Diet Change for Climate Change

This month our focus is on the undeniable fact that what you eat is more important than where it comes from. The shocking truth is that eating tomatoes from Australia is better for the planet than eating a cow you grew in your backyard!

In 2018 the largest food study ever undertaken was completed and it showed that a massive 85% of our global farmland is taken up to feed or house animals for us to eat. Yet these 74 billion land animals produce only 18% of the global calories.

This, combined with destructive bottom trawling methods to glean 1 trillion tonnes of sea creatures – most of whom are by-catch – demonstrates the results of rampant human gluttony. Our bodies were not designed to eat the quantity of meat that most omnivores eat today. Those extolling the paleo diet would do well to remember that paleolithic people ate mostly plant matter and that animal flesh was a rare commodity.  Type 2 diabetes is fast becoming the global no.1 killer, a disease of excess eating.

In the quest to satiate our rapacious appetites we have destroyed much of the natural world, with 60% of wildlife having been wiped from the Earth in the last 50 years – thousands of times greater than the naturally-occurring base extinction rate.

Yet if we transition to a plant-based economy, we could grow more than enough food to feed all the people in the world. Doing so would create clean air, as the plants grown would help sucking up carbon dioxide.

We could rewild farmland that was not suitable for growing and recreate wildlife habitats. We could prevent the Amazon rainforest from tipping over into savannah, which is perilously close to happening.

We could even grow enough plants to turn into biofuels in place of mining for resources for batteries for vehicles.

These world problems – taking us closer to devastating outcomes – are overwhelming to most people, who might feel helpless and ask, what can we do?
The answer is truly simple. Go vegan! Eat plant-based. It has never been easier, and each plant-based meal eaten saves some animal lives, saves a huge amount of land, saves a lot of water, produces oxygen and sucks up carbon dioxide. They even taste good too!

Encourage your friends to take one of our 21 Day Challenges  where you’ll be supported along the way and receive lots of information, encouragement, recipes and tips!

The future really is vegan and the hardest part of being plant-based is that others don’t realise how easy it is, how tasty and how varied!