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The Vegetarian Choice



For more than 30 years I have chosen a vegetarian diet.
It has been a choice, both ethical and for solidarity, for health, for the welfare and the peace.

Ethics - because not violent.

Solidarity - because it addresses in a completely different way the problem of hunger in the world as one of the many imbalances between rich and poor countries is because plant proteins are excluded from human consumption in favor of animal nutrition.

From an ecological point of view farmers use large areas and this leads to deforestation, desertification and pollution. To understand the impact of the environment, industry, intensive farming it is necessary to explain that farm animals are the protein factories in reverse.
We have to give to the animal in the form of fodder a quantity of food and calories that is much greater than the one the animal then produces in the form of meat, milk and eggs.
If we consider the animals as machines that transform plant proteins in animal proteins, they are are very inefficient machines because the amount of plant food necessary changes in a ratio which can vary from 1 to 4 up to get from 1 to 30 to obtain 1 kg of meat.
On average we have to give 15 kg of plant fodder cultivated to have 1 kg of meat. Food, soil, chemicals, energy, water, pollution of waste over the animals, this is what it takes to produce meat.
The conversion of plant food in animal food causes the greenhouse effect, pollution, and a very strong environmental impact.

From the FAO report of 2008 (The long shadow of livestock) emerge the following data:

Transport (cars, planes, ships, railways, etc ...): 13.50% of the impact on production of the greenhouse effect.

Farms (crops, transport, treatment, management of slaughterhouses, etc.): 18% impact on the production of the greenhouse effect.

In addition to this, our constitution is not the one of carnivores if we compare our teeths, our nails and our digestive system with that of cats, for example; we are a kind of fruitarians-granivores, we should feed on fruits and berries of the earth. We do not we have a tendency to attack and kill nor are we attracted to the blood, the brain is such as to allow us to make choices that are not violent and compassionate.

Choosing to eat less animal protein is the best choice we can do to preserve our planet and even our health, it is now proven that vegetarianism is the feeding which protects us from cardiovascular disease, atherosclerosis, cancer, etc. .. The choice of our daily food can really bring a great change on our planet, to do this we must not wait for a change of policy, we do not have to wait for a long time, we should not expect that others do this, it depends only on us and we can do it by right now.

And from now it will have a wonderful impact on our planet earth .....

Rossella Bartolozzi

PROBIOS Ltd.