Of late I came across several posts encouraging and helping readers to quit smoking forever. Similarly, I also bumped into a few posts from the people who were sharing their experiences having recently quit eating non-veg and embarrassed veganism. I was wondering which act was more preferable if I had to choose one.

Would it be right for a non-smoking non-vegetarian to advise a vegan smoker to quit smoking?

Or should it be other way round …a vegan smoker advising others to quit consuming animal products?

Well, I know two wrongs do not make it right in this case but which one is the lesser evil of these? I’m trying to delve into this today.

Why do cigarettes sound more of a villain than meat, milk or cheese?

Tobacco chewing as well as smoking has been associated with cancer for long. Although tobacco is a known carcinogen, smoking was more on a receiving end than chewing. Cigarettes were mandated to carry a legal warning such as Smoking is injurious to health in several countries whereas tobacco chewing was subjected to this law much later. So general public is much aware of the dangers of smoking than chewing. Most people can easily cough out figures like 10 million people die every year due to smoking cigarettes. But hardly anyone knows about the mortality figures due to chewing tobacco.

On the contrary, animal products like eggs, chicken, meat, dairy etc. do not come with any such legal warning and are mostly sold as generic stuff. Forget about the mortality figures on account of consuming these, most people don’t even know, how much harmful are these products. For the start, did you know that W.H.O. has labeled them as carcinogenic? Let’s explore further.

How Dangerous are Meat and Dairy vis-a-vis Smoking?

A couple of years back when World Health Organization broke this radical report, the world media was quite confused in how to report it as majority of their customers were meat eaters. So the news reports tried to be as soft and liberal as possible. Some even went defensive about eating meat. But following reports would be worth a glance:

Bacon, Hot Dogs, and Processed Meats Cause Cancer, WHO Says

While previous studies have suggested associations between meat and cancer, none has gone as far as the WHO’s latest findings to establish a direct causality.

Just two rashers of bacon a day raises your risk of cancer: Health chiefs put processed meat at same level as cigarettes

Government guidelines introduced in 2011 recommend that adults eat no more than 70g of red or processed meat each day.

But this is too high, according to the WHO’s announcement today and the Government may now revise it down.

Officials said just 50g of processed meat a day – less than one sausage – increases the risk of bowel cancer by almost a fifth.

Processed meats rank alongside smoking as cancer causes – WHO

The decision from the IARC, after a year of deliberations by international scientists, will be welcomed by cancer researchers but it triggered an immediate and furious response from the industry, and the scientists it funds, who rejected any comparison between cigarettes and meat.

So despite the heavy weight corporate lobby behind meat & dairy industry, truth keeps surfacing time and again. To better understand the scenario, a small video from Nutrition Facts is worth watching:

Business Conspiracy of Hiding Truth Due to Conflict of Interest

Meat & Dairy industry have always tried to conceal the cruelty, violence and truth behind animal farming for the sake of their business interest. Tobacco & alcohol industry are not untouched by it. If you have watched the above video, you must have got some idea about how Phillip Morris tried to hide the ill-effects of dairy products on our health after it purchased a dairy business. If you will watch the video below, you will come to know how in 1954, tobacco industry paid to publish a report named “Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers” in hundreds of newspapers. And what all corporates do to conceal life-threatening information from consumers for the sake of their business profit:

So when businesses are concerned only with their money over the morality & ethics, governments & policymakers are sold out through strong lobbying and election funding by corporate houses, scientists are employed in the researches funded by corporates, who do you believe to? In these era, customers need to be extra cautious to look for unbiased information from independent sources before biting on the information spoon-fed to them.

What The Health

This is the name of a revealing documentary where the filmmaker interviews the key institutions responsible for public health and seek to find the reasons that compel them to cover significant public health risk which is imminent due to consumption of animal products. I’d strongly recommend to watch it if you are really concerned about the truth and your own health.

There is no dearth of peer-reviewed researches that can clearly indicate the association of fatal lifestyle diseases with the consumption of egg, dairy and meat products. You may also like to look for the list of research papers and news at the What The Health website. Some of the facts mentioned there:

EATING 1 EGG PER DAY IS JUST AS BAD AS SMOKING 5 CIGARETTES PER DAY FOR LIFE EXPECTANCY

THE STRATEGY OF THE MEAT, DAIRY & EGG INDUSTRY IS TO CONFUSE THE PUBLIC, TO INTRODUCE DOUBT NOT UNLIKE THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY

Beside Health, There is More Reason to Quit Animal Products

It’s an established fact by now that smoking is injurious to the health of the smoker. But consuming egg, dairy and meat is injurious to not only your health but it’s fatal (to say the least) from whose body these products are being derived. Animal products not only take lives of billions of animals every year but keep them captive in the cruellest conditions you can imagine, throughout their lives before being brutally slaughtered. Is it not enough to quit consuming their body parts? Hang on, there is more.

Passive Smoking / Second Hand Smoking vs. Second Hand Eating

In one of my previous articles, I had mentioned about the issue of Second hand Eating. The adverse impact of second hand eating are far more than second hand smoking. Since tobacco is completely plant based produce, second hand smoking only contributes negatively by introducing some air pollutants in the environment. But second hand eating contributes to a wide range of serious issues nagging our very sustenance like de-forestation, global warming, water-air-soil pollution, species extinction, dead oceans, world hunger and malnutrition, fresh water shortage and many more. This is a strong argument against letting any one of us to be served animal products. If you are against letting any one smoke in your vicinity, citing your personal rights then you should also be against anyone consuming animal products anywhere. This is also your personal right!

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This is what I've to say. Now I'll like to have your opinion on this issue:

Smoking or Non-veg.: Which needs to be quit first?

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