Advantages and Disadvantages of Vegetarians Essay

One advantage that cannot be disputed is that vegetarian’s conscience can be at peace in the sense that he does not cause the death of animals grown for meat and fat such as rabbits, poultry or pigs. This idea alone persuades many people, especially women to start embracing vegetarianism as their way of life. Another undisputable advantage of vegetarianism is that long-term vegetarians are rarely overweight thus people can make losing weight easier by becoming vegetarians. Of course, they will still need to compose their diet very carefully since many of the high-calorie (with low nutritional value) foods contain no meat at all. Actually, meat is not high on calories unless it is a fatty meat. Less clear and more arguable is the claim that vegetarianism is healthier and better for one’s longevity. All advocates of vegetarianism play this card and support their claims with many arguments. The basic idea is that our body can get everything it needs from plants or animal by-products such as eggs or milk. Of course, there are extreme groups who refuse to eat animal by-products, but I’ll stick with the less extreme idea. Anyway, this is true, at least as long as you eat fish – some people who consider themselves vegetarians eat fish, some don’t. Anyway, no one can say with absolute certainty (you can believe it, but cannot prove it indisputably) that avoiding all meat is beneficial for human body. However, it is certain that limiting certain types of meat is good for us. And vegetarians benefit from avoiding those kinds of meat (after all they do not eat any meat).