A friend of mine works for Friends of the Earth and at the end of April he publicised one of FoE’s campaigns: Meat Free May (https://www.foe.co.uk/page/meat-free-may-faqs ). The point of the campaign was fundraising, but also to get people to think about the health implications and environmental impact of their diet by giving up meat and fish for the month. Having experimented with veganism and debated locovorism (only eating/primarily eating food that is local to you) we have reverted back to a “normal” omnivorous diet. My partner and I thought we’d give Meat Free May a go, mainly to see if it felt better and easier than our vegan experiment.
We tried eating a vegan diet for one month last December, and we were always hungry and tired (which made running hard work). We did, however, lose weight (which is nice!). But I do acknowledge that we probably weren’t doing it quite right, with the right balance of protein, carbs, nutrients, grains etc as we have vegan friends that are very active and don’t seem to suffer the same lethargy I did. I also found that it made being sociable a bit more difficult i.e. eating out in restaurants or at other people’s homes was a challenge (“you’ll get what you’re given” was a fairly common response). This month, as a vegetarian it has certainly been easier to prepare and cook food at home, whilst still being able to eat out or at other people’s (where it was more my fault for not telling them I’d gone meat free! – D’oh!). If you’re interested these are my partner’s views on our vegan experiment http://www.vivianpartnership.co.uk/classification-can-damage-progress/.
Anyway today is the penultimate day of Meat Free May. How did we do? Well I ate meat twice, once it was locally bought (and served at a friend’s when we went round for tea) and the second time it was a frankfurter (also at a friend’s), but having just done an 8 mile hilly road race in boiling sun I was prepared to eat whatever was put in front of me (so yes my ethics went out of the window)! Ben on the other hand was rubbish and had meat on a number of occasions!
Why did FoE start such a campaign? Well, climate change mitigation tends to focus on energy consumption, however, depending on the source (and geographic location of the research) you look at, the meat/dairy industry is cited as being responsible for between 15% and 24% of greenhouse gas emissions (for lots of numbers on the carbon footprint of things look at How Bad Are Bananas by Mike Berners-Lee). These emissions, not to mention other environmental impacts associated with rearing livestock and getting it to our plates, are generally agreed to be greater than a plant-based diet. But that’s not the only thing to consider.
Waste is another issue (see here: http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com), the statistics vary but around 40-50% of food is thrown away in the UK. Not only is this bad for the environment and therefore us but it’s also pretty rubbish (boom, boom) for your wallet. So we need to find ways of making food last, or just being sensible about what we buy. Jamie Oliver’s pretty useful in this regard, promoting ways in which people can use up their leftovers. In our defence we’re OK at using what we buy and composting our waste, but buying veggies in the market can mean that we sometimes end up with more than we need.
The other thing to think about, and this one bothered me, was the social and economic benefits that might come with farming in the developing world (think Fair Trade). Hopefully, and again this depends on what you buy, if you buy lentils, nut, soya etc. then some of the income goes back to the local economy and things like infrastructure, water, health care, education. While if you only eat what is grown at home here in the UK you won’t have any input into that development.
Globally there is increasing concern about food miles, sustainability of food sources, sustainable agriculture, food waste and diet. Hopefully this concern will continue to grow. Increasingly eating locally grown, seasonal food seems to be a good way to minimise your environmental impact. But it is probably also worth considering the benefits that can be gained by buying products from outside the UK.
So what have I learnt? I think, fundamentally we need to think about what we eat, when we eat it and where our food comes from, not to write off entire food groups because they are in or out of season or produced in far flung locations. Maybe we don’t because it is just easier not to, after all there is so much choice when we go to the supermarket. But, I think we will go back to eating meat, but probably not as often as we used to and when we do we’ll make sure it’s local.
dremmah 