Animal agriculture, factory farming, and the way we consume food today has a big, negative impact in the world. Just in the time you opened this website, a lot has happened. All numbers are conservative and on the lower-end.
Welcome to Veganism 101
Hello curious human
The goal of this space is to provide research-based facts for anyone curious about veganism. Clear, brief summaries from published studies, all gathered in one easy place, separating myth from reality. Browse by any topic or search by questions on your mind. This space is a labor of love, and you can read more about my motivation to build it.
Veganism is one of the most efficient and simple ways to make great positive impact on Earth. Whether you choose to do it for your health, the environment, or animals, all reasons are valid. Whatever brings you to the river is beautiful. Check out the simple ways to get started!
Live Counter
Carbon Emitted 1
kg
Chickens Killed 2
Methane Emitted 3
kg
Pigs Killed 4
Manure Produced 5
kg
Fishes Killed 6
kg
Water Wasted 7
L
Cattle Killed 8
Antibiotics Fed 9
kg
- (1) 7.1 gigatons CO2 emissions from livestock farming globally per year. FAO
- (2) 68,785,221,000 Chickens killed globally per year. FAO
- (3) 70A billion kg of methane emissions from 1 billionB cattle farming globally per year. Methane has 23C to 36D times the global warming potential as CO2 during the first 100-years of its emission. Time For ChangeA, Beef Market CentralB, FAOC, EPAD
- (4) 1,484,492,840 Pigs killed globally per year. FAO
- (5) 335 million tons of manure (dry matter) from livestock farming in the US per year. USDA. Another estimate puts it to 116,000 lbs. per second.
- (6) 97,398,330 million tons of fishes (live weight) are taken from the ocean globally per year. FAO
- (7) 11,900 km3 freshwater used globally by the livestock sector each year. (1 km3 = 1,000 liters) FAO
- (8) 302,128,113 Cows killed globally per year. FAO
- (9) Almost 29 million pounds of antibiotics sold in USA for food animals. FDA
Why go vegan?
How to get started?
Some notable faces who advocate a plant-based diet.
Find more faces in the plant-based community
Einstein was a proponent of vegetarianism. Doctors prescribed him a meat-free diet for his digestive problems. Toward the end of his life, he might have even been vegan. A year before he died, he wrote to his friend Hans Muehsam, “So I am living without fats, without meat, without fish, but am feeling quite well this way. It always seems to me that man was not born to be a carnivore.” [IVU.org]
[Image: Wikimedia]
Venus Williams, “I started for health reasons. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, and I wanted to maintain my performance on the court. Once I started I fell in love with the concept of fueling your body in the best way possible. Not only does it help me on the court, but I feel like I’m doing the right thing for me.”
In 2012, Serena Williams said she cleaned up her diet, and started eating vegan after her sister Venus was diagnosed with Sjogren’s syndrome. By February 2020, Serena launched a vegan leather fashion line that was designed to help save the planet. “I feel like a lot of things are being killed and we’re not saving the earth... We can all just do one small thing and help out.”
In December 2020, Venus launched a vegan protein brand called Happy Viking, which is inspired by her own eating habits. [LiveKindly]
[Image: Wikimedia]
Similar to many earlier polymaths like Pythagoras, Socrates, or Leonardo da Vinci, Thoreau tried to eat a plant-based diet whenever possible, if not all the time. If his hosts served meat, Thoreau would eat what was served. [NPR]
"I once had a sparrow alight on my shoulder for a moment while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn."
"I have found repeatedly, of late years, that I cannot fish without falling a little in self-respect. I have tried it again and again. I have skill at it, and, like many of my fellows, a certain instinct for it, which revives from time to time, but always when I have done I feel it would have been better if I had not fished. I think that I do not mistake. It is a faint intimation, yet so are the first streaks of morning." [IVU.org]
[Image: Wikimedia]
Kaepernick is an American civil rights activist and former football quarterback. He played six seasons for the San Francisco 49ers in the National Football League (NFL). In 2016, he knelt during the national anthem at the start of NFL games in protest of police brutality and racial inequality in the United States.
He has been on a vegan diet since 2015 for ethical reasons, and has recovered from three surgeries since then. In 2021, he partnered with Ben & Jerry's to launch an exclusive vegan ice cream flavor, "Change the Whirled."
[Image: Wikimedia]
Mary Shelley, the author usually credited with creating the genre of science fiction with her book Frankenstein, ate a meatless diet, and the book itself can be read as a kind of vegetarian manifesto. If you’re familiar with the Frankenstein story from one of the film versions, you’re aware that the monster is assembled from parts of corpses. In the original, though, Shelley specifies that the monster’s parts come not just from the dissecting room but from the slaughterhouse, a place she must have regarded with equal horror.
Despite the terrifying and unnatural circumstances of his creation, the monster himself is a vegetarian and lives in communion with nature the way so many Romantic intellectuals aspired to, saying, “I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite; acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment.” [Britannica]
[Image: Wikimedia]
Ariana Grande adopted a vegan diet in 2013 and has long been a vocal advocate for animal rights. She has several rescue animals, as well as a pet pig, and often wears vegan faux fur.
“I love animals more than I love most people, not kidding,” the Grammy winner told The Mirror in December 2014. “But I am a firm believer in eating a full plant-based, whole-food diet that can expand your life length and make you an all-round happier person. It is tricky dining out, but I just stick to what I know–veggies, fruit, and salad–then, when I get home, I’ll have something else.” [LiveKindly]
[Image: Wikimedia]