In this day and age, it’s pretty safe to say that you’ll have heard the reasons that we should be eating less meat; whether it’s from an online article, leaflet, or from that girl with the meat is murder top and harem pants sat at the back of your class.
It’s also safe to say that although the arguments are valid and the images of chickens in cramped cages do make your heart sink, for most of us, after a long day all you really want to do is throw some chicken nuggets in the oven, catch up on [Insert Popular TV Show Here] and leave your moral compass at the door.
The concept of reducetarianism, from Brian Kateman, is that of a steady decline in meat and animal product consumption. This allows you to have a clearer conscience when struggling to find a veggie option eating out with friends or being tempted when you smell a KFC across the street.
Another plus side to Reducetarianism is that it’s healthier and widens your culinary perspective. When reducing your consumption of meat or animal products you’re likely to look for alternatives. These alternatives may include meat substitutes like Quorn or soy, or you may look to ‘beef’ (mind the pun) up your meals with more/ different veg. This is likely to make you try new foods as well as eating more veg, as difficult as it may seem to be.
Another little benefit of reducing meat consumption is that it kind of blurs the lines between meat-eaters, vegetarians and vegans. Instead of these fixed categories there is instead one big spectrum in which everyone has a place and can move along at their own pace.
This spectrum is likely to help people who want to reduce animal product consumption, as they are making conscious decisions to alter day-to-day meals. Plus the whole superiority of vegans over vegetarians and vegetarians over meat-eaters would fade away, with everyone instead just in a continuous process of reducing their animal product consumption.
However, I do have to say, it could be argued that the concept of Eeducetarianism is a bit lazy and raises the question, are we guilty of being a little too kind to ourselves when it comes to our diet? Not to go all ‘tree-hugger’ here but the animals that are being consumed or used in the meat, dairy and egg industry don’t have the option to gradually wean themselves off their farms.
Surely if we cared enough about animals, stopping eating them and their products, which aren’t essential parts of our diet or arguably, even beneficial to it, should be pretty important and the less hesitation the better.
Visit the website at: http://reducetarian.org/what/