Zoonosis
You might (not totally unreasonably) suggest the following is callous, or at least poorly timed, but: 3 in 4 emerging diseases are zoonotic – meaning they transferred over from animal species to humans. And virtually all of those are in the context of animal agriculture – raising and killing animals for food. COVID-19, like SARS, is believed to have originated in a "wet market" in Wuhan – where live animals, dead animals, and humans are thrown into close contact.
Other zoonotic diseases include bird flu, swine flu, Ebola, and West Nile virus, amongst very many others. So if you needed one more reason to consider eating plants instead of animals, on top of:
- ending the unimaginable suffering of billions of factory farmed floofs;
- stopping the environmental devastation caused by animal agriculture;
- reducing your risk of heart disease and cancer (our biggest killers: 73,000 deaths/day, versus 354/day from COVID-19); and:
- producing enough food to finally end hunger amongst our own species; then you can add:
- not contributing to the emergence of horrendous new diseases, one of which may yet take us all out.
Lots of love to everyone – good luck, and stay safe. 💚
