People are often more interested in information when presented visually. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. So, it follows that infographics can provide an avenue to communicate information effectively. Infographics incorporate both visuals and text to allow people to absorb information more easily. I’ve created the following vegan infographics to communicate the top ten core reasons people are choosing to adopt a vegan lifestyle. Many people are unaware of the breadth of issues veganism helps resolve. Use these vegan infographics to communicate with them effectively!
- 1. “Veganism and Climate Change: the Hidden Solution”
- 2. “The 4 simple ways veganism helps solve world hunger”
- 3. “The one way to prevent future pandemics? End our abuse of animals”
- 4. “The 3 ways animal agriculture is brewing an antibiotic resistance crisis”
- 5. “How going vegan fights environmental racism”
- 6. “5 Reasons Why Vegans Don’t Eat Dairy”
- 7. “Why don’t vegans eat eggs?”
- 8. “Why don’t vegans eat fish?”
- 9. “Why don’t vegans eat shrimp? 5 ways eating shrimp threatens people and the planet”
- 10. “5 reasons you don’t need to worry about how to get enough protein on a vegan diet”
- Bonus Infographic: Plant-Based for the Planet
- Share these vegan infographics with your community!
1. “Veganism and Climate Change: the Hidden Solution”
The lead researcher of the largest-ever food production analysis conducted in 2018 and published in the journal Science concluded, “A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth… It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car. Agriculture is a sector that spans all the multitude of environmental problems.”
Our diets heavily impact our carbon footprints. We cannot claim to care about the future of life on this planet while continuing to eat meat and animal products. If you’re like most people, you don’t feel ready to adopt a new eating identity. No one who isn’t already vegan is eager to hear this message. But, it is a mistake to excuse ourselves from responsibility by pretending that there are only two options: go vegan or keep eating as we always have. Our choice is not black and white.
If we cannot do this, our actions show that we do not care. We must take the climate crisis seriously, at the level of action. If we do not, how are we self-professed science believers different from those who deny global warming altogether? As author and activist Colleen Patrick-Goudeau urges us, “It’s not that you can make a difference. It’s that you do make a difference.” Transitioning to veganism is the most impactful action you can take to stop climate change.
2. “The 4 simple ways veganism helps solve world hunger”
While world hunger has its roots in unjust allocation of resources rather than availability, farming animals contributes to the unnecessary scarcity and high price of staple crops. World hunger exists partly because we use our resources inefficiently. Instead of feeding crops to people who are undernourished, we feed them to farmed animals. One third of the world’s grain is fed to farmed animals.
If we stop breeding billions of farmed animals, we could feed an additional four billion people with the cropland currently used to grow animal feed. There would be more than enough food to go around. As the world population is projected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050, having the cropland to grow more food is essential.
The animal agriculture industry often protests that the crops fed to farmed animals are not “high quality” enough for humans. However, it’s indisputable that they are using land and water that could be used to grow plants to feed humans.
Each time we buy animal products, we are voting with our dollar to continue to feed farmed animals instead of people. We are voting against feeding the hungry and for resource-intensive foods for ourselves. We are voting for the climate crisis to continue unabated, jeopardizing the crops of the poor. Veganism alone won’t solve it – but we can’t solve world hunger without it.
3. “The one way to prevent future pandemics? End our abuse of animals”
Three out of every four emerging infectious diseases come from an animal source. There are hundreds of thousands of pathogens out there that could spill over as the next pandemic. Measles came from cattle, smallpox is thought to have been transmitted to humans by camels, and HIV/AIDS came from chimpanzees. In 2002, SARS emerged from bats. In 2009, the swine flu pandemic spread from pigs. Of course, COVID-19 had animal-based origins too, likely originating in wet markets in China.
There is one simple change we can make to help prevent future pandemics: transitioning to a vegan lifestyle. A vegan lifestyle encompasses moving away from the use of animals for all exploitative purposes, including food, clothing, and entertainment.
Professor Andrew Cunningham says it like it is: “We should all be vegan. Solve the problem straight off. If everyone was vegan, we could release billions of hectares of land for wildlife because we wouldn’t need that land to grow land to feed animals to feed us because that’s the most inefficient way of growing food. If we just ate what we grew that would be there would be plentiful supplies of food on the planet… You know, it’s contentious to say that, but that’s where the science tells us we have to go if we’re going to survive on this planet as a human race.”
Nature is sending a crystal-clear message to humanity: when we mistreat animals, we will pay the price. As an advisor to the Waterkeeper Alliance, Rick Dove, warned, “There are two sets of laws…that control human behavior. One is the laws that we make… but nature has its own set of laws. And when you violate those laws, nature responds with a consequence all of its own.” Simply put: treating animals badly leads to bad outcomes for us.
We must transform ourselves to transform the world. Preventing future pandemics begins with your next meal.
