A term you may have heard floating around the internet recently is ‘Meatless Mondays’. It is a global campaign to try and reduce the amount of meat we consume globally.
But why?
People aren’t going vegetarian and vegan these days simply because they love animals. The amount of meat we consume globally is unsustainable and seriously contributing to climate change.
The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that livestock production is responsible for 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions whilst other organizations have estimated that this amount could be as high as 51%.
How?
Firstly, cattle ranching is the largest driver of deforestation in every Amazon country, accounting for 80% of current deforestation rates. Amazon Brazil is home to approximately 200 million cattle and is the largest exporter in the world, supplying ¼ of the global beef market. Consequently, fewer trees lead to more carbon dioxide and that is without even taking into consideration the amount produced by the act of farming and the factories the meat ends up in.
Secondly, cattle consume a lot of water and crops. In fact, to make the same amount of produce, cows take up to ten times more land to provide the same amount of meat as grain produce.
It’s easy to blame other countries but it’s our demand for meat that’s causing this to happen.
I get it, I like meat too and honestly, Sunday dinner wouldn’t be the same without a joint of meat! No one is forcing you to go vegetarian or vegan, however, if we all accepted some responsibility by simply deciding not to eat meat one day a week, it could have a big impact on the planet.
A report by Oxford University Professor Marco Springmann found that carbon emissions from food could drop by 2/3 if we all went meat-free and that’s without making any changes to how much co2 we make from other things such as transport!
Whilst I know it is frustrating that governments and businesses should also be making the same, if not, even bigger changes in order to prevent further climate change, it doesn’t mean that we aren’t all still responsible. We all make choices of what we consume and therefore also on how we treat our planet.
Climate change is something we must act on NOW. It’s easy to ignore in everyday life as the consequence cannot be regularly seen. However, a large amount of the warning signs are delayed and if we don’t act now we could surpass the tipping points and leave our planet inhabitable for our future generations. Small changes do make a difference!
Other benefits to going meatless?
Take a minute to forget about the impending doom of our earth… and think about your own health. Cutting out some meat from your diet could actually be incredibly beneficial for your health!
The Oxford University Department of Public Health have discovered eating meat no more than three times a week could prevent per year 31,000 deaths from heart disease, 900 deaths from cancer and 5000 deaths from strokes. This would save the NHS £1.2 BILLION each year!
It’s a well-known fact that red meat is high in saturated fat which raises blood cholesterol levels leading to an increased risk of heart disease. The NHS also states that there is a highly likely link between red processed meat and bowel cancer. So, not only would you reducing your meat intake help the health of the planet, it would also help yours!
It’s not a big commitment cutting meat out for one day but if we all do it, it could really help! If you can’t cut down on meat even making sure you buy it from your local butcher will help. This will mean not only are you supporting a local business but your buying meat that’s from the UK and will not be contributing as much to these issues like international meat does. Everyone is responsible for the earth that we live on so it’s about time we stop talking about climate change being an issue without actually doing our bit to help!
Small change is still change!