This week’s sustainability topic on “Reducing your Ecological Footprint One Step at a Time” is reducing your meat intake. Meat production is extremely taxing on the environment, as it puts a significant strain on the earth’s natural resources like fresh water and energy. Meat production requires literal tons of resources such as water and land, which has a detrimental effect on not just human existence but other species as well. Along with environmental factors, eating less meat can be beneficial for your health and keep thousands of animals out of slaughterhouses. Now, I am not here to tell you what you should and should not put into your body. However, my goal is to raise awareness of the effects of meat production, in hopes that some people may try to reduce their consumption. You don’t have to fully go veggie, but every bit helps!
- Meat consumption causes deforestation
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The leading cause of deforestation across the world is animal agriculture. This means that forests are being cut down and used for the production of meat and other animal byproducts. This deforestation is the main contributor to climate change, adding about 7 gigatonnes of CO2 into our air every year and endangering hundreds of species by destroying their habitats. Because more land is required to accommodate the rising numbers of livestock needed for production, thousands of acres of trees are being cut down, significantly reducing the levels of oxygen that normally emit into our atmosphere. This creates a negative feedback loop where more C02 is emitted due to the increased number of livestock, and less oxygen is emitted to balance it out. By eating less meat, the need to deforest for animal agriculture will be reduced, in turn reducing the amount of C02 released into the atmosphere.
- Literal TONS of resources are used to manufacture meat products
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Do you ever wonder how many resources it takes to create the juicy hamburger you order at your favorite restaurant? It’s probably more than you think. To produce a single hamburger, 74.5 square feet of land is required for the cow to live on and eat from, 52.8 gallons of freshwater to irrigate the crops and feed the cow, and 1,036 Btus of fossil fuel energy for feed production and transportation. All of these resources, for one burger. Now imagine these numbers for all the burgers consumed every year. In just the US alone, 10 billion burgers are produced annually. If 30% of the beef in every burger produced in one year was replaced with mushrooms, it would reduce the land required for agricultural production by an area larger than Maryland, would save as many C02 emission equivalent to taking 2.3 million cars off the road, and conserve as much water as 2.6 million Americans use in their home every year. And that is only replacing 30% of the beef in one burger with mushrooms. Imagine how many resources saved when substituting beef burgers for bean burgers!
- Inhumane treatment of animals in factory farms
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Along with environmental factors to reduce your meat intake are animal rights reasons. The majority of meat produced and sold in stores and fast-food restaurants come from factory-farmed livestock, which are usually subjected to extremely cruel treatments. Most animals on factory farms are kept in small cages, starved, beaten, and injected with drugs like antibiotics which can be unhealthy for human consumption. Even if you decide to continue eating meat, it would be in the best interest of both you and the animals to buy only organic, grass-fed, cage-free meats, that way you are getting the healthiest options while allowing the animals to live longer, more fulfilling lives.
- Eating plant-based is great for your health!
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If the above reasons aren’t enough to get you to reduce your meat intake, some studies show that a plant-based diet has many health benefits compared to those that emphasize meat. Plant-based does not necessarily mean vegan or vegetarian, but a diet that is primarily sustained off of plants. Many people do not get their daily dose of vegetables, and often lack fiber and the essential nutrients vegetables contain. A common concern about eating less meat is the inability to obtain enough protein, however, protein is very easy to get from a simple combination of plants, grains, and legumes. For instance, the pairing of rice and beans creates a complete protein and is enough to reach your daily protein goal. Many Americans tend to over-consume the amount of protein they need in a day through eating too much meat and lack of other essential nutrients that can only be found in plants. So, if you are interested in establishing healthier eating habits, you may want to consider trying out a plant-based diet. You may even begin to experience weight loss, increased energy, and even mood, as many people on plant-based diets report.
- Plant-based eating is becoming increasingly accessible
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As of recent years, several new very convincing meat imitations such as the Impossible and Beyond Meat burgers have hit stores and restaurants and even have meat-eaters second-guessing the contents. It is becoming easier and way more important to eat sustainably as we rapidly run our earth out of its finite resources. If you are interested in reducing your meat intake but are overwhelmed and don’t know where to begin, try partaking in Meatless Mondays- a campaign created to try and reduce meat intake for health and environmental reasons. Once this begins to feel more attainable, try another meatless day of the week, and go from there. Like I said earlier, every bit helps!