The site is great for recipe suggestions which surprisingly don't have any meat in at all!
Now... I have to be honest, today I made a tasty chicken teriyaki tikka masala curry with tasty thai jasmin rice... *om nom nom... anyways I have some left over... rather than waste I shall, as the say in Italy 'mangio' the curry. I know bad right?... but I did not eat meat on Friday or Thursday, at least I don't remember eating any? *thinks deeply to himself*
So enjoy the site and all the tasty suggestions...
Tomorrow I shall post a good post... it is a special day!!! YAY ME! lol I am sad but... well there is no justification, I just am.
It's so difficult even trying to read this post not because it's dull (it's actually quite funny) but because I really really really really don't want to stop eating meat :( I mean, I can go without meat for maybe a day or two (I love veg) but not my entire life! And I think I'm not alone in my reluctance to change. Love of meat is what's stopping many people who do know that their meat-eating lifestyle produces much more greenhouse gases to just eating veg.
What then would you suggest to help persuade more people to stop eating meat (or eat significantly less meat)?
Well Wei I hope this blog has tried to help persuade people of the environmental cost of meat at least, even though to be honest it was originally created just to investigate the role livestock agriculture and in particular the poo and pee aspect of it all has on our planet. I don't think I can go without meat forever, but as I am to emphasise everything in moderation is acceptable. The amount of meat we eat is purely unsustainable, not individually but as a collective; if we all individually reduce our consumption, the collective will reduce aptly. This video really got to me, but it is mostly focused on the animal cruelty side (it has some very disturbing images so please only watch if you are not easily offended, it is called 'If slaughterhouses had glass walls' by PETA.... the environmental aspect is admittedly small, but as we can see from not just this blog, but every other on the 'anthropocene' it is all interlinked.
On a much lighter note! Food is delicious, rice, pasta, pizza are all non-meat based foods (just because meat can be eaten with them, it does not mean it has to be eaten with them). Like Yulia has suggested pulses are a great source of protein like tofu, even though it fails in comparison to east asian tofu!
Buying meat from a sustainable farm, the practicalities are hard, but it is a possibility. The cheapest way to make a difference is to probably lobby policy makers (and I said cheap lol!). Again this is not easy in london, but if there is market, a product will soon fill it!
And these three are from Yulia:
Thanks for your reply! So depressing about the battery hens! However, from my life as a student and from being aware of the lifestyle of the rural poor in Russia (compared to whom the British poor are ‘wealthy’, which is why they can afford meat), I don't agree with you that meat is the cheapest source of protein: pulses like chickpeas are cheaper (if you buy the dry ones and then boil). Now we don't theoretically have an excuse for unsustainable consumption! THEORETICALLY! I really hope your blog can convince more of us to change our habits. Though the way it is going, it seems that the 'innovative technology' will have to be the answer. Please check out my blog for innovative land sources, which I will post soon!
Firstly poverty is relative... there isn't a competition about who is poorer, but I will gladly cede the win to you. Anything is possible, it's hard but one less sausage a day or the vegetarian option at lunch is a step in the right direction. Fruit is a healthy snack alternative... but not really great for meat? vegetable soups are great for this time of year, and minestrone soup is perfect!
No Meat!
Your posts really make me laugh, DanDan! And you are actually starting to convince me to want to eat less meat.
Nonetheless, I do have the same question as Wei, though: I tried becoming a vegetarian before and as soon as I made that decision, I realized that I can't live without meat! It seems many environmentally-conscious consumers are in the same boat. What do we do? Would getting recipes for the delicious vegetarian Moroccan dishes I once tried help? DanDan?
As I said in a comment on my blog, you may find this relevant to using biofuels and bacteria to simultaneously tackle eutrophication:
With all the talk about environmentalism, and when we are all too busy hugging trees, we do forget other things that are happening on the planet.
Sustainable development is not just some buzz-phrase cooked up in the nineties to gives us 15 year olds in the naughties to learn about in geography... well there is some truth in that too.
"livestock make a vital contribution as generators of cash flow and economic buffers, provided that market chains are organised to provide openings for small scale producers and traders and those in remote areas." (Forward, ix, FAO 2011: Livestock in Food Security)
The fundamental point is that livestock is not just a source of emissions, pollution, ethical controversy but at the end of the day is a source of food and income. Highlighting Sub-Saharan Africa, the expansion of agriculture (like that seen in China and India in the late 20th Century, Green Revolution) is pegged as a lifeline to reduce poverty and improve on the health problems.
The report highlights the changes in livestock production numbers and per capita consumption (Table 4) and also shows specific region and national scale changes and predictions (figures 1, 2 and table 16). I could bore you describing what they say... alternatively you could read? read isn't a good word to use, you don't 'read' a graph do you? observe the graphs yourselves.
As you can see, the numbers only increase...
Pastoralists number 120 million, and they depend on their livestock for food, income, transport and fuel; would it be fair to force them to stop stocking animals because climate change is getting out of hand? After all it is the 'developed' who have truly mechanised GHG emissions; should we tarnish everyone with the same brush? I don't think so.
This coupled with the need to maximise profits and reduce cost to open the market to everyone, livestock intensification is needed, and these agricultural systems are the worst environmentally, ethically and for small business competition which just does not have the finance to compete.
The report (FAO, 2011) goes onto stress that the dichotomy for environmental mitigation and sustainable economic development doesn't necessarily result in changes in the way development is going but rather the point that:
"suggest that the average global consumption of meat should be approximately 90 g a day, compared with the current 100 g, and that not more than 50 g should come from red meat from ruminants. If this target were achieved, it would lower the peak demand for meat. However, government-sponsored nutritional and healthy eating programmes have had limited success in changing dietary preference." (page 82)
The root of all evil it seems is not money but consumption, and a lot of it at that!
Inequality in food distribution is widely known. Last year I had the opportunity to sit in on a UN Young Ambassador Society events held at the Institute of Education and none other than the Executive Director of the World Food Programme gave a keynote speech. There, Josette Sheeran spoke quite bluntly about the inequality of food distribution worldwide. There is enough food but a billion remain undernourished and a billion over. That means there is still a lot of waste, and through waste reduction we can 'offset' carbon emissions and save the environment!
It is a very long read and I would bet there are gems that I haven't mentioned that I haven't read in the report... it's 100 pages long! What do you expect me to do???
