Hi, Nale. Welcome to the forum
I'm happy to hear you're open minded regarding veganism - which is quite rare.
I could tell people what they're doing wrong at their daily exercises, or how to cook a certain meal in a better way, and they'd be pretty happy to hear me out and consider my suggestions.
But telling people what they should/shouldn't eat basing my arguments on morality, it's almost a waterproof way to get them pissed off or really emotional - mostly because of how much people are attached/addicted to their food, and are too lazy and unwilling to change their way of life.
Why go vegan? It wouldn't be difficult to write pages about this topic.
There are mainly three reasons as to why people go vegan: morality/ethics, environmental issues and health - although all three of them could be included in the ethical side.
Some concepts sum up the moral side of it;
-Animals are sentient (sentience is the ability to feel physical pain and have emotions, and being aware of your surroundings), while plants aren't.
Plants don't have neurons (without which they can't possibly have cognitive capabilities) nor a nervous system - so no plant can be sentient.
Animals are sentient, but the amount of sentience in a certain individual depends on its cognitive capabilities - that's why a human has a stronger/bigger emotional complex and generally higher intelligence than a dog, which has higher cognitive capabilties than an insect.
There are a few exceptions of animals who aren't sentient, like sponges and and some insencts not usually visible to the human eye, and some are in a grey area, like oysters - but all farmed animals are fully sentient.
Since animals are sentient, and plants aren't, it follows that avoiding to eat animals and eating plants instead inherently causes less harm.
Animals have wants - including the one to live and not to suffer - while plants don't.
-The cruelty of the meat and dairy industry.
Most farmed animals live in horrible conditions, as it has been documented many times.
Catlle is property, and it's also treated as property.
There are many documetaries you can watch regarding the subject - if you have the stomach.
Earthlings is probably the most well known one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce4DJh-L7Ys
This is quite an impactful presentation too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es6U00LMmC4
If you have some free time, I highly recommend you to watch them.
Most of the cattle - which amounts to billions of animals - is caged in spaces that are too small for most of their lives, have their babies taken away from them and are killed prematurely.
As an example, cows are forcefully impregnated as often as possible, and their babies are immediately taken away at birth - so that we can steal their milk. The babies go to the slaughter, since they aren't of any use. When the cow can't give milk anymore, she's taken to the slaughter too.
This is the most common way of doing it. Some countries, like India - where cows are considered sacred - treat them differently.
-Hypocrisy and consistency.
We usually think of dogs and cats as animals who have a higher value than pigs and cows, but they actually don't.
It has been demonstrated that pigs have higher cognitive capabilities than dogs - they are as smart as a 3 year old child.
Cows are intelligent too; they're very friendly and they can form strong bonds with eachother - they can even have a 'best friend' in their group.
To be consistent, by loving your pets you'd also have to not disregard the welfare of other animals.
Regarding the environmental issues;
-Greenhouse gas emissions, and this one is very big.
The meat and dairy industry are at the top of greenhouse gas emissions - no other industry beats this one, not even cosely.
There are many articles documenting this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmen ... etarianism
http://www.treehugger.com/natural-scien ... ustry.html
http://na.unep.net/geas/getUNEPPageWith ... icle_id=92
etc. etc.
You get the idea.
-Huge waste of water, food, space and deforestation.
To keep billions upon billions of animals going, they need a huge amount of food and water.
It takes more than 2,400 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, while growing 1 pound of wheat only requires 25 gallons, and it takes up to 13 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of meat: more than 70% of crops in the USA are fed to livestock, which is a stunning number.
We'd have much more food without having billions of animals to feed.
Of course, it requires a lot of space to have a such a big amount of crops.
Raising animals for food - including the area to grow crops - occupies 30% of Earth's land space, and that leads to the need of having more space: hence the deforestation.
More than 260 million acres of USA forests have been cleared to create cropland to grow grain to feed to farmed animals - which adds up to the global warming problem with greenhouse gas emissions.
If you want more informations:
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/549
http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/environment.html
And lastly, regarding health;
This would be a really long matter if someone were to go into details.
To sum it up, since a plant based diet has zero cholesterol, significantly less saturated fats and no antibiotics/vaccines they give to farmed animals, it's usually healthier.
Of course, only a well balanced and tought out vegan diet is really healthy. You won't be much healthier if you go on a junk food vegan diet full of fried foods.
It's proven that heart disease and cancer (the main causes of death), would be much less worrying if the world was on a vegan diet. And that is just scratching the surface.
I really recommend this video to get some basic knowledge on the subject:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30gEiweaAVQ
The only supplement you need to take if you go vegan is B12.
B12 is a vitamin made by bacteria. It's ideally found in water and dirt, where farmed animals would take it from - I say 'would' because most of the times even animal stock is supplemented with B12.
But you can only find it in little amounts in meat, and most of it is destroyed by heat; everyone should take a supplement of B12.
250 mcg of cyanocobalim daily is perfect - the cheapest and most effective form of B12.
Then there's also vitamin D, but that is necessary with every diet (most people are deficient in it), unless you take enough sun.
Everyone should atleast take 1000 IU of cholecalciferol (vitamin D3) daily - especially in winter.
Just vary among vegetables, fruits, nuts, legumes and grains - avoiding junk foods.
Things like broccoli, dark leafy greens and legumes in general are really healthy.
I tried not to dwell too much on things, but it still came too long.
If you have any questions or doubts, feel free to ask.
If you want, go to TheVeganAtheist's channel, and check his playlists: you can find more presentations on veganism there.
In the Vegan vs. Non-vegan debates forum section, there are plenty of arguments and debates, while in the Vegan support forum section you can find everything you need to know to become veg*n/try out veg*nism - from diet avices, to recipes, to how to get started.
