Grab your broccoli and tofu because today, Oct. 1, is World Vegetarian Day. It kicks off Vegetarian Awareness Month: 31 days devoted to celebrating this plant-based diet and teaching others about its benefits.

If you ever contemplated going vegetarian, here are some things you may want to consider. Ditching meat from your diet can help:

  • Reduce your risk of heart disease, strokes, and certain cancers since vegetarians tend to consume less cholesterol and saturated fat.
  • Promote weight loss since a healthy vegetarian diet is mostly made up of low-calorie fruits and veggies.
  • Promote regularity since a sensible vegetarian diet is chock full of fiber.

There are more reasons to eat a plant-based diet, so keep on reading.

  • Feed the hungry since the land used for grazing and factory farms could be used for farmland to grow food.
  • Prevent global warming since cows, goats, and other farm animals emit methane gas, which is 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping solar energy. So the less animals raised for meat, the less greenhouse gasses produced.
  • Prevents deforestation and clear-cutting of rain forests. Many of the beef consumed by the US is imported from Central America, and in order to make grazing land for cows, dense forests are cut down.
  • Preserve our water supplies. One pound of beef requires an input of approximately 2,500 gallons of water, whereas a pound of soy requires 250 gallons of water and a pound of wheat only 25 gallons.

Tell me, have you ever tried a vegetarian diet? If so, how long did you go meat-free?