The vegetarian avant-garde community counts already hundreds of millions of members right across the globe, from Austria to Iran, from Israel to Nepal and from New Zealand to Zambia. Even though the motives for their compassionate, healthy and environmental friendly lifestyles vary considerably, they all have one thing in common: shielding humans, animals and nature from harm.

Vegetarians:

--Demonstrate solidarity with starving people
While the problem of global hunger is spinning out of control, billions are today undernourished and one child is dying of hunger every few seconds, enormous resources continue to be squandered to power the meat industry. Vegetarians have no part in this injustice. Jean Ziegler got to the heart of the matter when he accused that "every child who dies from hunger is assassinated" because it could have been prevented.

--Protect individual and public health
A vegetarian lifestyle can reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, and prevent some forms of cancers. For this reason, certain insurance companies have already introduced policies with discounts for vegetarians. Moreover, since vegetarians are significantly slimmer than meat eaters, they do not contribute to one of the most important public health burden facing many countries today: obesity. In a vegetarian world without factory farming, uncontrollable animal disease outbreaks also would be a thing of the past.

--Save animals
Opting out of the meat trade equals not financing the deaths of thousands of animals during a person's lifetime. After all, is the 'nice' taste of a steak really reason enough to pay for all the suffering, health problems and environmental havoc the production of meat represents?

--Take care of nature
Vegetarians are not responsible for the destruction of rainforests for grazing and growing feed, for animal emissions polluting land, water and the air, and for the fast increasing threat to the food chain at many levels, due to relentless over-fishing in all oceans of the globe.

--Are an economic force
The efforts by the food industry to accommodate vegetarian demands are obvious; vegetarians are enjoying more choices in shops, restaurants and public dining facilities. Also the financial clout of vegetarians is taking momentum and their ability to vote with their purses is becoming more apparent by the day, bringing promising results, i.e. the ongoing research to produce artificial meat.

Vive the vegetarian revolution!

What vegetarian philosophers and scientists have said for centuries, has finally impacted the scientific world and entered everyday knowledge. Hardly a week goes by without new findings about the benefits of this peaceful way of life.

In times of growing health consciousness, solidarity and ecological awareness, international and national bodies will find it harder to continue their present boycott of the vegetarian alternative, which could already today resolve a myriad of pressing problems.

The international EVANA crew wishes everyone a happy World Vegetarian Day.

http://www.evana.org/index.php?id=59915