Vegetarianism Quotes

“For all malignant cancers, both fish eaters and vegetarians and vegans combined had significantly lower mortality than regular meat eaters [HR: 0.76 (95% CI: 0.63, 0.91) and HR: 0.82 (95% CI: 0.72, 0.94), respectively]. Vegetarians and vegans combined also had significantly lower mortality than did regular meat eaters for pancreatic cancer [HR: 0.47 (95% CI: 0.26, 0.86); P-heterogeneity = 0.065] and cancers of the lymphatic/hematopoietic tissue [HR: 0.43 (95% CI: 0.27, 0.70)], and low meat eaters had significantly lower respiratory disease mortality than regular meat eaters [HR: 0.69 (95% CI: 0.49, 0.97); P-heterogeneity = 0.14].”

“Dr. Jens Kjeldsen-Kragh, M.D., of the Institute of Immunology and Rheumatology at the National Rheumatism Hospital of Oslo, conducted a study about the usefulness of vegetarian foods in arthritis. He found that switching to a vegetarian diet resulted in improved grip strength and much less pain, joint swelling, tenderness and morning stiffness in about 90 per cent of a group of arthritis patients, compared with controls eating an ordinary diet. The patients noticed improvement within a month, and it lasted throughout the entire year-long experiment. Dr. Kjeldsen-Kragh concluded that about 70 per cent of the patients improved because they avoided fats that are likely to instigate the inflammation process.”

“The heart of vegetarians is healed sooner than those of flesh-eaters.”

“To be a vegetarian is to disagree - to disagree with the course of things today... starvation, cruelty - we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it's a strong one.”

“Elsewhere the paper notes that vegetarians and vegans (including athletes) 'meet and exceed requirements' for protein. And, to render the whole we-should-worry-about-getting-enough-protein-and-therefore-eat-meat idea even more useless, other data suggests that excess animal protein intake is linked with osteoporosis, kidney disease, calcium stones in the urinary tract, and some cancers. Despite some persistent confusion, it is clear that vegetarians and vegans tend to have more optimal protein consumption than omnivores. ”

“Some animal rights activists are demanding vegetarianism, even veganism now, or nothing. But since only 4 or 5 percent of Americans claim to be vegetarians, 'nothing' is the far more likely outcome. I ask these activists to weigh the horrors of Bladen County's industrial farms and the Tar Heel slaughterhouse against the consequences of doing nothing to alleviate the hour-to-hour sufferings of its victims. Is not a life lived off the factory farm and a death humanely inflicted superior to the terrible lives we know they lead and the horrible deaths we know they suffer in Bladen County today?”

“The symbolism of meat-eating is never neutral. To himself, the meat-eater seems to be eating life. To the vegetarian, he seems to be eating death. There is a kind of gestalt-shift between the two positions which makes it hard to change, and hard to raise questions on the matter at all without becoming embattled.”

“He soon acquired the forlorn look that one sees in vegetarians.”

“There are some animal advocates who say that to maintain that veganism is the moral baseline is objectionable because it is “judgmental,” or constitutes a judgment that veganism is morally preferable to vegetarianism and a condemnation that vegetarians (or other consumers of animal products) are “bad” people. Yes to the first part; no to the second. There is no coherent distinction between flesh and other animal products. They are all the same and we cannot justify consuming any of them. To say that you do not eat flesh but that you eat dairy or eggs or whatever, or that you don’t wear fur but you wear leather or wool, is like saying that you eat the meat from spotted cows but not from brown cows; it makers no sense whatsoever. The supposed “line” between meat and everything else is just a fantasy–an arbitrary distinction that is made to enable some exploitation to be segmented off and regarded as “better” or as morally acceptable. This is not a condemnation of vegetarians who are not vegans; it is, however, a plea to those people to recognize their actions do not conform with a moral principle that they claim to accept and that all animal products are the result of imposing suffering and death on sentient beings. It is not a matter of judging individuals; it is, however, a matter of judging practices and institutions. And that is a necessary component of ethical living.”