college persuasive speech: go vegan! (need legit sources)

[Tommy-Jitsu]

so the title basically says it all, I'm doing my persuasive speech on veganism. The only problem I have is im having trouble finding legit sources with all those mind blowing facts/stats. By legit i mean they have to be like an article, book, not a '.com' website, anything from a database, interviews, etc etc. I need 8 sources minimum.

 

So im asking you all for some good material i can work with. Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

 

thanks! =]

[djshrew]

Just an example, not really the best for what you want.

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=795552

 

If you use google search (under scholar, you can find it under the 'more' button) You can search tons of scholar journals and research projects done.

[djshrew]

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=plant+based++diets+journal&btnG=Search

[zinzen]

Animal Liberation

Mad Cowboy

No Bull

That should be a start, get a reading

[MaryStella]

Becoming Vegan by brenda davis vesanto melina

The china study by t colin campbell

the thrive diet be brendan brazier

preventing and reserving heart disease by esslystein

[mikkei]

I second the "Becoming Vegan" book. That book has a TON of great solid facts on the diet. I wish I still had it but I gave it to my friend who was contemplating veganism. Hopefully it makes an impact, eh?

[tuc]

This link is awesome:

 

http://www.burningflags.com/VEGANVEGAN.html

[djshrew]

This link is awesome:

 

http://www.burningflags.com/VEGANVEGAN.html

 

 

I would see if you could actually find any of the articles mentioned in the resource section that tuc mentioned. There are way more than 8 sources there.

[RawVgn]

Yeh, The China Study is packed full of facts and data. It has over 900 entries in the reference section, almost all of them primary peer reviewed journal articles. Dr Campbell, who wrote it, is maybe the leading nutritional epidemiologist in the world and has over 50 years of experience leading world class research. Dr Douglas Graham's book The 80/10/10 diet is pretty good too; it has about 100 references.

[robert]

For legit sources, yeah The China Study is probably best and Marystella posted a good list in general.

[Tommy-Jitsu]

thank you all so much, i really appreciate this!

[MaryStella]

your welcome. let us know how you make out with the speech.

[Liberacion-Igualdad]

Hi Tommy-Jitsu,

 

On the health-aspect, I would suggest you to get/read this paper, an official document by the American Dietetic Association along with Dietitians of Canada about vegetarian (vegan included) diets. It's stated on its Abstract that:

 

It is the position of the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.

[...]

 

This position paper reviews the current scientific data related to key nutrients for vegetarians, including protein, iron, zinc, calcium, vitamin D, riboflavin, vitamin B-12, vitamin A, n-3 fatty acids and iodine. A vegetarian, including vegan, diet can meet current recommendations for all of these nutrients. In some cases, use of fortified foods or supplements can be helpful in meeting recommendations for individual nutrients. Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence. Vegetarian diets offer a number of nutritional benefits, including lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein as well as higher levels of carbohydrates, fiber, magnesium, potassium, folate, and antioxidants such as vitamins C and E and phytochemicals.

 

This is a very good source to quote from, since it is from rather conservative and certainly not vegan organizations!

 

If you want to include the environmental aspect, I would go to this site and download the pdf. version of the UN FAO's report "Livestock's Long Shadow".

It is rather lengthy, but you can get a good start reading the Executive Summary alone.

 

Obviously, don't use their conclusions ("better use of water, improvements inside the industry," etc.), but rather take their premises and make a compelling argument in favor of Veganism as a great way of reducing one's impact on the environment on a personal level. What I like about this report is that it doesn't just talk about "intensive animal-agriculture" (aka "factory farming") but also about "extensive animal-agriculture" (yes, the omnivore's beloved "happy farm" myth) and how both have massive impacts on the environment.

 

Now, to end before you get reeeaaally bored reading this post, the ethical aspect, which is, for me, the most important and compelling of all.

Of course, as 'ethics' is not 'scientific', you can't present peer-reviewed papers or the kinds of articles you can use for the health and/or environmental aspect, but logical argumentation is compelling enough to make the case for Veganism.

 

Some pamphlets stressing some of the ethical arguments can be find on these links:

 

By the Boston Vegan Association: http://www.bostonvegan.org/images/downloads/bvapamphlet_web.pdf

 

By Gary Francione and Anna Charlton: http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/media/pdf/ARAA_Pamphlet.pdf

 

By 'Animal Emancipation': http://veganfreaks.net/animalemancipation.pdf

 

By Nathan Schneider: http://vegan-abolitionist.blogspot.com/2008/12/new-b-abolitionist-poster.html

 

Also, this article shows a kind of argument that is really thought-provoking, showing how many of our actions in regards to other animals are no different from other actions we regard as immoral already.

 

"We are all Michael Vick"

http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/?p=90

 

I hope some of this helps. All the best in your speech, being the voice of those whose voices we can't or don't want to hear!

 

Samuel.

[Tommy-Jitsu]

WOW man! thanks so much for taking the time to post all that!

