More people are moving toward a plant-based diet, owing in part to evidence about human health and environmental sustainability, and in part to the emerging scientific consensus on the breadth and depth of animal consciousness and sentience.

Full disclosure: I am a pesco-vegetarian I eat an occasional fish.

But how might choosing to eat fewer animals than ever before or no animals at all (vegetarian), or no animals or animal products (vegan) make a difference for animals or for the world?

This question is on my mind this week, as I read a book titled Ninety-Five: Meeting America's Farmed Animals in Stories and Photographs. It suggests that 95 "is the average number of animals spared each year by one person's vegan diet." There are a variety of sources estimating average individual intakes of meat. A story in USA Today Wednesday reported that each meat-eating individual eats 7,000 animals (including fish) over their lifetimes. This number is based on the Vegetarian Calculator.

What does "spared" in this context actually mean? Can veganism or vegetarianism or cutting way back on meat consumption really make a global impact for animals, given the number of hungry people in the world who may rely on animal protein?

I decided to pose a few questions, by email, earlier this week to three animal activists and vegans: Paul Shapiro of the Humane Society of the United States, Bruce Friedrich of Farm Sanctuary, and Alka Chandna of PETA. Here's the first:

Do you find it personally motivating or inspiring to reflect upon the number of animals who live each year, who otherwise would not, because you are vegan?

Paul: Eating fewer or no animals doesn't mean that animals who would've been killed will now live; it means that animals who would've been bred into existence to suffer on factory farms will now not be brought into the world and exploited in the terrible ways that are customary in the meat industry. It's a supply and demand issue. Less demand should mean less supply.

Bruce: As Paul notes, by removing our demand, we're sparing animals suffering that is beyond our worst imaginings. I do find it deeply motivating to realize that I can live my values every time I sit down to eat. St. Paul called on the faithful to pray ceaselessly. I like that every time I sit down to eat, I cast my lot for mercy, and against misery for compassion, and against cruelty. Every meal becomes a prayer for a kinder and more just world.

Alka: I don't think so much about the numbers of animals who are spared as much as I think about the misery and suffering that I'm not contributing to as a result of my choices. It was learning about the horrific conditions on factory farms and thinking about the arbitrary cultural lines that determine which animals are eaten and which are spared that compelled me to adopt a vegan diet; and I feel some comfort in knowing that my actions are not contributing to, or paying for those systems to carry out, their business. Conversely, if I am accidentally served something that isn't vegan at a restaurant (and I know the dish is going to be thrown away), I feel like I have contributed to the torment suffered by the animals whose flesh or bodily products were in the dish. For example, if I'm given something that contains an egg, I think that my miscommunication resulted in a hen suffering in a battery cage for 34 hours (and all of the ancillary suffering inherent in the discarding of the male chicks, the eventual slaughter, and so on). It's [weighing] the time that an animal suffered on a factory farm for that item to come into existence, balanced against the few minutes of enjoyment I might derive from eating that item.

Originally posted here:
Does Being Vegan Really Help Animals?

When Beyonc launched her new vegan delivery service in January, I was immediately intrigued. Maybe all the vegan dishes in her 22 Days Nutrition delivery service wouldn't make me flawless like Queen Bey, but it doesn't seem so far-fetched that 22 days of eating vegan could make me a little healthier. But the biggest question on my mind was whether the 22 Days Nutrition food tasted any good.

The idea behind the service is that it takes 21 days to break a habit: the 22nd day is when you're off to a fresh start. Here the habit you're trying to break is a meat-centric diet. For the sake of journalism, I decided to try it out. I'm not a vegan or even flexitarian, but I'd like to incorporate more plant-based meals into my diet and this seemed like a good jumping off point. 22 Days Nutrition sent me seven meals to sample, three of which were for breakfast, and four that could be eaten for lunch or dinner (though as an Independent Woman, I made the decision to ignore those rules).

The way the service works is that the meals are delivered to your home once a week. 22 Days Nutrition will deliver anywhere within the continental U.S. You can either buy packages for one, two or three meals a day, with prices ranging from $9.76 to $16.50 per meal.

Each of the meals come in 8" by 6" black boxes with a sticker full of information about ingredients, nutritional facts and expiration dates. The dishes are all extremely easy to prepare and can take from 2 to 18 minutes, depending on whether you heat it in a microwave, stovetop or oven. Some of the items are really simplelike one meal is just a box of loose granola and nutsand some are home-cooked stews full of roasted veggies, beans and brown rice.

For the carnivores who want to meet the vegan diet halfway with meaty flavor, don't expect any fake meat dishes here. The star of the show here are the fruits and veggies. Most of the time you can clearly taste which ones you're eating, though the exception was some of the pureed or mashed up ingredients. Almost all the ingredients are of the healthy variety and minimally-processed kind.

I didn't miss the flavor of meat, but after a few days, I did miss having texture and crunch in my food. It turns out a lot of the meals were kind of on the mushy side. This also meant the meals weren't all that photogenic: no Instagram filter could hide the fact the dishes look lumpy and mostly come in different shades of brown.

As for the caloric intake, the breakfast items averaged about 325 calories each and the lunch or dinner items at 540 calories. So, if you ate three meals a day, you would be on a diet consisting of about 1,400-calories. The average daily caloric needs for women ranges between 1,800 to 2,000 and for men between 2,200 to 2,400, according to the USDA. So, basically this works great for a low-calorie diet (perhaps for all the vegan ladies) but probably not for folks who are working out a ton.

I won't lie: I was hoping for some vegan dishes that would blow my mind, particularly since it's not a cheap service. You could say I wasn't Crazy in Love with all the meals. There was nothing gourmet or drool-worthy, but the dishes were palatable, and it was a quick easy way to get a healthy meal. After eating the food though, I felt better. If nothing else, it gave me some ideas about what to cook for myself to get on a healthier path.

I ranked the dishes I tried ranked from most to least delicious:

BABA'S KIDNEY BEANS

See the original post here:
We Tried Beyonc's Vegan Food Delivery Service