Be vegan, be green

I recently ate at a restaurant called Vegan-to-Go in Gainesville, Fl. The restaurant has vegan based vietnamese food that tastes delicious and that I would recommend to you. It is Gainesville's first vegan restaurant. You can find the menu here.The owner of this restaurant is a disciple of this so-called "The Supreme Master Ching Hai." Sounds like a cult, right?

Supreme Master Ching Hai is a "world-renowned humanitatiran, environmentalist, author, artist, designer, musician, film director and spirtual teacher that is one of the most dedicated ecological pioneers, promoting environmental protection, bidiversity preservation, reforestation, sustainable living and most importantly, the organic vegan diet." She is resourceful in launching several programs that inspires the world. Her association created campaings, publishes news magazines, books, has a TV series on climate change, vegan diet and relevant world saving topics (Supreme Master TV).

I inherited this book about her practice that explains her ideals about sustainability called From Crisis to Peace: The Organic Vegan Way is the Answer by The Supreme Master herself. This book presents the major factors about global warming. She argues that the root cause of this is the livestock industry. She states, "our planet is a house that is burning. If we don't work together with a united spirit to put out the fire, we will not have a home anymore." She believes that every individual can "be veg to save the planet." 

Raising animals for food wastes massive amounts of precious water, land and energy, and also contributes to 51% of the planet's greenhouse gas emissions. Livestock farming is the greatest single source of atmospheric methane, a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but one with a shorter lifespan. Therefore, Master Ching's argument is only "meat production and adopt a plant-based diets to reduce global temperatures,  heal the environmental ills caused by livestock and reduce the cost mitigating climate change by trillions of dollars."

 

Personally, the vegan diet is something that should be praticed, but the diet being unpoplular makes it difficult to maintain. Being vegan is changing everything from cooking and places to eat. I'd prefer a life with a vegan diet and for it to be more of a tradition but it is not, so it is challenging to make the transition. It feels as if one would object to a vegan diet due to these limits and/or the taste of it. There must be this lack of knowlege about the vegan diet causing the majority of the population not participating. If the world shifted to a more sustainable diet it will gradually improve and health of it's occupants and the surrounding areas.