4. “The 3 ways animal agriculture is brewing an antibiotic resistance crisis”
Farmed animals live in cramped, filthy conditions that create perfect breeding grounds for bacteria to spread. These unnatural conditions make the animals more stressed and susceptible to disease. According to Professor Lance Price, the founding director of the Antibiotic Resistance Action Center who was featured in the documentary The End of Medicine, this combination of poor hygiene and high drug use together fuels the growing antibiotic resistance crisis.
Over 70% of all antibiotics used worldwide are used on farmed animals, not people. With repeated exposure to antibiotics, bacteria mutate to reproduce more quickly and stay resistance, even once antibiotics are removed. Even worse, further antibiotic use only feeds the growth of the resistant bacteria, making them reproduce and become stronger more quickly.
In 2015, federal research found that between 36-79% of meats in the supermarkets contained antibiotic-resistant bacteria, depending on the type of meat.
Despite the fact that microbiologist Stuart Levy sounded the alarm for antibiotic resistance in 1976, little action has been taken. The WHO has attempted to reduce this threat to public health for decades. In 2014, it labeled antibiotic resistance “a major threat to public health.”
Several congress people have introduced bills attempting to regulate antibiotic use on factory farms. The Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act has been on the table for a decade, supported by 454 organizations. But it has repeatedly gone to the Health subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to die. This is because veterinary pharmaceutical companies or animal agriculture industries have made campaign donations of more than $15,000 to members of this subcommittee.
The industry also attempts to distract from the issue at hand by saying antibiotic resistance would be growing even without factory farming. Physician and lifestyle medicine specialist Dr. Chidi Ngwaba counters this argument, saying, “Even if all doctors stopped prescribing antibiotics, the animal industry is using so many antibiotics that what we do makes very little difference.”
According to Professor Dame Sally Davies, Special Envoy on antimicrobial resistance for the UK government, “Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) will kill us before climate change. AMR is a pandemic; it’s just a slow growing one. The end result will be… the post antibiotic era – much longer hospital stays, higher mortality… [we’ll be] going back to the era before penicillin.”
Unless we act, we will soon enter a post-antibiotic world – the end of medicine as we know it. As Professor Price of the Antibiotic Resistance Action Center put it, “It sounds hyperbolic to say ‘the end of medicine,’ but…eventually we’re going to run out of ways to safely kills these pathogens.” The scientific advisor of the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, Colin Nunan, affirms this prediction. As he warns, “There is no doubt that if we continue on this path we are headed for an antibiotic apocalypse.”
As long as we continue to buy their products, they will continue abusing antibiotics for profit at the cost of public health.
5. “How going vegan fights environmental racism”
When you search for “solutions to environmental racism,” credible sources enumerate important parts of the solution: educate yourself, amplify the voices of those who are impacted, write to your representatives, speak out against corporations and boycott products from offending industries.
But they don’t tell you clearly the most tangible action you can take. Unless you already know about the environmental impact of industrial animal agriculture, you might not realize that consuming animal products directly supports corporations that egregiously harm communities of color and low-income groups.
No one seems to talk about the fact that pollution from factory farms constitutes environmental racism. Yet this is an urgent issue, as the physical and mental health of predominantly BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) and low-income groups is at stake.
BIPOC and people of lower income are disproportionately likely to live in environmentally hazardous neighborhoods, subject to the pollution of poorly regulated industries.
Pollution from factory farms can cause inflammation of the nervous system, upper and lower respiratory tract diseases, increased risk of heart disease, damaged reproductive health, and increased risk of diabetes. It can also harm mental health, including increased risk of depression and increased anxiety.
So, what’s one of the most tangible solutions to environmental racism that individuals can contribute to? Adopting and advocating for a vegan lifestyle. By doing so, we stop supporting an industry that hugely contributes to environmental racism.
At the end of the day, we vote with our dollar. If we’re seeking solutions to environmental racism through indirect actions like writing to our representatives, yet buying bacon at the grocery store – we’re funding the very cause we’re working against. If we instead transition to a vegan lifestyle and encourage others to do so as well, we are implementing real, direct solutions to environmental racism.
6. “5 Reasons Why Vegans Don’t Eat Dairy”
Vegans don’t eat dairy for five significant reasons. Environmentally speaking, the production of cow’s milk causes an enormous amount of carbon emissions, destroys forests, and contaminates vast amounts of land and water. From a health standpoint, cow’s milk promotes cancers, weight gain, diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, and multiple sclerosis, among other diseases.
From a human rights rights perspective, cow’s milk is the end result of an industry that exploits farm workers, who endure poor working conditions, low wages, debt, and high rates of physical and mental illness, often without access to health care or legal protection.
Finally, from an animal rights point of view, cow’s milk is the product of an unbelievably exploitative industry that uses the reproductive systems of cows for human profit and takes baby calves from their mothers. The dairy industry causes cows physical pain from mastitis, lameness, susceptibility to disease and decreased lifespan. Dairy cows endure severe emotional and cognitive distress, including widespread abuse from workers. They will ultimately be killed for meat, and their male babies will be killed for veal after a short, miserable life.
