10 billion animals are slaughtered yearly for human consumption. This includes cows, pigs, chickens, and countless others. 99% of those animals come from factory farms which produce, abuse, and then slaughter sentient animals. 

My name is Sophia. I’ve been vegan for 3 years, and before that, I was vegetarian for a year. To define veganism, it’s a way of living where you avoid contributing to or using any animal by-products. There are 3 main issues that follow when you choose not to be plant-based. The environment, your health, and the animals.

Let's start with the environment. Factory farming is the world's largest driver of tropical deforestation. Along with that are the 1.1 tons of greenhouse gas emissions due to meat consumption. 

Now let's move on to your health. Ever since I went vegan I’ve overall felt much better. I have more energy during the day and my skin improved. There are numerous studies on how eating meat contributes to various health issues such as heart disease, inflammation, high blood cholesterol, diabetes, and multiple types of cancer. 

Finally, the animals. The animals are the main reason I went vegan. I couldn’t deal with the guilt because there was no good enough excuse to take away the life of a sentient being for my 15-minute meal. The amount of abuse that goes on in factory farming is truly unimaginable. 

We already have so many resources and foods at the tips of our fingers like legumes, fruit, greens, whole grains, nuts, tofu, and much more. All these plant-based foods you can affordably buy at the grocery store while making a big impact. Even going vegetarian once a week for a year can save nearly 100kgs of CO2 from being emitted.

All I say is, for the sake of the environment, your health, and the animals, we have to make an effort to reduce our meat and other animal consumption because it really makes a large impact.