1. Vegan diets offer disease protection because of lower cholesterol and animal protein and higher folates, antioxidant vitamins and plant nutrients.

2. Vegans are less likely to suffer strokes caused by coronary artery disease.

3. 95% of all food poisoning comes from meat and animal products.

4. Vegans have half to three-quarters of the risk of dying of heart disease compared to meat eaters.

5. Vegans often live longer and suffer less from several chronic diseases.

6. Vegans have excellent health. Protein is not a limiting factor.

7. Zinc levels are normal in vegans.

8. New research suggests that dementia may be linked to a BSE-like 'protien' found in some meat.

9. Vegans have lower rates of obesity, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, large bowel disorders, cancers and gallstones.

10. Vegan diets have been successful in arresting and reversing coronary heart disease.

11. A vegan diet can reduce cholesterol levels (cholesterol is linked to heart disease - fruit and vegetables contain none).

12. Vegans are no more likely to suffer anemia than meat eaters.

13. Antioxidants protect against more than 60 diseases. Found mostly in fruit and vegetables.

14. Vegans have higher intakes of folic acid than omnivores.

15. Diabetes is much less likely to be a cause of death in vegans.

16. Hypertension (high blood pressure) in vegans is one third to one half that of meat eaters.

17. The amount of veg protein fed to the US beef herd would feed almost the entire populations of India and China - two billion people.

18. A vegan diet meets all the nutritional needs of infants and adolescents.

19. 35% of the world's people can be fed on a meat-based diet. A plant diet could feed everyone.

20. Animal faeces are a major cause of acid rain - in Holland and Belgium, the main cause.

21. Deserts spread every year - by an area the size of England and Scotland. Livestock grazing is the main cause.

22. Rain forests are still being felled to graze hamburger cattle. Going vegan saves one acre of forest every year.

23. The world's 17 major fisheries are on the point of collapse because of over-fishing.

24. On irrigated land, 1lb of beef uses 5,214 gallons.

25. Disease, dirt and crowding, antibiotics and chemical growth enhancers - that's the five-month life of most pigs.

26. 24% of dairy cows are pregnant when slaughtered - many nearing full term.

27. Calves are taken from their mothers a day or two after birth. Males are usually killed.

28. Amount of grain needed to end extreme hunger - 40 million tons. Amount of grain fed to animals in the West - 540 million tons.

29. Most ducks are factory farmed in crowded sheds. They never see daylight or swim in water.

30. The majority of calves, lambs and pigs are conscious when their throats are cut.

31. Nearly all 650 million UK chickens are fed antibiotics daily. 72 million die from disease.

32. 90% of the UK's animal feed protein concentrates comes from poor countries - often those where children die from starvation.

33. If Britain went vegan, less than quarter the farm land would be needed.

34. More than 90% of all agricultural land in Britain is used to feed animals.

35. Every year in Britain, one billion gallons of pesticides are used - 200 chemicals. 50 suspected of causing cancer.

36. Farmed animals rank second in causing global warming. Reason - methane from prolific farting and belching.

37. Up to one fifth of chickens may be fully conscious when they enter the scalding tank to loosen their feathers.

38. Four-fifths of broiler chickens (killed for meat) have broken bones and deformed feet, legs and other bone deformities.

39. 20% of lambs die from cold, disease and starvation.

40. 80% of all eggs come from battery hens - kept five to a cage no bigger than a microwave oven.

41. More than 90% of all agricultural land in Britain is used to feed animals.

42. Broiler sheds may contain up to 50,000 birds - each one allowed a space the size of a telephone directory.

43. 50% of all piglets have their teeth crushed and tails cut off without anesthetics.

44. 25% of turkeys are in chronic pain because of swollen joints - 70% of big birds.