World Vegan Day 1st November 2022
Veganism is on the rise due to many factors, one of them being the rise in awareness of how eating meat massively impacts our carbon footprint and planet. Supermarkets are making it much more accessible to get vegan produce as more companies are producing vegan friendly foods due to the rising demand.
World Vegan day is every year on the 1st of November. It originates in England in 1994, when vegan animal rights activist Louise Wallis was looking for a day to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Vegan Society.
Wallis set November 1st as the date, as it falls exactly between October 31st which is Halloween and November 2nd which is the Mexican Day of the Dead. This day is to celebrate Veganism all around the world and further promote the benefits of going plant based.
ProVeg Veggie Challenge
The Veggie challenge where you go vegetarian or vegan for one month. You can sign up on their website and get lots more information about it. ProVeg is an international food awareness organisation with the mission to reduce the global consumption of animals by 50% by 2040. There are many benefits to eating plant based so why not try it out and see for yourself.
Benefits of choosing a plant-based diet
Our current climate crisis. Our current food system is responsible for up to a third of global greenhouse gas emissions with most of that being due to the farming of red meat and fish. Scientific research, along with organisations such as the IPCC, agree that a shift towards a more plant-based diet can reduce food-related greenhouse gas emissions significantly.
Water use. Water scarcity already affects more than 40% of the global population. Agriculture is the biggest consumer of freshwater using 70% of fresh water for the irrigation of fields and for rearing farmed animals on land and in aquaculture farms.
Land use. About half of the world’s habitable area is used for agriculture. Of this 80% is used for producing animal-based products. According to the FAO, about a third of global cropland is used for feeding crops.
Loss of biodiversity. We have entered the sixth mass extinction. About 25% of all species currently face extinction, many of them within decades. Agriculture is one of the main reasons for this huge decline in biodiversity. The world’s forests are home to over 80% of terrestrial plants and animals, yet nearly 70% of cleared lands in the Amazon are used as cattle pastures. Deforestation could be reduced by up to 55% if animal consumption was reduced. 88% of these species will lose their habitats to agricultural expansion by 2050 if current dietary patterns and agricultural practices are maintained.
Adding more plant-based food to your diet
It can be very hard to just suddenly cut out all meat and dairy products from your diet. However, you can slowly start to introduce products that are better for the environment.
Shopping sustainably can be tricky but luckily with supermarkets stocking up on more plant-based products you can easily find some good alternatives. You can start by switching from dairy milk to an plant-based option. A more sustainable option is oat milk. It only takes 48 liters of water to produce a liter of oat milk and uses 80% less land and produces the least greenhouse gas emissions.
Dairy milk is the worst for the environment as it requires 1,050 liters of water to produce 1 liter of milk. To produce dairy milk, mother cows are repeatedly impregnant and then separated from their young. This is so farmers can then extract the cow’s milk and sell it. Cows produce an enormous amount of methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide which are all greenhouse gases. Methan and nitrous oxide are at the highest levels yet and will continue to rise if we don’t change.
Switching to any alternative milk on the market is better for the environment compared to dairy milk so if that is almond milk or soya milk you would be starting to reduce your carbon footprint by making that change.
Not only can you change which milk you put in your coffee. Brands such as Quorn have produced vegan and vegetarian alternatives to meat products. This means that making veggie bolognaise has become a lot easier to do as you can replace the mince with their soy ‘mince’. Quorn grows and harvest mycoprotein which means that 60% of their products achieve the Carbon Trust Footprint. The carbon footprint of Quorn mince is more than 95% lower than that of beef.
Benefits of going vegan
Vegan foods are rich in nutrients that are good for your mind and body. A vegan diet has more fiber, antioxidants, potassium, magnesium, folate and vitamins. It can also reduce our risk for disease as plant-based foods are packed with phytochemicals. The increase in healthy foods can also boost your mood, having a healthy diet and especially good gut health can actually make you feel more energised and awake. There are also studies to show that going vegan can help maintain a healthy body weight as most foods contain significantly less saturated fats than animal products. Finally, there are studies to show it can also help reduce type 2 diabetes as people who are vegan tend to have lower blood sugar levels and their risk is reduced by 78%.
So these are just some of the benefits of why going plant-based has such good benefits. It is very hard to go vegan straight away so even if you slowly introduce some changes into your lifestyle, you will be reducing your carbon footprint.
