World Meat Free Day: plant-based diet vs carnivorous diet, which way health-wise, earth-friendly?

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Why take part in World Meat Free Day? Experts say that by 2050 the world’s population is set to increase to over nine billion people, which is 30% higher than today. If we don’t make any changes to our diet by then, the increase in meat production is forecast to reach 200 million tonnes. This is a demand that simply cannot be met.

Food’s carbon footprint is the greenhouse gas emissions produced by growing, rearing, farming, processing, transporting, storing, cooking and disposing of the food you eat. Changing the foods that you eat, such as reducing meat consumption, can have a big impact on your carbon footprint. The CO2 kilos equivalent for producing a kilo of beef is 27 miles; you need to drive 63 miles to produce the same emissions as eating one kilogram of beef.

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One-third of world now overweight, with US leading the way
More than two billion adults and children globally are overweight or obese and suffer health problems because of their weight, a new study reports.

This equates to one-third of the world's population carrying excess weight, fueled by urbanization, poor diets and reduced physical activity.

The United States has the greatest percentage of obese children and young adultcs, at 13%, while Egypt led in terms of adult obesity, with almost 35%, among the 195 countries and territories included in the study.

While 2.2 billion people were obese or overweight in 2015, more than 710 million of them were classed as obese, with 5% of all children and 12% of adults fitting into this category.

An increasing number globally are dying from health problems linked to being overweight, such as cardiovascular disease, said the study, which published Monday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Almost 40% of the 4 million dying as a result of their higher body mass index were not yet obese, highlighting that deaths are occurring almost as often in those considered overweight as those considered obese.

It’s World Meat Free Day, but maybe we should call it something else
This is a noble intention and an important message for the public to hear, but I question the wisdom of calling it "World Meat Free Day." Similar to "Meatless Mondays," the name signals to meat-eaters that one is missing out on something. In the words of Bee Wilson, who wrote an excellent article on this topic for The Reducetarian Solution anthology:

"A meatless meal sounds less than a carnivorous meal. It is defining itself by what it is not… Thousands of people have a Monday night dinner of black bean chili sin carne, feel virtuous for abstaining from meat, and then return with relief to short ribs and hamburgers for the rest for the week."

Wilson’s article argues that, in order to shift public opinion and change dietary habits on a large scale, we need to focus on what will be gained by eating a plant-based diet. The emphasis should be placed on the health, ethical, and planetary benefits of meatless eating, in order to make it more appealing than the old way of eating. People always respond better to positivity than to fear-mongering scenarios of what animal agriculture will do to our planet (although, admittedly, I am guilty of using this approach in past articles).

We’d do better to hear about how plant-based eating will energize us, improve our hair and skin, strengthen our bones, heal diseased hearts and clogged arteries, and decrease inflammation in the body. This knowledge will shape new preferences, helping us "to see a vegetable-centric diet as something delicious and superior, rather than a deprivation." Over time, we’ll get there:

"A meal of falafel and hummus with crunchy pickled carrots and soft roasted eggplant [will] seem like more of a treat than a greasy meatball sub."

So maybe we should be celebrating World Vegetable Extravaganza Day, the Plant-Based Planet Party, or Terrific Tofu Tuesdays, instead. We should be watching documentaries like "What the Health," "Forks Over Knives," and "Cowspiracy," and reading books likes "How Not To Die" by Dr. Michael Greger, that, despite the inevitable doom and gloom, do an excellent job at showing how powerful a plant-based diet can be at slowing, or even reversing, chronic diseases. Moving away from meat will only be successful once people are convinced that they’ll be better off - not martyrs to a cause.

Unknown to many, livestock production is the second biggest contributor of non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions, second only to energy production.
Unknown to many, livestock production is the second biggest contributor of non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions, second only to energy production. Meat production alone emits more greenhouse gases than all forms of global transportation or industrial processes. According to studies, about 18% of harmful greenhouse gases actually come from producing the beef, poultry, and pork that we all eat. In contrast, the emissions of transportation stand at 14% and fossil fuel retrieval at 12%.

While farms certainly do not emit the infernal black smoke people see in factories and car exhausts, most farm emissions come in the form of methane and nitrous oxide—from cattle belching, fertilizer use, manure management, and sometimes, disposal of crop residues. As population continues to rise, the global demand for meat rises with it. This leads to more emissions that is the primary reason why meat production has become and will still be a major driver of climate change.

In 2015’s Paris Agreement on Climate Change, about 195 countries including the Philippines pledged to address global warming. One of the goals set was to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C. Remarkably, recent studies have shown that it is unlikely to achieve this without a shift in global meat consumption.

One small change, immense impact

Climate change conscious individuals may have gone as far as biking to work or permanently dismissing the use of plastics, and these are good. The great news is that if you find biking to work too hazardous in Metro Manila roads - and it really is - then substituting your sisig with a vegetable stir fry for a day can do just as much help, if not more.

In actuality, there’s no need to entirely give up meat. Just embrace a ‘less but better’ approach in your food choices and consumption. Imagine, each person who foregoes one meat-based meal can save the equivalent daily water usage of 9 people and have a carbon saving equivalent to boiling a kettle 388 times—now, do the same exercise and multiply that by 9-billion.

Anyone who wants to pitch in and save the planet can do so very simply, by foregoing meat for just one meal, every now and then. And you can start this habit by participating in the World Meat Free Day! To inspire you to make this change, check how your foregone meals actually translate to less greenhouse gas emissions by using the sustainability calculator in the World Meat Free Day website (http://www.worldmeatfreeday.com/sustainability-calculator/).

So, the next time you would have to choose between a 100-peso chicken fajita and a humble sautéed pechay with oyster sauce, dare and care to do the math.

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Photo courtesy consideratehoteliers.com and worldmeatfreeday.com