“When there are good reasons to do something though, there is always a will and a way”

You’ve probably already heard that diets with little to no meat are generally healthier than the alternative. Meat products have been linked to increased risk for diseases like cancer and heart disease. On top of that, there are a multitude of concerns with the meat industry, including ethical and environmental concerns. The thought of giving up meat can be daunting and seemingly impossible for those of us who aren’t yet vegan or going plant-based on the regs. When there are good reasons to do something though, there is always a will and a way. Here are five simple and important reasons why you should start reducing your meat consumption.

1/5 Live Longer

Turning to plant-based diets can improve your health in a number of ways. Research shows that eating red or processed meat increases the risk for heart disease, stroke or diabetes. That’s because meat, even the most “organic” and gourmet kind, is much more difficult for the body to break down than high-fiber plant-based materials. In addition, vegan diets have been prescribed as both treatment and prevention for cancer. In various surveys conducted on people following different diets, vegans have been found to have the lowest rates of cancer. One of the reasons is because ingredients like fruits, vegetables and whole-grains produce phytochemicals that protect cells from damage and inflammation, while meat possesses chemicals like haem and nitrites which tend to cause damage.

2/5 Save The Planet

According to the University of Oxford, cutting meat from your diet could reduce your carbon footprint by up to 73 percent, and if everyone stopped eating meat, global farmland could be reduced by 75 percent, or the size of Europe, Australia, China and the US combined. The United Nations has actually urged people to go vegan a few years ago, citing the meat industry’s damage to our environment. Meat production not only takes up much more space than equivalent plant-based farming would, it requires so much more water and fuel to maintain as well as produces more waste. 

3/5 Save The Animals

Eating meat, of course, cannot be separated from animal cruelty, and if we could cut the world’s cruelty towards animals by half or even a quarter by eating more plants, wouldn’t it be worth it? You automatically reduce the demand for animal products when you refuse to pay for them. According to Animal Aid, in the UK alone, around 1 billion animals are bred and killed for food every year. That number doesn’t even include fish. Because of the exponential demand for meat over the last fifty years, mass produced animal agriculture has only become increasingly inhumane towards livestock, making you wonder whether or not you actually need the amount of meat you’re currently consuming. If everyone in the UK decided to halve their meat intake, for instance, 500 million animals would be saved from slaughter annually. Just let that number sink in. 

4/5 It’s So Easy Now

Image: Courtesy of Meat Zero (CPF)

Being vegan 10 or 20 years ago was such a different story than being vegan today. Things like Beyond Meat or the Impossible Burger didn’t exist yet, and neither did the range of plant-based milks and cheeses we now have today. In Bangkok, not only are there so many quality vegan restaurants to choose from (and for varying budgets), you can now walk into almost any local grocery store and purchase alternative meats to cook yourself a meal that would make a carnivore salivate. Companies are coming out with more appetizing and innovative vegan ingredients as more people are switching out meaty meals for a plant-based one. It’s such a convenience nowadays that even local convenience stores have gotten the memo and added vegan options to their ready-to-go meal sections. 

5/5 Plant Powered Mind

The brain and body are always connected, veganism can impact you mentally just as much as it impacts you physically. Becoming more mindful about what goes into your body and its relationship with the world that we live in can be a form of therapy and healing. Koktail’s own editor Mika Apichatsakol is a vegan and attests that the lifestyle change has helped with her mental health for a number of reasons. “It gave me a better relationship with food; It has helped me sleep much better; and it has also eliminated other health problems that contributed to my stress. But most of all, going vegan has corrected that silently distressing dissonance between my beliefs about animal cruelty and my behaviour of eating meat.”