Why you don’t have to go veggie to save animals and the planet.

3 false assumptions maintaining the biggest injustice of modern day times & the new 5:2 diet.

It’s hard to get your head around such large numbers — but 150 billion animals are currently killed for meat every year. There are 7 billion people in the world. This is the equivalent of over twenty times our human population being killed, every year.

Several false assumptions are keeping this injustice going indefinitely.

1. Only animal lovers should care

WRONG. There are several widely accepted consequences of such mass consumption that everyone should care about.

Mass consumption of meat is one of the main drivers of climate change

A recent Chatham House report concluded that the livestock sector accounts for 15 per cent of global emissions, equivalent to exhaust emissions from all the vehicles in the world including planes, trains and cars. Check out this fact check to understand how the meat industry contributes to global greenhouse gas emissions.

Eating red meat has bad effects on your health

A recent report published by the World Health Organisation said that eating 50g of processed meat a day (less than two slices of bacon) increases your chances of developing bowel cancer by 18%.

2. It’s ok because eating meat is natural

Yes, humans have been carnivores for thousands of years but the current methods of rearing and killing livestock are anything but natural.

All animals are sentient beings, in that they feel pain and emotions like humans do. Imagine your dog or cat being torn from their mothers as babies, crammed in containers so they can barely move, in their own excrement, bruised and battered, being transported across the world and then put on a conveyor belt to being executed one by one, fully conscious and terrified. Most would agree that this wouldn’t be acceptable, so why is it acceptable to do this to other animals?

As this recent Guardian article pointed out:

“For every individual dog or cat euthanised in shelters in the US, about 360 farm animals were killed. In the UK alone, about 90 million chickens are slaughtered every month. And 94% of these are raised intensively in sheds that contain about 17 chickens per square metre. Farm animals such as pigs, cows and chickens are capable of sadness and joy, just as cats and dogs are. But they are suffering and dying at much greater rates”

Unless you are running around hunting in the wild for the food on your plate, it’s not natural.

3. The only way to help is to go vegetarian or vegan

So here is the controversial assumption. Yes, I would like the world to go vegetarian or vegan, but frankly this is wishful thinking. It simply isn’t going to happen. Yet, this is unhelpfully often the only solution provided by animal charities.

Unfortunately meat has become a staple part of most people’s diets and they are not willing to give it up. However, this doesn’t mean they don’t care. Plenty of meat-eaters love animals. Faced with another option to help — such as eating less meat, people might take it. It might just be a sustainable solution. The recent Chatham House report argued that a shift to healthier patterns of meat-eating could bring a quarter of the emissions reductions that we need to keep on track for a two-degree world (the two degree world is the best case scenario for the planet as set out by climatologists).

Meat has not always been a standard part of every meal. In earlier times, it was seen as a treat and only eaten on special occasions. By eating meat in virtually every meal, we have normalised the cruelty and injustice of intensified farming.

There are so many alternatives to eating meat that I personally think going vegetarian is easy, but if you aren’t prepared to make the jump, you can still help.

The new 5:2 diet

We’ve all heard of the 5:2 diet. I propose a new kind of 5:2. Five days without meat, two days with. Or perhaps even the other way around, but I don’t think this would go far enough, unless with world did it together. You don’t have to give up meat, but make a difference by eating less and eating better. Free range is more expensive, but if you eat less meat, you can afford it.

Collective action for the forgotten billions

Veganism is often put forward as the main solution to the problem by animal charities, this can isolate meat eaters, and it sometimes means that improving the standards within the meat industry is not a priority.

Meanwhile, Governments across the globe are ignoring the crisis. Reducing meat consumption is rarely discussed in climate change policy making. They are failing to educate people about the health warnings. And the biggest failure of all, they ignore the welfare of animals at every point.