Make meat a treat
Nothing beats a hearty vegan chilli, bursting with flavour and filling ingredients. Even if you can't resist the odd steak or a bacon butty, there are so many delicious vegetarian and vegan options around now, it's never been easier to make meat a treat.
You’ll improve your health, wallet and culinary expertise, and your carbon footprint, of course.
Climate change
Cows burp. A lot. And pigs eat. A lot.
A whopping 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions are from the food we eat, with animal products responsible for well over half of those emissions.1
Check out the chart on the right. For each step in the food chain, energy is lost. In other words, getting your energy directly from the source - plants - is far more efficient than getting it via animals.
And when you do feel like a meaty treat...from the money saved, you'll be able to buy higher welfare animal products - look out for grass fed meat which has a lower footprint than their intensively farmed counterparts.
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” - Michael Pollan
Animal Welfare
From horsemeat scandals to battery-farmed chickens, a common motivation for vegetarianism is to help reduce poor animal welfare.
Listen to Jonathan Safran Foer for a glimpse into the reality of where our food comes from, or if you really want a raw idea of what’s going on, watch Earthlings.
Warning: not for the faint hearted. If you can stomach this, you can stomach anything (except meat).
Deforestation
The primary cause of tropical deforestation is agriculture.4 Aside from staggering greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation leads to a whole host of wider problems. It displaces local communities, causes social unrest and corruption, disturbs rainfall patterns, increases flood risks, contaminates rivers and endangers native species. Basically, it’s bad news.
What about all the soya that vegetarians eat? Doesn’t that drive deforestation too? Soybean plantations are a big driver of deforestation - but a vegetarian eats far fewer soybeans than a cow or a chicken does. In fact, 80% of the world’s soybean crop is fed to livestock.2
70%
Health
Eating too much red meat is bad for us – particularly our waistlines and arteries. Meat and dairy are the main source of saturated fats in our western diets, and their growing popularity is partly responsible for the huge increase in cases of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and bowel cancer.5
Eating a small amount of processed red meat regularly leads to a 20% increase in mortality rate.6 In other words, eating bacon, salami and sausages every day will knock (on average) two years off your life.
A great resource is Dr William Li's book Eat to Beat Disease.
Water
Not only does raising cattle take up space, it requires an enormous amount of water. One third of the world’s freshwater supply to be exact, according to Cowspiracy.
One hamburger alone uses 660 gallons of water, which is the equivalent of showering for two months!1
Global Goals
Global Goals
In September 2017, an historic agreement was signed by UN member nations agreeing to work towards 17 Global Goals for Sustainable Development by 2030, otherwise known as the SDGs.
Achieving these ambitious goals will require action from governments, businesses, NGOs, and individuals alike. We can - and must - all play our part.
By making the 'Veg out' pledge, you are contributing in your own small way to the following SDG targets:
2.4: By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters, and that progressively improve land and soil quality
3.4: By 2030, reduce by one third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental health and well-being
6.4: By 2030, substantially increase water-use efficiency across all sectors and ensure sustainable withdrawals and supply of freshwater to address water scarcity and substantially reduce the number of people suffering from water scarcity.
12.8: By 2030, ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature
13.3: Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning
15.2: By 2020, promote the implementation of sustainable management of all types of forests, halt deforestation, restore degraded forests and substantially increase afforestation and reforestation globally
15.5: Take urgent and significant action to reduce the degradation of natural habitats, halt the loss of biodiversity and, by 2020, protect and prevent the extinction of threatened species
How
You needn't become a die-hard vegetarian to reap the benefits of this Do Action (although don’t let us stop you!).
Going meat-free for a few days isn't too tough and (depending on your current meat-o-meter) could really shift the dial on your impact. (Just check out the Meat-Free Mondays campaign if you don’t believe us!)
And of course, you can use the money you'll have saved to buy some deliciously wholesome free-range or organic meat when it's time to treat yourself.
Delicious recipes:
- Yotam Ottolenghi's 'Plenty' is a fantastic selection of vegetarian recipes bursting with flavour. YUM.
- Less Meat, More Veg is another classic recipe book to help you cook up a hearty vegetarian storm.
- Nigel Slater’s ‘Greenfeast’ - there’s two versions of this book - one for Autumn & Winter and one for Spring & Summer, bringing meat free weekday recipes to you all year round!
- National Vegetarian Week is a wonderful resource, full of recipe suggestions including many from the good old Hairy Bikers.
Handy lifestyle links: - Veg boxes - to ease the transition, why not have fresh veg delivered to your doorstep? Organic veg box schemes like Riverford and Abel and Cole are super handy.
- Restaurants - with vegetarianism (and veganism) on the rise, there are more and more vegetable-friendly restaurants out there to choose from. Check out Vogue’s list of London’s most desireable vegetarian restaurants.
- Grow your own - if you want to take your veg-pledge to the next level...how about pledging to Green Your Fingers?! We love Real Seed’s collection of vintage seeds - get yourself some 10-foot peas or purple carrots!
Success Stories
5,225
Pledges
in total
240,456kg
CO2
pledged
References
- BBC
- WWF
- New Scientist
- NASA Earth Observatory
- JHSPH
- BBC Health
- The carbon and water data shown in the bar charts were prepared for our own footprint calculator by ERM, based on a combination of data from Defra (2006) Environmental Impacts of Food Production and Consumption; BDA - the Association of UK Dieticians Food Fact Sheet: Portion sizes; Defra Family Food 2017/18; and Audsley, E., Brander, M., Chatterton, J., Murphy-Bokern, D., Webster, C., and Williams, A. (2009) How low can we go? An assessment of greenhouse gas emissions from the UK food system and the scope to reduce them by 2050. WWF-UK.
Images
3,5&7. Do The Green Thing