 

with all this help its going to not only be easier, but just another source of motivation as well.

[Liberacion-Igualdad]

My pleasure.

 

Let us know how the speech goes!

[Tommy-Jitsu]

The speech went very well!

 

Although it was awkward at moments because I incorporated things that makes fun of meat eater's and there was only one other vegetarian in my class, so no one really laughed at my jokes if thats what you wanna call them. And then when they wouldnt laugh, i would because they weren't lol

 

I did get some good facial reactions when i started talking about milk though!

[Odidnetne]

Not necessarily a source, but if you do the presentation and you're in good shape, that helps too, that always helped me out whenever I did a veganism related speech/presentation. Good luck kind sir.

[Tommy-Jitsu]

Not necessarily a source, but if you do the presentation and you're in good shape, that helps too, that always helped me out whenever I did a veganism related speech/presentation. Good luck kind sir.

 

thank you and all went well,

 

Not only am I in shape, but every other person in the class is a blind victim to the Standard American Diet (SAD), even the teacher who is a 22 year old grad student has already let himself go. I'm not muscle-bound, and if I'm not pumped up from working out, I look pretty average especially since i wear looser fitting shirts.

 

So for my presentation, i wore a tighter shirt and did some push ups to pump my arms up a bit for dramatic effect

 

hope it worked and people noticed!

[MaryStella]

SOOOOO glad to hear it went well. You never know even though they didn't seem to like your speech you gave your classmates something to think about. Perhaps somewhere down the line they will remember this and make some changes. So good job!

[Tommy-Jitsu]

So i mentioned above^ that there was one other vegetarian in my class. Our teacher said we could do the same topic as long as we took it different directions, she took the health side, i took the environmental/animal cruelty side. So we figured we would get a better message across if two people spoke about it.

 

Well today was the last day of presentations and ANOTHER person did there speech on vegetarianism. It was cool that out of a class of 20 kids, three people were vegetarians. The girl i collaborated with is really thin, stereotypically thin. I'm more on the athletic side but i am also fairly thin/average looking. However this last girl was overweight, borderline obese which probably gave some people a bad impression. Although hopefully the open-minded kids will get the idea that just because your a vegetarian doesn't necessarily mean you healthy. I cringed when this girl said being a vegetarian can help reduce obesity, i kinda felt bad for her, but hopefully the third times a charm and someone will get the message.

[MaryStella]

that is awesome that you had three people. Yeah I get upset with the junk food vegetarians sometimes too especially when they say things about how healthy a veg diet is but they are eating processed crap and the meat eaters look at them like seriously you can not preach to me about eating meat with what your eating but people do it for different reasons but I love to see healthy eating vegans.

[Tommy-Jitsu]

I just like seeing healthy people in general!

 

I'm literally d isgusted with this obesity epidemic! The other day I was counting the number of overweight kids in my anatomy class (which is a very major oriented class here, so all these kids are majoring in something along the lines of kinesiology/exercise science/ PE/ etc) and its so hypocritical! 15 of out 20 kids were clearly overweight.

 

I'm honestly starting to believe I'm the only healthy person on my campus. Living in the residents hall's, when I'm in the dining hall I get to see what everyone else is eating because its like cafeteria style. There's a breakfast bar in the morning and every single day they have eggs (scrambled or hard boiled), bacon, sausage, hash browns, and sometimes breakfast burritos. There are kids eating all that stuff EVERYDAY. I honestly feel bad sometimes because a lot of it is ignorance, they simply don't know otherwise for the most part. The freshman 15 is no freakin' joke.

 

What gets me kinda pissed off is when sometimes professors will ask us how the dining halls are for eating a healthy meal, and everyone says it how terrible it is, yet I'm a (health conscious) vegan and I make it work.

 

arrgh i cant take it soemtimes

 

/rant

[Liberacion-Igualdad]

So for my presentation, i wore a tighter shirt and did some push ups to pump my arms up a bit for dramatic effect

Great to know your speech went well!

 

On the overweight vegetarian girl, maybe she became vegetarian trying to lose weight? Did you talk to her?

Told her to go vegan?

[Tommy-Jitsu]

Great to know your speech went well!

 

On the overweight vegetarian girl, maybe she became vegetarian trying to lose weight? Did you talk to her?

Told her to go vegan?

 

thanks! and that is a definite possibility, but i'm pretty sure she said she switched a few years ago but who knows, maybe its a slow process for her. i get the feeling that she is probably over compensating with dairy, hopefully she listened closely when i spoke though, because i beat up dairy pretty good

[MaryStella]

i agree with you. one thing that really gets to me is when people are telling me all of their helath problems that for the most part are because of their diet yet when you tell them that they still want to eat the way they are eating and then they still want to tell me about their poor health. It is almost like I told you what to try and you don't want to so i don't want to hear it but I don't shut anyone off like that because i still hope someday they will hear me.