
When we think about ways to save the environment we often think about, recycling, reducing greenhouse emission gasses, or reducing the amount of energy or water we use on a daily basis. Many scientists are currently debating whether or not our environment is at risk, even though there have been many physical changes to our climate and studies showing that our environment is degrading by the second. Science does prove that changing ones’ diet, to be healthier, does have a positive effect on the environment. Everyone is self conscious of their diet when it comes to weight loss, and even health and astonishingly sometimes even religion, but not many are concerned about the impact an individual’s diet has on the environment. Changing ones’ diet also has many personal benefits that are outside of the physical norm for example the reduced probability of many diseases. There are many different ways one can change their diet so it doesn’t have such a negative impact on the environment, personal health or the economy for example, one can change convert to veganism or change meat from being the main focus of one’s meals. 

Climate change is a change in the earth’s climate notably affecting earths atmospheric temperature. Climate change is something scientist have been arguing about since the last decade. Today we are witnessing the consequences of our actions. But why are we not all trying to find ways to help our planet? In an interview with Fox News, Bill Nye, a respected member of the science community, who believes climate change is real, states that “cognitive dissonance” is the reason why humans are not accepting the facts that we are ruining our planet. Cognitive dissonance is when one has clear proven facts in front of them but decides to neglect those facts because of conflicting personal beliefs or attitudes. In simpler terms it is when one someone has two or more contradicting ideas while having to perform an act. Bill Nye also claims that we will eventually either die out or have to find somewhere else to inhabit like Mars due to the effects we are having on climate change. 

Research provided by the scholarly article, “Evaluating the environmental impact of various dietary patterns combined with different food production systems”, has proven that healthier plant based diets could drastically improve our environment by basing their research on the Life Cycle Assesment (LCA), “procedure for the evaluation of the energy and environmental impacts of a process or activity”. The experiment looked at three different diets that were all equivalent when it came to amount of energy and nutrients. The study proved that as the amount of meat eaten increased so did the impact on the environment. Proving that the amount of meat we it is having an impact on out environment. Therefore because of cognitive dissonance many are refusing to change their diets for the improvement of our environment and health of our planet. 

The idea that veganism is better for the environment started with the bestselling book “Diet for a Small Planet” by Frances Moore Lappae. The book was publicized in 1971 and has since been known for sparking the debate as to whether human diets have an impact on the environment. To this day many of Lappaes findings are still being taught and treated as proven facts. The evidence is also far more clear and harder to deny since as a population we have grown by approximately 3,757,549,485 individuals. The book also discusses that the meat production industry is the reason for world wide food scarcity. 

Changing your diet is one way to reduce stress on the environment; according to Tricia Corrin and Andrew Papadopoulos, authors of “Understanding the Attitudes and Perceptions of Vegetarian and Plant Based Diets to Shape Future Health Promotion Programs”, there a plethora of different diets around the world that all leave a specific environmental footprint in the area. Plant based diets are nothing new, but they have recently become the subject of many different scientifically diverse studies. There is a plethora of plant based diets; vegan and vegetarian are the most widely practiced. 

Vegan and vegetarian diets are similar but have a very distinct difference. Vegetarians only have one restriction: no animal meat. Vegans on the other hand do not eat any meat or animal product.  Both of these diets are widely used in the plant based diet community, but some find it hard to cut out all meat, so they leave fish or only cut out red meats. Some also have hybrids of diets for example: the semi-vegetarian, lacto-vegetarian (drinking milk but no other animal product), pescatarian (only eating fish and no other animals), and even flexitarian (one who is mostly vegetarian but at times eats animals) diets are practiced all around the world (Corrin). All of these diets have a specific set of restrictions and accommodations. 

 Furthermore, plant based diets are a great interest because studies show that humans are over eating and over producing animals which is having a negative impact on the environment and health of animals and humans. Livestock is having a negative impact on the environment because of the amount of methane and other gases they produce and the amount of grains needed to support them. Many of the gases that the livestock produce is harming our environment and because there are so many, the amount of gases produced is also heightened. If the entire United States went vegan more than fifty-one prevent of gas emission caused by livestock would be reduced. The impact that the animal agriculture business is having on our environment is one that we cannot ignore and need to immediately act on before it is too late.

Becoming vegan may come with a lot of judgement from our peers and society, but in the article “What if the Whole World Went Vegan?” the author states that greenhouse gas levels would reduce more than fifty percent, if everyone converted to veganism, that is a drastic amount. Also, more than twenty-five percent of what humans eat is affecting the environment in a negative way, most of it because of the over-production of livestock, chickens, cows, pigs, and fish. We are also eating too much meat but not enough nutritious vegetables. Other than affecting the environment negatively, meat also affects our health. Meat is one of the ten foods proven to promote the cause of cancer, and is also linked to cardiovascular disease.  

On top of environmental and personal health converting to a plant based diet also has economic benefits, according to Sarah DeWeerdt, author of “What if the Whole World Went Vegan?”, the US would save $1 trillion dollars if everyone converted to a vegan diet. That would save each American 3214 dollars if we looked at the population number of 2015. 

Also, excluding the environmental factors what many do not understand about including meat in their diets is that, when one consumes an animal one is also consuming all of the toxins, antibiotics, and everything else that the animal also consumed. Meat is also one of the top cancer inducing foods. Even respected nutritionists are calling out for the American people to eat less meat and add more nutritious vegetables and fruits for their health and the health of the environment. 

