While being vegan can help with weight loss, that is not the primary motivation for most vegans. The main reason people choose a vegan diet is due to concerns about animal welfare and rights. Vegans object not just to the killing of animals for food but also to the poor conditions animals are often kept in for producing meat, eggs and dairy. They believe animals should not be exploited and confined for human use and that humans have a moral responsibility to treat animals with the same consideration given to people. Adopting a vegan lifestyle is about more than just diet - it reflects a commitment to animal ethics and freedom.

1. Is being a vegan all about losing weight?
Being a vegan is a popular diet nowadays. For many they have found that the diet
helps them lose weight, have more energy and have better skin. It’s a fast way to
eliminate negative aspects from your diet such as cholesterol and fats,
particularly saturated fats. However, with all aside, is being vegan all about
losing weight?
For the vast majority it isn’t.
The main reason behind the majority of people becoming vegan is to do with
animal rights. When looking into how meat is produced for us to eat you find that
a lot of it is done with a lot of cruelty. The animals are kept in harmful conditions
and are then killed after a short period of living to be made into mass-produced
food. The vegan diet doesn’t just stop with the killing of the animals but how
make get other animal based products. Products such as milk, eggs and honey.
None of these foods require killing any of the animals that make them but that
doesn’t stop them being kept poorly. By being kept poorly I mean that each
breed of animal is put into small spaces. For instance with cows to produce milk
they are genetically manipulated to produce 10 times more milk then they
naturally would for the sake of mass production.
Yes there are many animals that aren’t killed to make a lot of animal based
products that are naturally sourced from the animals, such as milk from cows.
But many of the animals those aren’t suitable to the farmers for those products
or for meat are still taken away to be killed on site anyway. Male chicks that can’t
be of use are practically thrown away after hatching. This is because farming is
very much based around the female animals. The male animals are kept
primarily for meat. For instance, female chickens for eggs and female cows from
milk. Male cows are taken away to be slaughter for meat, adult or calf depending
on the meat wanted. Female cows are kept for milk and the rest are sorted into
what use they can be to food productions.
You’re now probably wondering, ‘What about the food production companies
which have animal welfare?’ ‘Would that make it okay for a vegan to eat?’ ‘Is it all
about the cruelty behind food products?’ ‘Or is it about the freedom for the
animals as well?’
For vegans the diet is about the freedom for animals. It’s about treating people
and animals as equals. This is why when asked, ‘If animals eat other animals,
why can’t we eat them?’ Veganuary.com answered this by saying that we can’t
compare ourselves to wild animals. Humans have more of a moral standing than
wild animals do so we can have much more an impact and responsibility behind
what we eat.
But is it all really needed?

2. Arguments such as, ‘Is honey vegan?’ is a common topic brought up. When
farming honey from bees they tend not to be harmed within their hives but it’s
the principle behind it. Even though many researchers found that taking the
honey from the bees is replaced with sugar supplements, which harm the bees
due to the lack of nutrients from it. Not only are the bees making the honey they
are also eating the honey for themselves and their colony. It’s a fair point saying
that they aren’t being physically harmed in any way so it shouldn’t be a bad thing
if we eat honey even if it is an animal based product but we are taking away
something that is theirs for their kind. Even if the bees were to protect their hive
from the farmers will defend through stinging them, which kills them. If we were
to leave these bees alone they would be more likely to thrive and populate.
When looking into the vegan diet you find that there is much more to the
reasoning’s behind it than losing weight. There are much more morals and
values behind why many people are vegan. When people think of dieting you
think of weight lose automatically so its natural people would think that for the
vegan ‘diet’. However there is so much more depth and meaning to the diet due
to a vegans morals behind not wanting to harm animals and stop animal cruelty
due to the condition in which they are kept, whether or not they are killed.
The ethics of this diet are in the hope that more and more people will catch onto
it and that animal based products production companies will end so that the
animals making them will not need to be kept in captivity in any way and purely
be free to be their own kind. The levels in which you take on the diet are based
on your own personal preference. Many people start as vegetarians and move on
to being vegans to build their diet and education on the cause, which spans
further away from what you eat and to being a lifestyle.