Humans have long wrestled with their conscience about killing and eating animals. The 'meat paradox' (the conflict between people's preference for meat and their concern for animals) may have inspired cave paintings from 37,000 years ago. Since then, many leading thinkers have eschewed meat, including Pythagoras, Leonardo da Vinci, Mary Shelley, and Mahatma Gandhi. Plant-based diets are increasingly tasty and cheap in many countries. Adopting them would spare the lives of over 80 billion animals a year and would cause 75 percent less environmental damage than meaty diets. The benefits of going plant-based on health and longevity are increasingly well established and have prompted an eminent cardiologist to remark, 'There are two kinds of cardiologists: vegans and those who haven't read the data.' Every January since 2014, the Veganuary campaign'which encourages people to eat a plant-based diet in January'has attempted to break down these psychological defenses with pictures of cute...
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