Vegetarianism

The base idea of vegetarianism is to follow a plant based diet. This can be for various reasons like religious, personal health or ideological. In the Western world we have seen a growing number of practicioners over the last decades. However these ideas are not in any way new, it is known that Romans and Greeks to some extent were vegatarians. India has had a large quantity for over a thousand years.

Types Of Vegetarians
Depending on different diets you can classify vegetarians into:
Vegans Does not eat allow anything animal in their food, excluding such as dairy procucts and honey.
Lacto-vegetarians Include dairy products but not eggs.
Ovo-vegetarians Include eggs but not dairy products.
Lacto-ovo-vegetarians Include both dairy products and egg in their diet.
Then you have many other varieties when fish and poultry can be included etc.

Health Issues
Many become vegetarians for health reasons. It has been established by science that a properly balanced vegetarian diet is healthy. It can offer benefits like lower weight, less bad cholestorol and more vitamins. Research has proven that certain heart diseases can be avoided. But a vegetarian must make sure to eat properly, in many cases vitamin B, calcium, some fatty acids and iron deficiencies are common. A vegetarian, especially the vegan kind, should be conscious of this and actively balance their diet. Bear in mind that non-vegetarians also should be conscious of what they eat, a balanced diet is necessary for everyone.

In many ways the discussions surrounding these topics are very infected with unsubstantial facts guided by beliefs (on both sides!). One correlation that is almost certain is that a diet with dairy products and meat promotes human growth, this we can see in various nations around the world - where children eat red meat and drink milk they grow taller. The health advantages of being tall might be discussed so the latter fact does not really fall into the "healthy" category.

I would like to conclude (and that´s me!) that vegetarians, if they procure a proper diet, have a slight upper hand on meat eaters from a health aspect.

Ideological
A huge issue when discussing vegetarianism is of course the ideological and this is probably why the whole debate is so infected. The main reason not to eat animals is of course out of respect of life. The very big majority of vegans have procured this diet out a belief that we don´t have any right to kill animals.

I want to understand this as something that has arisen from a spiritual need. In the Western world Christianity has lost an incredible amount of followers the last decades, in its place has arisen more personal beliefs. From this point of view vegetarianism is for life and that in my book must be seen as positive. In all ideological and religious movements there are different approaches, unfortunately there are always some militants and fundamentalists, but the grand majority just peacefully mind their own business. I feel that sometimes the positive arguments disappear behind the aggressive finger pointing of a few.

The treatment of livestock and environmental behaviour has improved quite a lot over the last 20 years. This is a direct effect of these ideologies, however not always argumented for by vegetarians. In the Western society there is a general move towards the more holistic.

Environment
Another big argument for vegetarianism, if not the biggest, is environmental. The produce of livestock has been stated by the UN as one of the biggest environmental hazards we have. On a whole, livestock farming is not very energy efficient compared to plant farming being about 50% less effective. Other aspects are that it uses a lot of fresh water, manure pollutes, high emissions of CO2 and Methane and the destruction of forests to create grazelands. In a future with an ever growing world population we might have to, if not eliminate, but actively limit livestock food production.