How might the world change if everyone were to consume 14% less meat? That’s the idea behind Meatless Mondays. Not only is going meatless one day a week helpful in reducing your risk of chronic preventable diseases, it also helps you to reduce your global footprint.
The meat industry uses up a vast amount of our precious resources like fossil fuels and water. While going vegetarian or vegan isn’t for everyone, a small reduction of one meatless day a week can go a long way to helping the environment.
The meat industry produces a vast amount of grain to feed livestock. When we look at animals as food, this is like feeding food to food. This is an inefficient use of resources. The resources used to create that food could be used to feed people directly instead. How many more people could be fed if the planet were to consume 14% less meat?
Raising livestock uses a huge amount of water. Compare how much water is needed to grow vegetables or grain to raising animals. Approximately 1,850 gallons of water are needed to produce a single pound of beef compared to 39 gallons of water are needed to produce a pound of vegetables.[1]
Meatless Mondays is that much more important in the United States because Americans consume so much more animal protein than the rest of the world. In fact, we consume nearly four times the global average. A completely vegetarian diet could actually reduce water consumption by up to 58% per person.
Greenhouse gases are also a major factor. Meat production produces significantly more greenhouse gases than vegetable production. This includes carbon dioxide, Methane and Nitrous Oxide. Those are the three primary contributing gases to the greenhouse effect.
Beef was found to produce a total of 30 kg of greenhouse gas (GHG) per kg of food, compared to carrots, potatoes and rice produce .42, .45 and 1.3 kg GHG per kg of food, respectively.[2]
In addition to the environmental benefits, consuming less meat has been proven to reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes, helps to curb obesity, and improves the nutritional quality of your diet.
Since 2003, Meatless Monday has become a global movement. It’s now active in 36 countries and is continuing to grow. For more information about Meatless Monday, visit the official website.
