LAV: A Little Big Organization

LAV, also known as Anti-Vivisection League, is a non-profit organization proclaiming the rights of all animals to life, dignity, and liberty.

LAV has been officially recognized as an association pursuing the protection of the interests adversely affected by crimes against animals in 1998 with operating headquarters in Rome, Italy, under the name of LAV (Lega Anti Vivisezione).

The purposes of the Association range from the preservation of the environment to the abolition of vivisection, fishing, hunting, livestock production, animal farming, animal trade, and animal shows.

The exploitation and deprivation of freedom of animals for entertainment in circuses is an evident issue in Italy even though 68.3% of the citizens are against circuses. For this reason, LAV every day supports the liberation of the animals held captive in such structures, prepares a plan for the phasing out of exhibitions and performances, and places the animals in rescue centers in Italy and abroad.

The Association condemns the manipulations perpetrated by men against nature and appeals to each one of us to set their sight on the protection of the environment and the ecosystems.

LAV views the vegan choice as one of its founding principles, in fact, the Association gives endless importance to the imperative “do not kill.”

To achieve its goals, LAV takes action in various activities:

1) It organizes conferences, events, debates where they talk about animal cruelty related issue and show film and videos about the current topic.

2) It establishes collaborations with other Italian and foreign organizations that have a similar mission and purposes for a mutual exchange of experiences.

3) It distributes books and magazines with the aim of informing and sensitizing as many citizens as possible on animal cruelty issues.

The main financial resource of LAV are contributions: they can come from members, private individuals, public entities, international organizations and more. Annual membership fees are also a major resource.

LAV is a social organization where the word “social” means that each individual develops their personality with the aim to fulfill and accomplish the goals of the Association.

Donate now to make your contribution! If you think that LAV is doing an amazing Job, donate, even a little, to their cause. As Mahatma Gandhi said,

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

You Won’t Be The Same After Having Watched This Documentary

Cowspiracy is a powerful and provocative documentary movie on Netflix directed by Kip Anderson and Keegan Kuhn in 2014.

The movie focuses on the environmental impact of livestock approaching the topic from a unique perspective explaining how what we eat heavily determines the destruction of earth’s environment. The movie is not just about cows, farms, and meat; it’s about humans, our planet and the environment.

The documentary is full of very powerful statistics (some of them are mentioned and analyzed in my post about the environment) divided into 7 main parts:

Climate change: 51% of global greenhouse gas emissions are due to livestock and their byproducts, while the sector of transportation (road, rail, air & marine) are responsible for only 13% of emissions. Livestock is, then, responsible for 65% nitrous oxide emissions, more destructive than C02.
Water use: to produce 1 hamburger are needed 660 gallons of water, equivalent to showering for 2 months. The meat & dairy industry use 1/3 of earth fresh water.

Waste: the waste from a farm of 2500 dairy cows is equivalent to the waste from a city of 411,000 people. Every minute 7 million pounds of excrement is produced by animals raised for food in the Us.

Land use: livestock covers 45% of the earth’s total land. 1,5 acres of land can produce either 37,000 LBS of plant-based food or just 375 LBS of meat. To feed one vegan for a year is needed 1/6^TH of an acre; to feed one meat eater for a year, in comparison, it takes 18 times the quantity of land needed for a vegan.

Fisheries: from the ocean, each year are pulled 90 million tons of fish, and for every 1 pound of fish caught 5 pounds of unintended marine species are caught and discarded as by-kill.

Species extinction: for the enormous quantity of land used by livestock, as I mentioned before, 110 animal and insect species are lost every day from rainforest destruction.

Deforestation: from one to two acres of rainforest are cleared every second; animal agriculture is, indeed, responsible for 91% of Amazon destruction

Cowspiracy, in my opinion, is one of the most powerful documentaries of the latest years. More and more people each year are taking action to save the planet, and I think that this documentary could be an eye-opening for most of the people who still don’t believe in climate change.

As Louie Psihoyos, Oscar-winning Director of “The Cove,” stated:

“Cowspiracy may be the most important film made to inspire saving the planet. “

Cowspiracy cites hundreds of research and studies making its claims solid and credible, making it an incredible source of reliable information.

Watch Cowspiracy now on Netflix!

The Change Starts With You

If you care about the future of your children, you should preserve and protect our environment with numerous action. By going vegan, you will help to create your children’s future.

A plant-based diet is known to be very beneficial for your health (if you still have any doubts about that, you will change your idea after having read this post); but it, also, appears to be the best action one can do to help the environment.

Meat and Dairy Pollute More Than The Oil Industry

According to an article of Independent, the world’s top five meat and dairy corporations, when taken together, are responsible for more emissions than ExxonMobil, Shell, or BP. Animal agriculture is, indeed, one of the principal polluting causes for the environment, and if we do nothing, according to the same article, the livestock sector by 2050 could be responsible for 80 percent of the allowable greenhouse gas budget.

