TOP 10 REASONS WE'RE VEG

Commando Chicks' Top 10 Reasons to Fight for Vegetarianism When we stop for a meal during our travels and order scrumptious black bean burgers, yummy vegetarian "chicken," or delicious pasta fagioli, people often ask us why we’re vegetarian. Here are some of the answers we give them:
	We've never met a chicken we didn't like. But chickens on factory farms are crammed into crowded cages so small that they can't turn around or even spread a wing. Their beaks are sliced off without anesthesia before being crammed into overcrowded warehouses.
	Cows, calves, pigs, turkeys, ducks, and other animals suffer terribly on factory farms, too. Kept in small overcrowded sheds, stalls, cages, or crates, where they're often unable even to lie down comfortably, these intelligent, social animals are deprived of veterinary care, exercise, sunlight–even the feel of grass under their feet. Every time we sit down to eat, we choose compassion by choosing vegetarian foods.
	We’re heart smart and cancer-unfriendly. Vegetarian women are less than one-fourth as likely as meat-eaters to get breast cancer, while vegetarian men have a 46 percent lower chance of suffering a heart attack. In addition, a vegetarian diet helps prevent strokes, osteoporosis, kidney stones, many cancers, diabetes, hypoglycemia, kidney disease, peptic ulcers, hernias, obesity, gallstones, hypertension, asthma, impotence, and many other diseases.
	We’re keeping our sex lives sizzling. Vegetarian foods keep our bodies slim, our skin clear, and our libidos … well, let’s just say they’re, uh, presidential. If you wouldn’t eat veggies for your mother, maybe now you’ll do it for your lover!
	Vegetarians live longer, healthier lives. One 21-year-long study that compared meat-eaters and vegetarians showed that the greater the meat consumption, the greater the death rate from all causes combined.
	Vegetarianism is an automatic cholesterol-cutter. The only foods that contain cholesterol are animal products, like meat and dairy. And since a three-decade-long study found that not a single subject with a cholesterol level below 150 has ever developed heart disease, that's hard to ignore!
	Vegetarians save an acre of trees each year. In North America, Great Britain, and throughout the world, forests are being destroyed to create pastures for livestock. Between 1960 and 1985 alone, nearly 40 percent of all Central American rain forests were destroyed to create cheap grazing land for cows later served on North American and European plates.
	We want to help conserve scarce resources. Producing just one hamburger uses enough fossil fuel to drive a small car 20 miles and enough water for 17 showers. In fact, more than half of all water used in the U.S. is used to raise and kill animals for the table.
	Vegetarians are in good company. When we choose soy over sausage, and chickpeas over chicken, we’re echoing the choices made by Albert Schweitzer, Leo Tolstoy, Pythagoras, Albert Einstein, Gandhi, and dozens of other great thinkers throughout history.
	Veggie food tastes great! Seven-bean chili, raspberry sorbet, spinach lasagna, gingery baked beans, coconut-pineapple curry, wild mushroom risotto, eggplant crostini, potato croquettes, strawberry crêpes, grilled portobello mushrooms, Szechuan noodles, spicy tomato ziti–need we say more?