Recovering from leg surgery, I was spending quite a bit of time on the couch. Really, there is only so much day time TV you can watch before pleading with yourself to turn it off. That's when I started to research something I've always been curious about - veganism. So off I went to YouTube and a host of other streaming services. I dove in head first - not "Earthlings" head first but close. I watched documentaries and video on factory farming and quickly learned to have Kleenex near by. It only took a few documentaries before I knew I needed to make a change in my diet. So when my husband came home I made the announcement that I no longer ate meat. It took a while for him to jump on board as he was a true Midwesterner growing up on meat and potatoes. I knew if I wanted to create a vegan household, I needed to up my cooking game. I was skeptical because cooking wasn't really my thing. I started by subscribing to Purple Carrot and spending loads of time on Pinterest. And low and behold for the first time ever, I started to really enjoy cooking. You see, if you make things tasty most people won't even notice that the meat and dairy is missing. Meat is really just the conduit for tasty sauces anyways. To my happiness, my husband jumped on board.....fast forward 6 years and we haven't looked back.
What really took me by surprise are the benefits a plant based diet has on our environment. It never really dawned on me that we are growing FOOD for our FOOD....how did I not know this or at least pay attention to this fact. It is an unsustainable diet in a world with a population expected to reach nearly 10 million by 2050. You see, if we want our planet to survive beyond the next 50 years we need to make a change in what we eat and fast! Did you know that 70% of the grain we grow in the USA is fed to livestock? We could feed 800 million people with that grain! And it takes 2,400 galloons of water to produce just ONE pound of meat. The run off from factory farms is polluting our waterways, killing fish and depleting food and economic resources of the affected communities. And that livestock accounts for 51% of all greenhouse gases which is more than the transportation sector combined.
To have the best chance of avoiding a 2 degree rise in global temperatures, the average global carbon footprint per year needs to drop under 2 tons by 2050. The carbon footprint of a vegan is 1.5 tons while the carbon footprint of a meat eater is 3.3 tons.
There are so many reasons to go Vegan. For the animals, for your health and definitely for the Environment.
Don't wait until you break your leg to make the change. Do your own research - which is really easy now....just google Vegan for the Environment. You have the power to better your health, help the animals and fix the environment by changing to a plant based diet. Your only regret will be not doing it sooner.
Recommended Watches:
Cowspiracy on Netflix
Seaspiracy on Netflix
Meat the Truth on Vimeo
Racing Extinction on Prime Video
-Shari
