2 emissions.
It produces 65% of human-related nitrous oxide (which has 296 times the global warming potential of CO2) and 37% of all human-induced methane (which is 23 times as warming as CO2). It also generates 64% of the ammonia, which contributes to acid rain and acidification of ecosystems.

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