According to this article, meat and dairy produce 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions, while providing just 18% of calories and 37% of protein. The Environmental Working Group estimated that the carbon footprint of broccoli is nearly 13 times less than beef. If we compare beef to tofu, one of the main sources of protein in an average vegan diet, the first one results in up to 105kg of greenhouse gases per 100g of meat, while tofu produces less than 3.5kg.

https://citizenvox.org/2014/08/14/go-green-go-vegetarian-environmental-impacts-of-meat/

Dr. Neal Barnard, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, told ABC News,

“A global shift to a plant-based diet is a win-win for
both human health and the environment.”

You cannot imagine how much land is used by the meat and dairy industry

Many people asked me when they knew I was vegan if I knew that thousands of hectares of land were used for vegan products destroying the environment. This question put always a bitter smile on my face since I found funny this disinformation.

My friend didn’t know that the animal industry uses more than 83% of global farmland, an area equivalent to the US, CHINA, European Union and Australia combined.

By cutting out meat and dairy from our diets, we could reduce global farmland use by more than 75% and still feed the world.

In this article of The Guardian Joseph Poore, a researcher who led a study published in the journal Science, said at the University of Oxford, UK:

“A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use, and water use.”

Animal agriculture wastes giant quantities of water

One report cited in this article estimated that only one burger required to produce:

14.6 gallons of water
13.5 pounds of feed
64.5 square feet of land

To make a comparison, as we see in the infographic below, 1 pound of meat takes to produce 2,400 gallons of water, while 1 pound of wheat takes only 25 gallons (almost 100 times less water).

Dr. Francesco Branca, director of the Department of Nutrition for Health and Development at the World Health Organization, told ABC News that if we all ate a plant-based, whole food diet by 2050, it would allow growing world population to be fed and the planet to be protected.

With our personal choices we do make a difference, and going vegan may be our single biggest way to make our impact on the environment.

Go Vegan! Try this challenge

3 Things You Must Know About Food If You Want to Live Longer

No matter what you want to do in your life, I imagine that you want to
stay in this world as long as possible, and a plant-based diet may help you achieve this goal.

Opinions around the plant-based diet are controversial, but the latest peer-reviewed research suggests that it gives you several health benefits that could help you live longer.

Here are the major three:

You will have fewer chances to get cancer

Each year, millions of people die from cancer. In 2018, only in the US, statistics shows that 1 million735,350 people were diagnosed with cancer and 609,640 didn’t survive the illness, as reportered by the American Cancer Society. Cancer is, indeed, the second leading cause of death, only after the death for heart diseases. Studies haven’t found a definitive cure yet, and we don’t know when scientists will find it.

What we can do is to do everything we can to prevent it, and living on a plant-based diet may help us to do that. Research shows, in fact, that a vegan diet conferred a significantly reduced risk of -15% of incidence from total cancer. Another study led by Dean Ornish, MD, and colleagues, showed that a plant-based diet combined with stress reduction and exercise was able to delay the advancement of prostate cancer in some patients.

You will be able to reverse diabetes symptoms

According to Diabetes.org, 252,806 people died for diabetes in 2015, leaving diabetes the 7^th leading cause of death. Diabetes is a problem that causes blood glucose (sugar) levels to rise higher than normal. In order to lower your blood sugar and lose weight, you can follow the standard American Diabetes Association diet. However, you may see more results if you switch to a whole food plant-based diet.

Indeed, researchers said that people who eat a low-fat vegan diet, cutting out all meat and dairy, lowered their blood sugar levels more than those on a standard American Diabetes Association diet. In addition, more research demonstrates that among patients with diabetes eating on a plant-based diet reduced visceral fat, improved oxidative stress markers, and insulin sensitivity. Then if you are not diabetic, eating vegan may be a good way to prevent this illness, with a decreased risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes.

You would be able to prevent, fight, and cure the number 1 cause of death

In the US, 1 every 4 deaths is for heart diseases with about 610.000 death every year according to the statistics. Heart disease is, indeed, the number 1 cause of death. By following a plant-based diet, however, you will be able to fight and, sometimes cure, heart-related illnesses.

Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, surgeon, nutritionist, and author of Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease (2007), in his trial of about 198 people with cardiovascular diseases, analyzed 177 patients that went on a whole food vegan diet and 21 that remained on a standard American diet. After 12 years, those who remained with their vegan diet only had a 0.6% chance of having heart attack or stroke, while those who remained on their regular diet had a 62% chance of having heart attack or stroke. Studies showed that for every three percent increase in calories from plant protein was found to reduce the risk of dying from heart disease by 12%.

By switching to a vegan diet, not only will you feel better, but you will also increase your life span having less chances of contracting three of the leading killers of our days.

Read the latest news about veganism:

–A very vegan New Year: increasing numbers sign up for meat-free resolution

–Veganism may prove a more durable diet fad

–Some vegetarian diets more heart-healthy than others

Click HERE to watch a video of Dr. Michael Greger explaining how a plant-based diet can help you to prevent, fight, and sometimes reverse the top 15 leading causes of death.

Then click HERE to watch a video of vegan science writer Mic the Vegan explaining through peer-reviewed studies how your body changes when switching to a plant-based diet.