By Bruce Friedrich

Gone are the days when vegetarians were served up a plate of iceberg lettuce and a dull-as-dishwater baked potato. With the growing variety of vegetarian faux meats like bacon and sausages - along with an ever-expanding variety of vegetarian cookbooks and restaurants - vegetarianism has taken the world by storm.

With World Vegetarian Week beginning on Monday, here without further ado are PETA's picks for the top 10 reasons to give vegetarian eating a try.

1. Helping Animals Also Helps the Global Poor

While there is ample and justified moral indignation about the diversion of 100 million tons of grain for biofuels, more than seven times as much (760 million tons) is fed to farmed animals so that people can eat meat. Is the

Humans must recover their place in nature. They will not be well nor their policies and systems of governance sane until they do. Humans must realize that ALL present economic, military and government systems today are based upon fallacies that are unhealthy for them and every other living thing.

If we want any natural world to exist, we must become a part of it rather than its destroyer by virtue of insisting upon being its exception. We must lose our vanity and recover our natural wisdom. And we MUST embrace the most fundamental truth about ourselves; we are human herbivore monkeys.

Our place was naturally rich. Now it is all but vanquished. But, if we hope to continue upon this planet and hope for any natural life to continue, we must

"The global effects of meat consumption don't stop on land. Agriculture also requires water consumption, and animal agriculture is no exception. Animal production consumes an amount of water roughly equivalent to all other uses of water in the United States combined. Besides grains, animals need water to survive and grow until they are slaughtered. One pound of beef requires an input of approximately 2500 gallons of water, whereas a pound of soy requires 250 gallons of water and a pound of wheat only 25 gallons. Meat production is inefficient as it requires the consumption of an extensive amount of resources over many months and years before becoming a usable food product. With the water used to produce a single hamburger, you could take a

Published on Tuesday, May 27, 2008 by The Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin)
It's the Meat-Eating, Stupid
by Bill Berry

How's this for a timely quote: "(It) was the year I decided to find out why people were hungry in the world. The experts were telling us that the population problem was the cause of scarcity. The truth was, we were feeding a third of the world's grain to livestock, and with little return."

That was Frances Moore Lappe, author of "Diet for a Small Planet." The year was 1968.

Since then, meat consumption around the world has risen exponentially. As with our thirst for oil, Americans lead the way when it comes to chomping animal flesh, and by a long shot. As the public dialogue reels over the question of food vs. fuel, it's a

We are products of evolution. We are the result of 4 billion years of the evolutionary process. The Evolution of Life is the result of the continuing cooperation of Earth systems. Any system that does not participate in the complement of the entire system will eventually fail, without exception. This is death. Death in the natural world is not the result of competing species. Death is the necessary ingredient life needs to remain in harmony with the bigger process of life called Evolution. If death is not in harmony with the bigger process of life, it is not necessary, and is therefore detrimental to the process of evolution.

Darwin got it wrong in one important aspect: Survival of the Fittest. We have used this phrase to justify

Individuals are sufficent to stop species losses.

Individuals armed with understanding will make the choices that will arrest species losses and every other calamity brought about by our ecological insanity.

Governments are not required. The internet itself is sufficient. Spread the word. Save yourselves and all others!

Today is a good day to save a planet! It's easy and it is in your

"Given that we sit atop the food chain, nothing preys on us so there's nothing to stop our growth."

This is simply a major fallacy of our very ecologically fallacious culture. There is NO ‘top' to the food chain!

In fact, evolutionary tendency is from carnivorous to omnivorous where we see some plant eating capabilities, to exclusive plant eating capabilities and then further specialization (such as the bovine specialized stomach) adding an ability to digest much more commonly available foodstuffs, grasses.

If one looks with an accurate ecological lens, one sees that ecology itself moves towards dietary specializations that can support great herds, meaning larger and larger population numbers... and it turns out, these greater numbers are

Should you become a vegetarian?

Becoming a vegetarian stems for the most part as a result of a spiritual quest by an individual or a society who decides to stop eating meat. Progression of spirit NEVER involves BECOMING a meat eater. So, we can safely assume that consideration and implementation of becoming a non-meat eater is positive spiritual progression. As people on a spiritual path, becoming vegetarian is an unavoidable eventuality. Therefore, the sooner the better!

Now, the decision to become a vegetarian comes to the individual by two ways, one is from the IDEA that becoming a vegetarian will progress you spiritually (which is true), or the REALIZATION during your spiritual quest that you have no choice in the matter. If you are at a