Why eat less meat?

Eating more veggie meals has made us feel more healthy and also helped the environment.

Over the last few months we have cut down on the amount of meat that we eat and tried to eat more vegetarian food. Here are some of the reasons why:

1. Meat which is produced for us to eat is the biggest cause of deforestation and forest fires. Places like Brazil clear lots of trees from the land to make space for the animals and to grow animal feed.

2. We need healthy trees to help the environment because they take in carbon dioxide. Cutting them down means that there is more carbon dioxide in the air which causes global warming. And burning them gives out even more carbon dioxide.

3. Cutting down the rainforest to clear space doesn't just get rid of trees, it also kills other wildlife. This means that more plants and animals might end up going extinct.

4. Cutting down the rainforest means there is more risks of diseases to people. 3/4 of new diseases to humans come from wild animals and cutting down forests pushes the animals closer to humans so diseases are more likely to spread.

5. 1kg of chicken takes 3.2kg of crops to produce. So there would be more food for everyone if we just ate the plants instead of using lots of plants to make the meat. If everyone ate mostly plants we would be able to feed everyone and there wouldn't be problems with people starving. Also there would be less land needed to grow all of the food.

6. Eating less meat is better for you. Too much meat gives you more risk of getting heart disease or cancer.

We do still like meat though (especially a bacon sandwich!) so we have not cut it out completely. Instead, we are eating more meat free meals, and when we do eat meat we are getting it from local places if we can because this is less bad for the environment. It is usually looked after better and has not had to be transported as far.

Some of our ideas for meat free meals can be found here

Meat free Mondays | Environmental kids (wixsite.com)

If you try some, please let us know what you thought. Or if you have any other good suggestions of meat free meals we might like then tell us and we will try them.