Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you know that veganism is steadily growing in popularity, and plant-based foods are becoming more and more accessible and delicious!
Some people go vegan for their health, others for ethical reasons, and for some, it’s an environmentally conscious decision.
Yup, eating more plants and fewer animal products is great for the planet too. If you’re curious about it, here’s why.
Cleaner Soil
Healthy soil is crucial for us to be able to grow high-quality food, and unfortunately, human activity – especially animal agriculture – can be damaging to our soil. Through cattle feeding and also growing grains for animal feed, farmers can either erode or over-cultivate soil.
Eating less meat will put less strain on our soil overall, plus, when farmers of plant-based foods make use of sustainable farming solutions such as conservation tillage, it can reduce soil erosion as well as fuel and labour requirements even further.
Conserve Water
The meat industry is also more water-heavy than you might expect. Agriculture overall uses more water than any major global industry, but almost half of its overall usage goes towards livestock.
By limiting our meat intake, as well as our consumption of other animal products, we can save gallons and gallons of water. Studies have shown that by switching over to a vegan diet, one can reduce their carbon footprint by half!
Reduce Energy Use
Meat processing is also not super energy efficient. Unlike good old fruits and veggies, meat takes a fair amount of processing in order to be suitable to place on shelves in-store. This is not even to mention more heavily processed meats like bacon and sausages!
Switching to more plant-based proteins can help reduce fossil fuel emissions. There are other important ways we should be reducing energy consumption too, such as the implementation of solar energy.
Clean the Air
Yup, believe it or not, cows cause serious air pollution. Methane emissions from livestock are a serious driver of climate change, and the more the meat industry is in demand, the worse this is going to get.
Helps Combat World Hunger
Countless people across the globe go without healthy, nutritious food on a daily basis, and climate change and soil degradation are only going to worsen this issue.
A stronger focus on plant-based food production would free up plenty of global farmland that could be used to produce food for the hungry and help combat world hunger.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, eating less meat and more plants can slowly but surely change the direction our planet is moving in. If going vegan doesn’t sound like something you can or want to do right now, that’s okay!
To do your part, start small by including only one or two plant-based meals into your diet each week and slowly increase it from there. Take this as your sign to try out a few delicious vegan recipes this month, reduce your meat consumption and play your part in taking care of the planet.
