Before anyone makes the decision to become a vegetarian, they often question whether it will make any difference. Your first question might be whether one additional person can make a noticeable difference. However, if enough individuals do stop, it becomes statistically more important to the health of animals on this planet. To provide an example of this, you only have to look at how many people in America suffer with heart disease that eat meat regularly.

Many of today’s heart conditions would not be so commonplace if people did not eat so much food with high levels of cholesterol, such as dairy products and eggs. The organization Earth Save has calculated that a vegetarian has only a quarter of the chance of a heart attack as someone who has meat in their diet. As for people who are pure vegans, it gets even lower: they have less than 1/10 the chance of having a heart. The heart is only one organ that benefits from a vegetarian diet because there are other health advantages.

Cancer is another area where reductions are seen as meat contains a number of preservatives which have been linked to this disease. Vegetarians will also benefit from knowing they will not be consuming many of the hormones cattle ingest as part of their feed; which can cause hormonal problems in people. And you won’t consume as much lactose, which most people cannot digest properly and which some dietitians have suggested is a cause of digestive problems. The health advantages to becoming a vegetarian are unquestionable but there is also the fact that many animals will not lose their lives to feed you either.

In fact the death toll of animals may be far greater than expected with figures in the region of 2,700 eaten by an average American in their lifetime. It is a sobering thought that a change in diet could literally save hundreds of animals from being slaughtered over the course of a decade alone. To help even further and stop the number of battery hens and dairy cows from having to suffer degrading conditions you could stop drinking milk and eating eggs. Well after reading this it is obvious the easy answer is yes it is better to become a vegetarian. It matters to the thousands of animals you could potentially save and it matters to you as an individual because you can greatly reduce your chances of getting cancer and heart disease.