Three Reasons to Go VEGAN!

Switching to a plant-based diet can significantly improve overall health, prevent many chronic diseases, and in some cases even reverse established disease. A plant-based diet centered around whole foods (fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts, and seeds) is low in saturated fat and devoid of cholesterol, while being high in fiber, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.

Type 2 diabetes

Plant-based diets have consistently been found to be protective against developing type 2 diabetes.^1-3 Despite being high in carbohydrates, a plant-based diet has also proven successful in improving blood sugar control, reducing diabetes medication requirements, and even putting type 2 diabetes into remission, whereby individuals have normal blood sugar control without the need for medication.^4,5 The reasons a plant-based diet is so effective for type 2 diabetes are mainly that it is higher in fiber, which helps to regulate blood sugars, is lower in saturated fat, which improves insulin sensitivity in the cells, and promotes weight loss due to its low caloric density. Improvements can be seen in as few as seven days.⁶

Obesity

People who follow a plant-based diet consistently have a lower body mass index and body weight than those who follow a vegetarian, pescatarian, or omnivorous diet.^1,7 A plant-based diet has also proven to be a successful strategy for weight loss.⁸ Research done by the Physicians Committee found that following a plant-based diet results in an average weight loss of around 13 pounds over 14 weeks, while simultaneously improving other markers of cardiometabolic health.⁹ Plant-based diets promote healthful weight control by being lower in saturated fat, lower in calorie density, and higher in fiber, while also increasing the amount of energy one’s body expends digesting food after a meal (the after-meal calorie burn).⁹

Heart Disease

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death both globally and in the United States. A plant-based diet benefits heart health because it contains no dietary cholesterol, very little saturated fat, and abundant fiber. These characteristics enable a plant-based diet to address several risk factors for heart disease, including high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity, and hypertension. Even in the case of established heart disease, two clinical trials have found that a low-fat vegan or vegetarian diet was able to partially reverse the narrowing seen in arteries with plaque in their walls, resulting in improved blood flow to the heart.^10,11 With those changes came reduced chest pain, also called angina.

Cholesterol

While cholesterol has many important functions in our body, such as being used in the production of hormones and vitamin D, having cholesterol levels that are too high increases the risk of heart disease, among other conditions. In fact, dietary cholesterol is unnecessary because our bodies are able to produce all the cholesterol we need. A plant-based diet is effective at maintaining normal cholesterol levels and at lowering high cholesterol because it is low in saturated fat, devoid of cholesterol, and high in fiber.¹²

Cancer

Processed and red meat contain cancer-causing compounds and are noted as a Group 1 and Group 2A carcinogen, respectively, according to the World Health Organization.¹³ Meat is linked to an increase in many different types of cancer, most notably colorectal cancer. Plant-based diets, on the other hand, reduce the risk of many cancers.¹⁴ And many components of a plant-based diet are especially protective against certain cancers; for example, fiber is protective against colorectal cancer, and soy is protective against breast cancer.^15,16

To learn more about these conditions and the impact a plant-based diet has on other health conditions, visit our Health Topics page.

Animal agriculture is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, primarily methane and nitrous oxide, and requires more natural resources than crop farming. A 2023 analysis found that a vegan diet resulted in 75% less total greenhouse gas emissions than a diet containing 100 grams (about 3.5 ounces) or more of meat per day.¹⁷ A vegan diet also required 50% less water and land use.¹⁷

Animal agriculture is one of the leading drivers of deforestation and habitat destruction, as vast areas of land need to be cleared to make way for grazing livestock and growing feed crops. Cattle farms occupy around 80% of the deforested land in the Amazon.¹⁸ Switching to a vegan diet results in far less biodiversity loss, and if the world switched half of its meat and dairy products to plant-based alternatives, we could potentially end deforestation.¹⁹

Even small amounts of animal products in a person’s diet can have a big impact on their environmental footprint. Research published in 2023 compared a vegan diet, containing no animal products, with a Mediterranean diet that included just more than 10% of daily calories from meat and dairy, which were matched for total calories. A vegan diet came out on top with a 44% lower total environmental impact.²⁰

Many people are quick to point a finger at the soy consumed by vegans as having a significant environmental impact; however, more than 70% of the soy grown in the United States is used to feed animals, while 15% is used for soybean oil for many processed foods and sauces, and 5% is used to produce biofuel, leaving a small amount for human consumption in the form of tofu or soy milk.²¹

To learn more about the effects our food choices have on the environment, visit our Eating for the Environment page.

More than 2.8 million cows, 10 million pigs, and 9 billion chickens are slaughtered over the course of a year in the United States, according to the U.S Department of Agriculture.^22,23 This equates to Americans eating more than 1 million cows, pigs, and chickens every single hour. Most of these animals are raised on factory farms, more officially known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

There are more than 21,500 CAFOs in the United States alone. These farms subject animals to intensive confinement, overcrowded and unnatural conditions, and inhumane treatment, before being slaughtered, often in ways that subject the animals to intense pain and distress.

Not only are CAFOs an ethical concern, but they also contribute to more than 50% of zoonotic diseases, such bird flu, and to global antibiotic resistance due to the widespread overuse and misuse of antibiotics to prevent disease spreading among animals in such confined conditions.

You can also watch Dr. Neal Barnard on the Intelligence Squared debate titled “Don’t Eat Anything With a Face” to learn more.

Consuming a plant-based diet is one of the best things you can do for your own health, and it is one of the easiest ways you can reduce your environmental impact and reduce the demand for unethical farming and slaughterhouse practices. By making an actionable change every single day through the food you choose to consume, you can make a difference.