According to Barbara J. King, a professor at the College of William and Mary, and author of “Does Being Vegan Really Help Animals?” a vegetarian has the potential of saving an average of ninety- five animals per year, and each person not on a plant based diet eats on average seven thousand animals in their lifetime. Right now thousands of animals are being mistreated due to the animal agriculture business. There are cattle who spent the entirety of their lifetime not being able to move or even be able to stand up. Because the livestock is bred and fed to grow to enormous sized organ failure and paralysis is common. Many animals like milk producing cattle are constantly impregnated to keep the production of milk flowing but once their calves are born many are separated less than a day later. Even fish are being affected by the animal agriculture business. Fish have no legal protection therefore many of them suffer from living in astonishingly dirty tanks that can lead to parasites, infections and depilating injuries. Fish also suffer from painful deaths; at times their deaths are so cruel that some fish have their stomachs forced into their mouths because of the pressure change from water to air. By converting to veganism you will be saving 95 animals that are being mistreated and abused. Many also have the misconception that because a product says “cage free” or “grass fed” that it justifies the fact that we are funding the animal agriculture business. These labels also do not mean that the animal was treated humanely before or after its death. By buying these products we are condoning and supporting the cruelty that the animals in the animal agriculture business face. If one does not want to convert to a more plant based diet for the sake of our environment one should look into the ethical reasons of converting to a more plant based diet.  

Even though changing your diet to a more plant based diet has many benefits there are many misconceptions and misunderstandings about plant based diets. Plant based diets are constantly changing and evolving therefore studies with the main focus point of diets of plant based diets are also changing and evolving. The purpose of the scholarly article, "Understanding the Attitudes and Perceptions of Vegetarian and Plant-based Diets to Shape Future Health Promotion Programs”, is to shed light on the common misconceptions of a plant based diet. Research shows that plant based diets are “perceived in a positive light” (Corrin) even though there are a magnitude of barriers as to why some do not change their diet. According to "Understanding the Attitudes and Perceptions of Vegetarian and Plant-based Diets to Shape Future Health Promotion Programs” only two to ten percent of the population in developed countries identify as vegetarian. The study showed that many assume vegetarians or vegans are unhealthy, weak, and frail (Corrin). In Canada some of the test subjects viewed vegetarian men as less masculine and even questioned the sexuality. Throughout most of the study, which was conducted throughout the entire world, vegans were viewed more negatively than vegetarians even though vegans and vegetarians are proven to be healthier and have a reduced probability of getting cardiovascular diseases on top of other serious diseases. 

The relationship that our diets have with the environment is one that we should not deny as a race or use cognitive dissonance as an excuse for our own ignorance. Ignorance is bliss but our diets make up a big chunk of the greenhouse emission gasses and we could all easily reduce the amount that we are contributing due to our diets and that is not something we can easily ignore.  If we all followed the healthy dietary guidelines greenhouse gasses would decrease by seven percent in one year. That’s a drastic amount of gases that have an impact on our environment.

Some say that changing our diets has no impact on the environment or the emission of greenhouse gasses. But an article, “Evaluating the environmental impact of various dietary patterns combined with different food production systems”, proves that meat as a single food has the greatest overall impact on the environment. Others claim that both meat based diets and plant based diets have the same uptake of water use and energy use, but a scientific study published in the “European Journal of Clinical Nutrition” claimed that the amount of water needed to irrigate cereals for livestock outnumbered the amount of water used for other agricultural purposes. Although both sides of the argument do agree that meat has an enormous impact on the environment I just hope that as Americans we recognize that the way we are treating our bodies and environment through our diets before it is too late even if today’s generation will not be seeing the effects of our diets and ignorance. 

In conclusion one should consider changing their diets not only for health and economic reasons but also for the benefit of our environment. We should not be using cognitive dissonance as an excuse for our actions. We only have one environment and we should do everything in our power to save it. Today we are seeing that many celebrities like Peter Dinklage, and even the American government trying to get Americans to change their diets. The American government is trying to do so by changing this year’s Dietary Guide for Americans. And celebrities are trying to promote veganism by teaming up with well known organizations like PETA. For example, Peter Dinklages video on YouTube, “Peter Dinklage: Face Your Food”, where he narrates a video on the mistreatment of livestock animals to promote the converting to veganism. The video addresses the mistreatment chickens, cattle, pigs and even fish. Another well known respected celebrity for example is Leonardo Dicaprio who marched in a climate change protest not too long ago.  You do not have to become completely vegan or vegetarian but one should consider the converting to a more plant based diet or at least changing meat from the main focus of one’s meals, not just for their health, the economy, but also for the environment. 

All scientist should just join to one consensus and agree that global warming is real and that our diets are having an impact on the environment. In a time like this where not even our own president, Donald Trump, can get the facts and the “alternative facts” straight we need science to lead us. We cannot be blissfully ignorant when it comes to our environment and yes I understand that we will not be seeing the serious outcome of our ignorance but our children and grandchildren will. So for the sake of our future as a species we should all try to help the environment and the first step is agreeing that global warming is happening and that we need to change our diets as a way to help our planets health.

If this essay has not given you the motive to convert to veganism I ask you to at least try reducing the amount of meat you eat on a daily basis or changing. Try switching from normal milk to almond or cashew milk or by completely dropping eggs completely or by choosing to skip meat every so often or even finding meat replacements like tofu. These changes may seem minuscule but the impact they will have on our environment and the treatment of livestock is not. As a species we all need to take the health of ourselves, the treatment of livestock, and the health of our environment more seriously. 
