Why we are vegan This is how you can change your diet HEALTH in 5 steps: Philip Hochuli, Cook book author

«Vegan cuisine combines pleas- ure and culinary diversity with 1. Determine a date: Remove all the foods that you no ecological, health-related and longer want to eat consistently from your kitchen by that ethical benefits. This unique- date. ness is fascinating and inspiring ATTENTIVE. 2. Shopping: Discover the -based alterna- to me and motivates me.» tives in the supermarket, organic shops and online. Try what you like the best. SUSTAINABLE. 3. More and : Increase your raw and intake. Fresh fruits and vegetables HEALTHY. give energy and help to decrease the desire for meat and Katharina Kuhlmann, cheese. Author and blogger 4. New favourite recipe: You can find a lot of plant- Good reasons for a based recipes online or in cook books. Or cook your plant-based diet. «Unlike animals I can decide favourite recipes and use animal free meat or milk alter- for myself what happens to my natives. ENVIRONMENT body. Because of my empathy 5. Stronger together: Join an association to meet like- and because I am consistently minded people and to promote the vegetarian/vegan against animal cruelty, I am liv- lifestyle. ing a vegan lifestyle.»

Join us! Become a member: ANIMALS Rob Spence, Comedian www.swissveg.ch/support «To live on a vegan diet is a win-win-win situation: It is bet- ter for the environment, it is

better for the animals and it is Swissveg better for our own body. I am Vegetarian • Vegan • For animals, environment & health Niederfeldstr. 92, CH-8408 Winterthur a comedian but the really im- portant things I take seriously.» www.swissveg.ch Tel. +41 (0)71 477 33 87 [email protected] Fax +41 (0)71 477 33 78 Any questions? ETHICS

Account: 90-21299-7 We will gladly advise you. 2500 edition• 1. • 2017-02 Vegetarian • Vegan • For animals, environment & health «Animal law and the minimum «The lower the proportion of animal-based «Processed meat is carcinogenic and red requirements for it are still violated in many food, the more favourable for the [ecological] meat is probably carcinogenic.» companies.» footprint.» World Health Organization (WHO) The Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Foundation for the Animal in the Law (TIR) Environment and Water Management

Animals Environment Health Every year, 2.8 million pigs, 754,000 cattle and 110 million The production of animal-based food products generates Meat consumption is demonstrably responsible for the chickens are slaughtered for the consumption of meat in more greenhouse gases than the entire traffic world-wide. development of cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Switzerland. DEFORESTATION OF RAIN FORESTS MEAT CONSUMPTION RISKS DISEASE A SPECIES-APPROPRIATE HUSBANDRY IS IMPOSSIBLE The area of land that is needed to produce one kilogram of Cardiovascular diseases, obesity and diabetes are only Over 55 billion farm animals are being slaughtered every year meat, could be used to harvest 193 kg of green vegetables some of the modern day diseases you risk contraction in Switzerland. About the same number is imported to satisfy or 160 kg of potatoes in the same period of time. To obtain when consuming animal products. Studies have proven the appetite for meat. Due to quantity it is not possible to take a higher acreage, tropical rain forests are cleared, mainly for that many diseases could be avoided if animal products the individual animals’ specific needs into consideration. grazing land or to cultivate animal feed. were removed from the diet.

THE LIMITS OF LIVESTOCK HOUSING WATER SCARCITY IN THE THIRD WORLD BORN TO EAT PLANTS To avoid injuries in industrial livestock farming the animals The production of 1 kg of beef requires more than 15,400 L of Humans are frugivorous which is demonstrated by our get mutilated for their own safety. Pigs get their teeth water, whereas 290 L is enough for 1 kg of potatoes. The digestive anatomy. The whole body is designed to proc- trimmed, cows their horns burned out and chickens get worldwide increasing consumption of animal products requires ess fruits, vegetables and herbs. The anatomy of meat their beaks cut off. more and more water in agriculture which in turn reduces the is vastly different from that of a human’s availability of water needed for the local people in dry parts of (humans don’t have fangs, no claws, long intestines…). LIFELONG EXPLOITATION the world. All farm animals only reach a fraction of their natural life expectancy. In this time they are exploited to exhaustion: Hens FOOD WASTE MALNUTRITION CAUSED BY ? lay up to 300 eggs per year, dairy cows provide 7,000 kg of milk To produce 1 kg of meat, 7–16 kg of or are Critics fear that a plant-based diet leads to deficiency yearly and pigs are fattened to a weight of 110 kg within 5 required. This is without exaggeration the most extreme form symptoms. As with meat eaters alike what matters is a months. of destruction of food. However if these grown on the varied diet with a lot of vegetables and fruits. Due to a same land mass were reaching humans without the detour via lesser intake of harmful animal substances, vegetarians TORTUROUS KILLING animals, there would be enough food for everyone on earth. (including vegans) have even better conditions to stay No matter if keeping the animals in a conventional or organic healthy. way, in the end they are all killed in the same way. Several INCREASE OF THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT thousand animals are delivered to industrial scale abattoirs A diet of meat, dairy and eggs causes as much CO2 yearly as daily. There is no time to check the anaesthesia. Hundreds a car ride of 4,758 km. With a vegan diet the car ride equates of thousands of animals are cut up fully conscious. to only 629 km.