1. The document discusses the pros and cons of a vegetarian lifestyle. It explores arguments from those who support vegetarianism, citing potential health benefits and environmental protections, as well as arguments from those who protest vegetarianism, noting possible health risks and environmental impacts. 2. Supporters argue that a vegetarian diet can benefit health by reducing risks of diseases and extending longevity, and help the environment by reducing pollution and use of land and water resources associated with meat production. 3. Critics counter that an improperly planned vegetarian diet risks nutritional deficiencies and health issues, and that plant-based agriculture also damages the environment through chemical use and land conversion.

1. Pros and Cons of Being a Vegetarian
Vegetarians are defined as those who do not eat poultry, fish
and meat. Strict vegetarians or vegans exclude all animal
products from their daily meals, such as honey, eggs, milk,
wool and cheese (Craig 2009). Vegetarianism, the theory and
practice adopted by vegetarians, can be traced back to the
ancient Greece and ancient India, which stemmed from the
philosophy of non-violence towards animals voluntarily (Craig
2009). Currently, over 1.4% of the American population has
adopted the vegetarian lifestyle, and vegan diets have become
increasingly popular among youth and teenagers. However, with
the improvement of the quality of life, people more and more
care about their healthy diet; the society is filled with
supportive voices and protesting voices towards vegetarianism,
especially when relevant to human health and the environmental
sustainability.
Choosing a vegetarian diet could result in lack of vitamins and
cholesterol, and develop diseases. People protesting the idea of
following a vegetarian lifestyle and excluding meat, poultry and
fish from diets (even all animal products) believe that this is a
dangerous move that can easily trigger imbalanced nutritional
intakes and the consequential damage of health. In the
vegetarian lifestyle, diets are plant-based. Inappropriate and
unwise selection of vegetarian diets are associated with many
problems and risks. The most reported problem is the
insufficient intakes of vitamin D, protein, calcium, iron, long-
chain n–3 fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid and
docosahexaenoic acid and so on. Among them, Craig (2009)
pointed out that vegetarians sometimes lack DHA and EPA that
are important for “cardiovascular health as well as eye and
brain functions”. Key, Appleby & Rosell (2006) investigated the
cholesterol level of 5000 vegetarians and found that compared
with non-vegetarians, they had low cholesterol level, lower than
the recommended level of 200 by the American Heart

2. Association. Schatz et al. (2001) also studied on the cholesterol
levels of over 3000 male subjects aged 71-93 years, showing
that the group with low cholesterol levels below 200 had
significantly higher level of mortality. They further pointed out
that extremely low cholesterol levels may lead to an early death.
This reflected the risks of following vegetarian or vegan diets.
Moreover, it is also reported that vegetarians have higher
incidence rate of colorectal cancer than non-vegetarians by
39%, and have higher incidence rate of lower bone mineral
density disease (Schatz et al. 2001). Vegetarians are also
exposed to threats of insufficient metabolism and
arteriosclerosis (Li 2011). All these side effects of a vegetarian
lifestyle are preventing people from supporting vegetarians.
It looks like there are some disadvantages of being vegetarian,
however, non-vegetarian group threated form health problem,
high cholesterol and overweight and other diseases. If
vegetarians follow correct and recommended practices for their
plant-based diet, vegetarians tend to have “lower total and LDL
cholesterol” (Key & Davey 1996). Moreover, vegetarians have
lower BMIs than non-vegetarians by over 1 kg/m2, and the
obesity rate among vegetarians is lower than non-vegetarians
accordingly (Key & Davey 1996). This benefit of vegetarians
can contribute to the relief of growingly serious social problem
of obesity in many countries, such as the United States and
Australia. This may be attributed to lower protein intake and
higher fiber intake in the vegetarian diets. Being vegetarian
means a high possibility of reducing the cholesterol
concentration in blood than non-vegetarians, and the lower level
of cholesterol can directly benefit to the prevention of stroke,
hypertension and IHD. It can also keep away from many types
of cancers, such as breast cancer, prostate cancer, and colo-
rectal cancer. Recently, bacon and some other pork products
have been identified a lethal factor for many cancers. Choosing
a vegetarian lifestyle keeps people away from such lethal
factors and prolongs the longevity. The extremely low
cholesterol level, problems relevant to cardiovascular health