Delicious, healthful and eco-friendly alternatives to cow’s milk are readily available in most supermarkets now. Soy milk, which is full of plant protein and cancer-fighting compounds, is a great option. Oat milk, almond milk, rice milk, and cashew milk are great, too. The brands Next Milk and NotMilk taste extremely similar to dairy milk, if you’re looking for that.
For the climate crisis, for your health, for human rights, for animal rights – let’s ditch the dairy.
7. “Why don’t vegans eat eggs?”
Vegans don’t eat eggs for three overarching reasons: concerns for personal health, environmental and public health concerns, and ethical reasons.
Firstly, eggs cannot legally be labeled “healthy,” “good for you” or even “safe.” They promote cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Federal Dietary Guidelines don’t publicize this because they are industry-influenced.
Egg production contributes to high carbon emissions. It poses a significant risk of future pandemics. Poultry farms also have dangerous working conditions and compromise the health and wellbeing of nearby communities.
Finally, chickens have been selectively bred to produce about 23 times more eggs than they naturally would (300 rather than about 13 annually) and suffer painful health consequences as a result. They benefit from eating their eggs to regain lost nutrients. The egg industry also kills newborn male chicks of laying hens within hours of birth in macerators because they will not produce eggs and will not grow fast enough to be profitable for meat.
Taking their eggs compromises their health, deprives them of a natural behavior and of what is theirs, supports a system that exploits them in the first place and continues to view them as a resource rather than beings in their own right.
Cooking without eggs is simple! To learn how to cook without eggs, check out this podcast from the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine and these egg replacement tips and egg recipes, as well as our savory oatmeal recipe and easy tofu scrambled eggs.
8. “Why don’t vegans eat fish?”
There are five primary reasons why vegans don’t eat fish. Avoiding fish consumption protects the ocean’s ecosystem, preserves wildlife like dolphins and whales, promotes our own health, avoids supporting human rights violations, and respects that fish are conscious, feeling creatures.
At the individual level, as consumers who do not need to eat fish to survive, how can we justify needlessly buying it and perpetuating these systems? It’s time we reframe how we view fish: not as seafood, but as wildlife. Let’s keep fish in the ocean, where they belong.
To learn more about the vast environmental and human rights concerns with eating fish in an engaging and inspiring way, check out the Netflix documentary Seaspiracy.
9. “Why don’t vegans eat shrimp? 5 ways eating shrimp threatens people and the planet”
Ethical vegans don’t eat shrimp first and foremost because they are sentient creatures. But there are many reasons not to eat shrimp not to that go far beyond that. Both farmed and wild caught shrimp are tangled up in a damaging web of problems, including mangrove destruction, air and water pollution, biodiversity loss, antimicrobial resistance, and human rights concerns, including slave labor and endangering coastal communities. They also pose health risks and are subject to misleading labeling. That’s a lot of compelling reasons to consider opting for a vegan shrimp brand or alternative recipes!
10. “5 reasons you don’t need to worry about how to get enough protein on a vegan diet”
Numerous sources recommend that as much as 35% of your daily calories can safely come from protein, such as the MayoClinic. Yet these guidelines are based on misinformation that the animal agriculture industry has promoted. Animal agriculture industries have successfully lobbied the USDA to increase the “safe upper limit” of consumption of protein, cholesterol and fat. They do this to encourage continued consumption of their products, as animal products contain all of these nutrients together. As a result, government guidelines recommend unsafe levels of these nutrients.
According to The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-term Health (2016), cancer is best prevented with levels at 10% or lower and from plant sources. Yet the government recommends levels as high as 17-21%.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), we should consume only 5-10% of our daily calories from protein. Most plants meet this percentage naturally. Nonvegetarians and vegetarians alike get on average 70% more protein than they need every day.
For all the evidence you need to demonstrate that plants have more than enough nutrients to for fitness, check out The Gamechangers documentary.
Here’s why you don’t need to worry about how to get enough protein on a vegan diet: 1) the meat and dairy industries lobbied the USDA to promote increased protein consumption; international health organizations state vegan diets are nutritionally adequate across the lifespan; you should be worried about getting too much protein from animal-based sources; the need to combine plant foods to form “complete proteins” is a myth; and finally, if you’re getting enough calories, you’re getting enough protein.
Bonus Infographic: Plant-Based for the Planet
While Earth Day comes around every April, every day is a good day to share with others the benefits of going plant-based for the planet. Share this infographic with all your eco-conscious friends who may not be aware of the vast environmental impacts of our food choices.
Share these vegan infographics with your community!
There you have it! The next time you need to advocate for veganism and want to give someone a quick and informative visual takeaway, be sure to digitally share or print out one of these vegan infographics.
