Plants are catching on.

Eating more plant-based foods is gaining popularity. The shift is tightly linked to helping our planet 🌍- along with animal welfare and personal health reasons of course!

Being active in the fight against climate change isn’t necessarily easy. Where do you start? Opting for more plant-based (and local) foods will most definitely help and it’s a relatively easy commitment.💪

This blog explores the impact of meat vs. plant-based foods on the environment with lots of facts and figures to think about.📊

Enjoy the read…

The numbers of people adopting veganism and plant-based diets are increasing.

There are around 88 million vegan people in the world right now (World Animal Foundation).🥦The global vegan food market is expected to grow from $16 billion to $24 billion in the period of 2021-2026 (Viva) – a testament to the magic of plants.

The plant-based protein market is also growing very fast. In 2023 this sector was worth $12.7 billion, and it is predicted that this will increase to $19+ billion by 2028 (HTF Market Intelligence on LinkedIn).

Fun fact: out of non-vegans, 25 million people tried a vegan diet in January (Veganuary). Why? Because of the annual Veganuary challenge. Here, the aim is to become fully vegan for the whole month of January (the non-profit urges that trying vegan isn’t just for January!).

I did a quick poll to see if anyone on my Instagram network took part in the challenge. OK, so no one did, but my contacts seemed aware of the concept.

As for me, my family and I participated in our weekly vegan day. We do this every week of the year when we are at home🙌 – outside of our vegan days I am a vegetarian.

Let’s see what’s involved to go from animal to plate.📢

• Processes – countless processes are involved to go from animal to consumable meat/dairy: slaughtering and cutting or milking, safety inspection, and packaging into various different edible products and portions
• Water consumption – a cow consumes between 55-112 litres of water per day (Feeding Livestock) – depending on age, size and milk production
• Land – lots of grazing land is needed – in fact one paper has calculated that the majority of the world’s cropland is used to feed livestock rather than people
  • Note that cereal feed and hay (or the moist variants: haylage and/or bailage) are grown for the winter months
• We maintain a huge livestock population to support the demand for meat and dairy
  • Farm animals produce a large amount of methane – a relatively short-lived but destructive greenhouse gas
    • “Over a 20-year period, it is 80 times more potent at warming than carbon dioxide.” (source: UN Environment Programme)
    • Methane also brings about imbalances in (farm)land, as it’s a ground-level pollutant
    • ✔️Check out my LinkedIn and Instagram posts on methane – access via my website
• Also, lots of energy is needed: for making and running equipment, treating animals and/or produce, transport, freezing, refrigeration and packaging

Relatable facts

• 60% vs. 30%
  • Almost 60% of harmful gases emitted comes from animal-based food, compared to just under 30% from plant-based sources (nature research)
  • These figures come from Nature, a leading science journal, which commissioned an extremely large-scale study that was supported by the US Department of Energy. It spanned seven years and was published in September 2021. Note, this research study excluded the fishing industry

• 9/10
  • Farmed foods: meat, fish (prawn), dairy and eggs take 9 out of the top 10 spots of highest emitters of greenhouse gases. Rice comes in at #9 as the only non-animal farmed produce (source: Our World Data)

• 1kg of food:
  • 1kg of wheat = 2.5kg of greenhouse gases emitted
  • 1kg of beef = 70kg of greenhouse gases emitted
  • (source: The Guardian)

• Fossil fuel emissions:
  • 2-3 units of fossil fuels for 1 calorie of protein from plant-based sources
  • 54 units of fossil fuels for 1 calorie of beef protein
  • (source: The World Counts)

We are also up against waste

• Almost ⅓ of all food that is produced is wasted and remains unconsumed (source: World Food Programme)
  • In developing countries this comes from poor stocking facilities and a lack of technology/finances for harvesting – so urgent access to tech and finances is needed🖥️💵
  • In rich countries this comes from tight supermarket regulations, wasted foods in kitchens and prepared food that goes uneaten

Summing up solutions💡

There are always solutions. Think: the magic of plants – we can all help with our eating habits: more plants, more local and watch the waste.💪

Anti food waste:
Many initiatives are popping up to save food from going to waste before it even enters shops. I am based in the south of France, and I use a local anti food-waste start-up called PimpUp. But now, they are all over – find your local one!

Think about:
The waste in your own kitchen – don’t forget that you can eat most fruit/veg peel, you can make stock with veg skins that you won’t otherwise use and try fruit peel for flavouring your water. Did you know that you can eat the rind of organic lemons? There are a lot of ideas online about how to cook with scraps! PlantYou is an example.

I leave you to think about which diet you associate with the most…

See you at the next chapter!🙌