3. and other diseases mentioned in the protesting views are all
made based on the premise of “inappropriate and unwise
selection of vegetarian diets”. Therefore, as long as vegetarians
follow appropriate and wise selection of plant-based diets, these
health problems can be overcome.
Another reason that makes people support vegetarian lifestyle is
its contribution to the environmental protection in three ways,
animals’ gas; land damage and water pollution. Eating less or
no meat is considered as the simplest way to reduce human
impact on the planet. The way people breed cattle, chicken and
other animals as food has been accused for leading to many
interlinked ecological problems. The non-vegetarian diets are
accused for overheating the plant because the emissions of
gases related to climate change produced during animal
breeding as food accounted for over 18% of the total emission
of such gases around the world (Vidal 2010). Besides, meat
eaters are not only eating meat but also eating up land, caused
by animal breeding. It is identified in the research of Vidal
(2010) that while one billion population of the world are
starving, crops of the world are mainly consumed by livestock.
Animal breeding consumes too much water as well and farming
uses over 70% of all available water for human beings (Vidal
2010). Besides, as many bred animals need farms and grass,
they are causing deforestation. The waste generated by modern
farms go directly to the land or oceans, which pollutes the earth
and oceans. However, adopting a vegetarian lifestyle does not
cause such environmental problems and are helpful for
environmental protection.
On the contrary, protestors against the vegetarian lifestyle
pointed out that this lifestyle does not help environmental
protection. Instead, it is argued that “the truth is that agriculture
is the most destructive thing humans have done to the planet,
and more of the same won’t save us. The truth is that
agriculture requires the wholesale destruction of entire
ecosystems. The truth is also that life isn’t possible without
death, that no matter what you eat, someone has to die to feed

4. you” (Mackenzie 2011). In other words, as long as vegetarians
need agriculture to supply their plant-based diets, they are
indirectly polluting the earth. Similarly, growing fruits and
vegetables require modernized industrial agricultural practices,
which involve greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, and
pollution from agents like insecticides and fertilizers. It is also
argued that the narrowing consumption need for meat will cause
the deaths or massacre of animals bred in modern farms,
because farm owners will be economically incapable of
maintaining these “commodities”. These will enhance the
environmental impact of human activities on this planet,
because people may expand more plant-based farms again and
again due to exploitation of all nutrition in soil (Mackenzie
2011). According to the article “California's Almonds Suck as
Much Water Annually as Los Angeles Uses in Three Years”, it
mentions that along with the market demand for nuts ( $1.2
billion in 2002 to $4.8 billion in 2012), California began to
grow more and more almond plants, increased the demand for
water. However, nuts requires a lot of water, a gallon of water
can grow as almond, and then requires five gallons of water to
produce a walnut. California is lack of water, in order to
produce more nuts, people have to use groundwater. Actually, it
harms to the water resource and cause water pollution (Lurie,
2015). As a result, the ecosystem will be seriously affected, and
the consequences will be as devastating as non-vegetarian
lifestyles.
Non-vegetarian group is considered as cruel and unethical
because of kill animals for food. Human is also animal, every
animal has the equal rights to live. It’s similar to the human
think they deserve an opportunity to live. If human kill animals
in order to eat, it’s deprive animals’ rights to live, and it’s
unethical. Each year, “Americans cook twenty-seven billion
pounds of beef, sliced from some thirty-five million cows.
Additionally, they will consume roughly twenty-three billion
pounds of pork, or the bodies of more than a hundred and
fifteen million pigs, and thirty-eight billion pounds of poultry,

5. some nine billion birds” (Kolbert 2009). This shows that there
are human amount of animals killed each year, they could have
been live, but human’s desire and cruel kills them thousands of
tons and more. People should stop kill animals for food because
they have vegetarian options to choose.
However, from human’s ancestors to now, people have been eat
meat for 1000 years. Human hunt animals for food is a food
chain, it’s a cycle. Animals would hunt other animals for food
as well. So there is no wrong with kill animals to eat. According
to an article “The Plants Respond”, it shows that plants respond
electrochemically to threats and may feel fear (Jensen, 1997).
Therefore, vegetarians are also causing harm when the kill a
plant for food to eat. Some vegetarian also eat fish and eggs.
Those are also considered as meat. And to some extent, some
vegetarians are hypocritical, they claim eat meat is cruel, but
still eat fish or eggs secretly.
To sum up, there are some advantages and disadvantages of a
vegetarian lifestyle. Supporters hold the ideas that following a
vegetarian lifestyle can benefit the health of human body, such
as extending the longevity, preventing cancers, hypertension,
stroke, cancers and obesity and other diseases. It can also
contribute to the environmental protection by avoiding the
environmental impact caused by non-vegetarian lifestyle.
However, protestors argue that inappropriate and unwise
vegetarian practices will harm human body, affecting the
cardiovascular health, eye and brain functions and many other
body conditions. The vegetarian lifestyle is just like the non-
vegetarian lifestyle in terms of causing serious harm to the
ecological system.