Paul McCartney, Chris Martin, and Sheryl Crow support Meat Free Monday. Why cut your meat consumption by a seventh? From their website:
The UK’s Food Climate Research Network suggests that food production from farm to fork is responsible for between 20-30 percent of global green house gas emissions. Livestock production is responsible for around half of these emissions. The more meat we produce and eat the bigger that carbon footprint will get. A sustainable future demands that we cut down - and yet between 1961 and 2007 the world population increased by a factor of 2.2, but meat consumption quadrupled, and poultry consumption increased 10-fold.
This increase in meat production is not affecting only greenhouse gas emmisions. As more animals are reared and brought to slaughter, the treatment of those animals has become increasingly barbaric. Not worried about animal rights? Eating fruits, grains and vegetables is between 4 and 54 times more efficient than eating meat . A vegetarian U.S. could feed twice the current population without having to worry about Mad Cow Disease or Swine Flu (source).
The Meat Free Monday campaign is not about cutting meat production by 14.3%. If you choose to change your Monday eating habits, you will probably realize that a vegetarian diet is easy, fulfilling, and actually filling. When you realize how easy it is to eat less meat, making daily changes to your diet will be simple. Paul is not asking you to be a vegetarian; he asks that you are aware that your dietary decisions have real consequences. Spreading awareness that meat is not vital to one’s health and satisfaction is a greater victory, one that could help billions of poorly treated animals, millions of starving people, and anyone who enjoys a guilt-free cheeseburger.
If you master eating vegetarian on monday, why not try every weekday?
If you are skeptical, I ask that you don’t write vegetarianism off as reactionary or restricting. Research it and try it! Meat Free Monday and its casual near-vegetarianism promise to save our money, our health, and our environment while still upholding our right to eat meat. May moderation be the new American compromise.
Source: Meat Free Monday (via Serious Eats)
