Have you seen this symbol before? 

This sign indicates that the product is vegetarian. But how many Singaporeans truly understand what being a vegetarian means? According to a recent survey, 7% of Singapore’s population follow this practice. Being vegetarian means avoiding meat, either due to cultural reasons, personal choice, or food allergies. Many Singaporeans confuse vegetarianism with veganism (speaking from experience). However, they are not entirely wrong. Vegetarianism has several categories, with veganism being one of them.

Wikipedia

Have you ever wondered why some of your classmates are vegetarian? In addition to cultural practices, they may adopt this practice for reasons such as:

1. A lower carbon footprint
2. Disapproval of animal cruelty
3. An incentive to lead a healthier lifestyle

1. A lower carbon footprint

Firstly, being vegetarian lowers the amount of resources needed to grow food. When rearing animals for food, their needs, such as food, water and other basic needs must be considered. For example, a chicken needs 400 ml of water and 110 g of food per day. To raise this chicken for 5 years would mean 730L of water and 200 kg of food. Many of these materials need to be transported from other countries, which results in vehicle emissions. Furthermore, these figures are for a single chicken – on farms, chickens are reared on a massive scale. In comparison, plants need only minimal fertiliser and water (mostly from rain). Moreover, fertiliser can be produced naturally using compost. This goes to show that the amount of manpower and resources needed in growing plants, while large, is exponentially smaller than that for farming livestock. Hence, reducing carbon footprint and resource expenditure is a reason for why some adopt vegetarianism.

2. Disapproving of animal cruelty

While some people choose vegetarianism for cultural reasons, others disapprove of the inhumane treatment of animals on farms before being killed for food. For them, going meatless is a way of boycotting such industries and encouraging more humane practices. On many farms, livestock are given very little space to live. From birth, they are often given medicines to fatten them up. They are then expected to give humans resources such as milk and eggs at an enormous scale. To speed up the process, some animals are even drugged. Eventually, once they are no longer able to provide produce for humans, they are slaughtered for their meat. Clearly, these animals’ sole purpose is to serve humans and provide them with food. The milk and eggs that we get to enjoy are not in fact naturally produced; rather, livestock are artificially stimulated to produce these resources. Because of this cruelty in obtaining animal-based products, some people choose to become vegans.

3. An incentive to lead a healthier lifestyle

Another group of people are vegetarians by choice. Although they eat meat regularly, they are aware of the health risks of eating only meat, so they choose to alternate between meat and vegetarian days. Some people, known as ‘flexitarians,’ are aware of certain facts, such as the reduced risk of heart disease associated with a vegetarian diet. At the same time, they also do not want to give up on meat fully. Hence, they alternate between both diets. Moreover, some plants can provide protein similarly to how meat does. In fact, this is where plant-based meats come in. They are made for flexitarians who have occasional meat cravings, and instead of a guilty indulgence, they can enjoy their food, because it has the same taste and protein. However, it is not only flexitarians who eat plant-based meat. Many meat lovers are also slowly deciding to make the switch to plant-based meats too.

Moreover, I would like to correct a particular misconception about vegetarianism. Being a vegetarian often garners pity, as people think they cannot enjoy anything. However, there are indeed a multitude of dishes that vegetarians can enjoy. Flexitarians can also savour plant-based meats at various restaurants, such as GreenDot, which offers many Singaporean dishes without meat and promotes healthy eating.

In essence, this is vegetarianism in a nutshell. Being vegetarian offers multiple benefits, such as reducing animal cruelty and lowering one’s carbon footprint. Now, the choice is yours: will you stop eating meat? For most people, asking them to give up something for their own good is not easy. It is simply not possible to stop a habit in one day. Could vegetarianism gradually become the practice of the future? I hope that you now know more about vegetarianism than you did before reading this article.