To start off, this article is in no way trying to attack your way of life. It is incredibly difficult to try and understand a different lifestyle from your own, especially one that goes against everything you've been raised to believe since you were a child. Nonetheless, it is crucial that you understand the truth behind the animal farming industry, and that the fantasy of a red barn and cows grazing through the meadow is a complete lie. Here are some reasons to become a vegetarian (or vegan) today.

1. You save thousands of animal lives in your lifetime.

2. Animal agriculture is the leading contributor of greenhouse gases.

The government and media desperately try to hide this information from consumers, because animal agriculture is one of the most profitable businesses in America. However, the facts don't lie, and no amount of recycling or carpooling can make up for the damage caused by the companies.

3. It’s also the largest contributor to forest destruction and water loss.

California drought? Not from baths, but from the burger on your dinner plate.

4. Animals are intelligent creatures.

Everyone knows how our pets at home can learn and communicate with us in their own way, because they have the mental capacity to do so. Cows, pigs and chickens are no different. In fact, researchers say that pigs are smarter than both cats and dogs, and are fully aware of when they are being slaughtered.

5. The cruel treatment of the animals in factory farms is absolutely horrifying and repulsive.

Calves are ripped away from their mothers seconds after birth, which is an incredibly traumatic experience for them. Male chicks are thrown in a grinder or in the trash to suffocate to death because they are "unnecessary." What goes on behind closed walls is downright tragic.

6. Oceanic food chains have been depleted due to over-fishing.

In the last 50 years, 90 percent of the fish population has been exterminated. Fish are left out to suffocate and die, and other sea mammals get harmed in the process.

7. Eating animals is unhealthy.

Animal products have been proven to cause disease in humans, and contribute to the leading causes of death: heart disease and cancer. Plant-based diets are not only more nutritious, but can reverse these diseases, and can be the healthiest diet on the planet.

8. Conditions in factories are completely unacceptable.

Thousands of chickens shoved into a small shed, with their extremely sensitive beaks cut off as to prevent pecking. Pigs and cows are locked in a dark room, unable to move for their entire lives, stuffed with antibiotics, and not exposed to sunlight until the day they are slaughtered.

9. If everyone became a vegan, there would be no world hunger.

As of right now, there are enough crops to feed every human on Earth; however, most of it is going to feed the animals in these factory farms. If we stopped raising these animals to be meat for us, there would be enough crops to feed every person on Earth.

10. We don’t need to eat animals to survive.

The most important point of them all — there is absolutely no need to murder these innocent animals.

I hope that these ideas in some way have changed the way you think about eating meat, and show you that the only way to make a change is to stop supporting these businesses. I urge you to watch these videos and see for yourself how unjust and unnecessary the animal farming business truly is, for the only one who can make the decision to be vegetarian or vegan is you.