"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." - Albert Einstein

Plant based diets are the more planet-friendly way of feeding our growing population - they won't cost you the earth!

Water - Animal food production uses up huge amounts of water resources. A pure vegetarian diet uses nearly 14 times less water to be produced than an animal based one.

Land - Overgrazing destroys millions of acres of land that would more efficiently be used to grow food that feeds people directly.

Pollution - Raising animals for food is the largest industrial polluter of water and topsoil. Approximately one quarter of methane emissions come from livestock, which makes a significant increase to global warming and livestock ammonia emissions are one of the major causes of acid rain.

Energy - Veggie diets consume less energy to produce. One third of all raw materials and fossil fuels are used to raise animals for food. Deforestation - Hundreds of millions of acres of forests and tropical rainforests have been cleared to create grazing land for cattle and to grow crops to feed animals that are raised for meat. This deforestation robs the Earth of oxygen and causes the extinction of around 100 species every day. Each vegetarian saves on average one acre of trees every year.

Fishing - Hundreds of species of fish are now extinct or threatened due to the effects that fishing has on the world's oceans. The techniques used by the industry such as drift nets and trawlers are not only causing irreversible damage to ocean ecosystems but also taking the lives of many marine species and bird life along with it.

Resources - Producing animals for food depletes a huge amount of resources. The meat from a cow can ultimately feed a few dozen people, but the same resources that produced the cow could feed hundreds of people. The world's cattle alone are fed a quantity of food that would otherwise be enough to feed the entire human population on Earth, including the 60 million people who will otherwise starve to death each year.

You can improve your health, help the environment and save animal in one simple step…why not take it? Go veggie - and eat for life!

--Erin lives in Australia. She's been vegan for just over a year and vegetarian pretty much all her life. She decided pretty early on that she didn't want something to have to die for her dinner. Her favorite thing about being veg is that "even though it might seem like an insignificant choice to make, it can make such a difference to the world..and I think that's pretty cool."