Myth Busted

Response to a video called "five reasons not to become a vegan" and to "quantifying an animal's life." Links below...

Regarding ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE & EMOTION:
"Certain skills are considered key signs of higher mental abilities: good memory, a grasp of grammar and symbols, self-awareness, understanding others' motives, imitating others, and being creative. Bit by bit, in ingenious experiments, researchers have documented these talents in other species, gradually chipping away at what we thought made human beings distinctive while offering a glimpse of where our own abilities came from."
from Animal Minds by Virginia Morell: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/200...

Please also read When Elephants Weep by Jeffrey Masson: http://www.jeffreymasson.com/animal-b...

Regarding ANIMAL CRUELTY & LAWS:
http://www.pet-abuse.com/
http://www.animallaw.com/
http://www.aldf.org/

Regarding CANCER:
"What protein consistently and
strongly promoted cancer? Casein, which makes up 87% of cows milk protein, promoted all
stages of the cancer process. What type of protein did not promote cancer, even at high levels
of intake? The safe proteins were from plants, including wheat and soy."
From The China Study by by Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell II. http://www.thechinastudy.com/PDFs/Chi...

More about healthy VEG*NS:
Vegetarians live longer: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/...
"Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence." from a position paper from the American Dietetic Association:
http://www.adajournal.org/article/PII...

Regarding eating disorders:
"recent data suggest that adopting a vegetarian diet does not lead to eating disorders, rather that vegetarian diets may be selected to camouflage an existing eating disorder" says the American Dietetic Association, cited above.

Regarding HUMAN SLAVERY:
"there are 27 million people in slavery today. This means that there are more people in slavery today than at any other time in human history. Slavery has existed for thousands of years, but changes in the worlds economy and societies over the past 50 years have enabled a resurgence of slavery." [...]
"As in the past, most slaves are forced to work in agriculture, mining, and prostitution. From these sectors, their exploited labor flows into the global economy, and into our lives."
from Free The Slaves http://www.freetheslaves.net/Page.asp...

Reducing our total consumption by being VEGAN means we reduce the economic motivation for slavery. Helping animals IS helping people. (And don't forget to buy FAIR TRADE.)

Here's more regarding the HUMAN & ANIMAL CONNECTION:
http://www.thehumanelink.com/

Regarding MORALITY:
Please just watch this: http://www.meat.org/
What humans do to animals is clearly WRONG. We need to stop. The only sure way to stop the cruelty is to go vegan.

Here's an inspirational video:
http://www.nonviolenceunited.org/vega...

Regarding HARM to animals in agriculture:
"the contrast in harms is an extremely stark one, with the actual deaths currently caused by non-vegans quantitatively greater by 116 times the number of deaths caused by vegans"
http://unpopularveganessays.blogspot....

And here are some Vegan Starter Kits
http://www.veganoutreach.org/starterp...
http://pcrm.org/health/veginfo/vsk/in...
http://www.petaliterature.com/VEG297.pdf
http://www.tryveg.com/img/vsg0501.pdf
http://www.afa-online.org/starterpack...
http://www.vegkit.org/

Go vegan!