PERSUASIVE SPEECH
Topic: Vegetarianism [INTRODUCTION]
Attention getter:
I’d like to start off my speech with the words of George Bernard Shaw:
"Animals are my friends and I don't eat my friends."
Purpose and Thesis: As you may have guessed, today I’ll try to persuade you all to consider thinking about being vegetarian.
Enumerated Preview: Vegetarianism used to be an unusual lifestyle choice. Today it is becoming more common and accepted by mainstream society. While there are many reasons for choosing a vegetarian diet, I’ll tell you the most important ones. Throughout the course of this presentation, we will see the personal health advantages of becoming a vegetarian, our ability to prevent animal cruelty, and the benefits to the environment and the world.
Impact of the Topic and Speech: I hope that my speech will give you some thoughts to think and questions to ask. So if you have any, you may ask them after my talk.
Transition: First, let’s examine the health benefits of becoming a vegetarian
[BODY]
I. Becoming a vegetarian has substantial health benefits.
HEART DISEASE RISK
Vegetarians have a lower chance of developing heart disease than meat-eaters, according to a study published in the journal "Public Health Nutrition." This large-scale study was undertaken by researchers of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in Oxford, England, and studied a total of 76,172 women and men living in the United Kingdom, United States and Germany. Overall, vegetarians were found to have a 24 percent lower risk of dying from ischemic heart disease than those who ate meat
OBESITY
According to Mayo Clinic dietitian Katherine Zeratsky, “On average, people who follow a vegetarian diet eat fewer calories and less fat than nonvegetarians. Vegetarians also tend to have lower body weight than non-vegetarians.”
As you can see, vegetarians have much less chances of getting many chronic, degenerative diseases and conditions, such as heart disease, many types of cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, kidney stones, gallstones, etc. That's partly because, in general, vegetarians are more health-conscious than most people, and are more likely to avoid alcohol, caffeine, and tobacco, and are more likely to exercise regularly.
Transition: Of course, we are not the only ones who stand to gain health benefits from vegetarianism. The animals that are not killed on behalf of our taste buds will thank us, too. Slaughterhouses are unpleasant places. Workers have to wear ear protection against the screams of animals, the coppery scent of blood permeates everything, and we kill simply because we can’t live without the taste of hamburger. However...
II. Becoming a vegetarian can help prevent animal cruelty.
A. In article published on their website in 2007, the Humane Society of the United States reported that, “As male chicks cannot lay eggs and aren’t the same breeds as those chickens raised for meat, they are of no value to the egg or broiler industries. Shortly after hatching, hundreds of millions of unwanted male chicks are killed by the commercial egg industry annually, usually by gassing, crushing, or suffocation.”
B. Meat-eaters consume a huge number of animals in their lifetime. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 33.698 million cattle were commercially slaughtered in 2006. These animals were killed for absolutely no reason, since people can get the same (and better) nutrition from plant sources. As you can see, although they have to balance their diets carefully, vegetarians use a plant-based food pyramid to plan their meals.
C. By eating meat, we support the meat industry and their practices of animal cruelty. If more people became vegetarians, demand for meat would go down and companies would, therefore, be forced to cut back on animal cruelty.
Transition: Companies would also be forced to cut back on their destruction of the environment. Many of the industry’s current practices are less than environmentally friendly, but because protecting their profits is more important than protecting nature, nothing is going to change until the demand for meat drops.
III. Becoming a vegetarian can help protect the environment and reduce world hunger.
A. Every day, more rain forest is destroyed to make room for beef cattle to graze. The destruction is irreversible, but by not supporting the meat industry, we can help prevent further damage.
B. Vegetarian diet is less expensive than non-vegetarian diet. Vegetarianism is the answer to the colossal problems of population growth and world hunger. People have the misconception that hunger and malnutrition are caused by lack of meat. In fact, hunger and malnutrition are caused by lack of food, and, the insufficiency and high price of meat only aggravate these problems. The world produces enough grain all the poor and malnourished people. The tragic truth is that 80-90% of all grain produced in America goes for feeding meat animals. Presently, millions of acres of land are used for raising livestock for meat. This same land can be used more productively for growing vegetables, beans and legumes.
[CONCLUSION]
Summary of Main Points: So today I've given you some reasons for vegetarianism--environment awareness, health, animal cruelty--and surely you must have thought at least one of them was a good reason.
Audience Motivation: Judging by these facts I gave you, it's clear that you have little or nothing to lose by going vegetarian. So why not? Add a few years to your life, save a starving child, stop the animal violation. It’s your chance to act.
Clincher Statement: You may think that your help is only a drop in the limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?