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<title> To be or not be (a vegetarian) </title>
Dustin Hoffman, Bob Dylan and Chelsea Clinton all have one thing in common and that is the fact that they are vegetarians. Why have they, and many with them, decided to exclude meat from their menus? We don't know what the reasons were behind their decisions, but there are many reasons why people choose to become vegetarians and I will write about some of them in this essay. There are lots of good arguments for being a vegetarian and among the many reasons are beliefs about ethics, culture, health, religion, economics, world hunger, and the environment. 
	The first thing that strike me is the way the animals are treated by us humans, and Alice Walker once said "The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men." This is something to think about when we treat animals the way we do. Do we really have that right? I'll leave that question unanswered, but the way animals are transported is not defendable and you might have seen on the news a few years ago how cruel animal transports were and still are. If that wouldn't be enough; many animals are forced to live unnatural lives, where they never see the sky and they are crammed into far too small living spaces, just to have it ended without any form of anaesthetic. This isn't always the case, but in far too many cases this is the bitter truth. 
	An other thing that might be an important factor for choosing this lifestyle is that research show that vegetarians' health is better, and that they live longer than other people. A too large consumption of meat causes fatness, hardening of the arteries, high blood-pressure, several forms of cancer, diabetes, gout, brittleness of the bones among other things. You won't get all of this just because you eat meat, but the risk of getting it increases. It is absolutely possible to get necessary vitamins, minerals, and protein from non-meat sources. Sure, the human digestive system is adaptable and can handle small amounts of meats, but my point is that if we choose to become vegetarians, we will be on our way to a healthier lifestyle.
	Furthermore, thousands of people die every day from starvation. At the same time a third of the world's crop become animal food - in the U.S. as much as seventy percent. Fifteen vegetarians can be fed on the amount of land needed to produce a meat-centered diet for one person. The food that could be saved if people became vegetarians would be enough to feed the starving people in the world. But if we continue as we've done before, the energy is lost that could save the world from hunger. Sooner or later it's likely that we all have to become vegetarians, either we want to or not. 
	Another argument talking for vegetarianism is that it's beneficial for the environment. We are six billion people on this planet now, and all of us can't eat meat, since nature can't take that much stress. In order for people to eat meat; livestock must be fed and housed and the products refrigerated, which requires great amounts of resources. Production of a certain amount of energy or protein in the form of meat is harder on the resources than production of the same amount of energy or protein in the form of vegetables. A vegetarian diet requires far less water, and decreasing the population of livestock would reduce pollution from manure and animal wastes.
	So it's of my opinion that it's not morally defendable to cause environmental pollution and suffering for millions of animals if we don't have to, and if we can find the key to better health and an answer to the world hunger at the same time that's just great. But in the end it's of course up to everyone to make their own decisions if they want to be a vegetarian or not, but I hope I have given you something to think about next time you sit down at the dinner table.
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