If you are the typical person who eats animals (chicken /pork /beef /fish /lamb /goat etc. plus derivatives like ham /sausages /bacon etc)  every day of the week, then I am afraid that you will just have to buck up and cut some of that down and trust me, it ain’t as bad as you think (actually, mostly good) coz, Pinky Swear, I will show you why and how. Trust me?

WHY?

For those who get an orgasm reading stats, enjoy:

The livestock sector is responsible for about 37% of human-caused methane emissions, and about 65% of human nitrous oxide emissions (mainly from manure), globally (UN FAO). These 2 gases along with water vapour and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) are naturally occurring Green House Gases (GHG). Methane though, is a more potent GHG than CO2 (by about 20-30%) which means that gram for gram, methane warms the atmosphere more than CO2. Methane also has a much shorter lifetime in the atmosphere compared to CO2 (~10 years compared to 100s of years) which will produce more rapid impacts on the global climate. This also means that any reductions in methane emissions will see a faster decrease in atmospheric concentrations when compared to CO2.

One of the main ways in which the livestock sector contributes to global warming is through deforestation caused by expansion of pasture land and arable land used to grow feed crops. Overall, animal agriculture is responsible for about 9% of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions globally (UN FAO – see previous link).

Eshel et al. 2014 estimated that “beef production demands about 1 order of magnitude more resources than alternative livestock categories”. So, if you have to, stick to poultry or pork. But let’s be honest, Eating vegetables produces lower greenhouse gas emissions. For example, potatoes, rice, and broccoli produce approximately 3–5 times lower emissions than an equivalent mass of poultry and pork (Environmental Working Group). The reason is simple – it’s more efficient to grow a crop and eat it than to grow a crop, feed it to an animal as it builds up muscle mass, then eat the animal.

For those who hate figures and numbers:

I don’t want to go into animal cruelty or their breeding and, the slaughtering practises we humans have. All these reasons are valid as far as I am concerned, even though I am myself not a vegetarian. I would like to focus however, on other things like:

Protein: Many people, especially sporty people/ gym goers/ body builders and people who want to lose weight, believe in a high protein diet- for building and, repairing of muscles after exercise and, to feel fuller for longer while ingesting less calories. Makes sense! Most people also know that meat/chicken etc are “complete proteins”, whatever that means! Let me explain: The term “complete protein” refers to the presence of “essential amino acids”. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. Of the 20 different amino acids, 9, known as “essential amino acids” can’t be produced by the body and we need to therefore eat them. In order to be considered complete, a protein must have all 9 of these amino acids in roughly equal amounts. So, yes, chicken, meat and eggs are complete proteins. But, humans don’t need every essential amino acid in every bite of food in every meal we eat! We only need a sufficient amount of each amino acid every day. Ergo, you don’t NEED to eat animal and animal products every day!

Also, how much protein do we need? There is a confusion about this. Here is a good read.

Hormones/ Antibiotics in food animals This is a special worry for me and the main reason I am prepared to pay over the top prices, once or twice a week, and buy organic meat/poultry. There is a raging controversy which you can read all about Here . A good reason to eat mostly vegetarian and especially if you can’t or refuse to pay organic!

Price: Let’s face it, vegetarian is wayyyyy cheaper.

Cholesterol: Bearing in mind that animal meat and derivatives can be fatty and can increase cholesterol and your risk of having heart attacks, arteriosclerosis etc. , this is another good reason to cut your animal intake.

HOW?

Remember that I said that we only need a sufficient amount of each amino acid every day? So, if you have lentils with a plate of rice – voilà, that’s a complete protein meal. Pita bread and hummus? Tick. Pasta with seitan? Tick. Peanut butter with bread? Tick. So you understand more easily, a rough guide to a vegetarian complete protein meal would be: A vegetarian protein source + any carbohydrate

A vegetarian protein source could be any legume ( beans, chickpeas, lentils soybeans, peanuts) or tofu/tempeh/soya/seitan/quorn + any carb like pasta, potatoes, polenta, rice, buckwheat/quinoa etc.

The good news is that there are quite a few complete vegetarian proteins too! Here is a link, One of my favourites has to be Seitan ( next post will show you how to make it) as it is easy to make, cheap, nutritious and delicious- what a combo!