Christmas has passed, the new year has been ushered in and
so that can only mean one thing, it's time for Veganuary!
Veganuary began in 2014 and participation in the month long
attempt to wean people off animal products has doubled in number each
year. In late 2018 the Economist magazine predicted that 2019 would be the
'year of the vegan', Twelve months later they pronounced that piece of crystal ball work as one
of their more accurate. Veganism has hit the mainstream and its rise shows no
sign of stopping as traditional moral positions on animal welfare and rights
are buttressed by rising awareness of the environmental impact associated with eating meat and dairy products
A survey in 2016 by the Vegan Society found that the number
of vegans in the UK had grown from 150,000 to over half a million in the course
of a decade and that number will have grown significantly since then. By some
measures it is the fastest growing lifestyle movement in the UK. A different
survey by Compare the Market in 2018 extrapolated that there were 3 million
vegans in the United Kingdom but this figure is questionable being based on a
small sample and a loosely worded question. What isn't in doubt is the huge
growth in vegan living recently.
Veganuary has faced some criticism for focusing on the food
aspect of the vegan lifestyle at the exclusion of much else. There are also
some campaigners who feel that focusing heavily on the environmental impact of
meat and dairy consumption underplays the moral and ethical case for veganism.
Some this critique may be true but, because we're a blog linked to a shop that
predominantly sells food, that's what we will be focusing on. It's
probably also important to note here that realistically the idea of 'going
vegan' a few days a week or a month at time is a misnomer at best. Being vegan
is a lifestyle that encompasses everything a person chooses to consume and
isn't realistically something that you can dip in and out of. Are you sure that
on your vegan Mondays your shoes contain no leather? Do you have a different
handbag for January? It is more accurate and realistic to refer to adopting an
animal free diet for specific periods of time. That's not to say that doesn't
still have a real impact, it does. Not eating meat two or three days a week is
measurably better than not making the effort. It just doesn't equate to going
vegan for a few days.
Anyway, now we've got that out the way...
So, what is the carbon footprint of all that meat we eat?
It's not easy to get a precise figure but the best research suggests that human
consumption of animals is responsible for 58% of all greenhouse gas emissions
whilst only providing us with 18% of our calories. The same study, published in
the journal Science in 2018, found that meat and dairy production uses 83% of
farmland and that widespread adoption of vegan diets could reduce the pressure
on land use which is driving deforestation in parts of the world including the
Amazon rainforest. In fact, most studies find that adopting a plant based diet
can lead to a 50% reduction in the carbon footprint associated with an
individual’s food intake.
It's easy to understand why cutting meat out of our diets makes
a huge impact. Growing crops and eating them directly is far more efficient
that feeding that same crop to an animal and letting it convert it into tissue
that can be eaten later whilst emitting methane along the way. It's this inefficiency
that means cheese can sometimes have an even higher carbon footprint that pork.
Speaking of cheese, let’s use that to understand what sort of numbers we're
talking about. Mike Berners-Lee wrote a fascinating book called "How Bad
are Banana's, in which he tries to work out the greenhouse gas emissions
associated with² equivalent emissions. (CO²e is the most commonly used way of
measuring emissions, It take all type of gas emission and other inputs and
equates them to equivalent amount of carbon dioxide). That 12kg figure for our
big block of cheese is the same as a four mile car journey. A leg of lamb might
work out at as much as 38kg CO²e
for a 2kg joint. For the same emissions you could have a bowl of porridge every
day for four months. As a comparison, your average banana, despite being
shipped across the world, comes out at 80 grams of CO²e per fruit. Even the humble egg has four times more
impact than that.
It's hard to find a less impactful way of consuming calories
than the humble banana.
But, it's not totally clear cut. Plenty of vegan friendly
options come with a surprisingly high carbon footprint. Rice is one good
example. Grown inefficiently, using an excess of nitrogen based fertiliser,
rice can have a higher emissions footprint than burning a litre of diesel. An
avocado air-freighted across the globe is not a sustainable option compared to
locally sourced meat that has been reared on land unsuitable for crop farming.
Blindly ditching cows milk and switching to a poorly sourced soya product will
only generate half the benefits a sustainably managed product would give. (But
it should be noted that if we cut our consumption of cows milk and meat then we’d
dramatically reduce our need for the soya which often feeds them and in turn
help to reduce the deforestation associated with soya production). Equally a
lot of almonds are grown in California and contribute to water shortages in the
area. Is that really a better option long term? Our detailed choices really do
make a difference.
However, even allowing for those nuances, the case for at
least reducing our meat and dairy consumption is very strong from an
environmental perspective. But what about our health? Can we really get all we
need for a healthy diet without eating animal products?
In time for this year’s Veganuary, the New Scientist ran an
experiment where they asked 19 volunteers to eat a vegan diet for a fortnight.
Now, obviously that is a ridiculously small sample size over a short period of time,
but even then some hints about how changing diet can affect us started to show.
The first was that all the volunteers ate more fibre and much, much less
saturated fat. As a result of the reduced fat intake, there was a corresponding, 80%, drop in cholesterol intake as well. So far, so healthy. However, the volunteers
also saw smaller but significant drops in consumption across a range of
vitamins and minerals including vitamin A, vitamin C and calcium.
Other studies have shown a need to make sure enough vitamin
B12 is consumed on a vegan diet. This plays a key role in you nervous and
immune systems. For non vegans eggs and dairy products are reliable sources of
B12 but non animal substitutes aren't always easy to find. What is clear is
that making sure you eat a healthy balanced diet takes some work but, really,
that's true for all of us, carnivores or not. Most of us need to eat less
starchy, fatty foods, many people don't get enough iron and huge swathes of the
population come no where near having their five fruit and veg a day. Being
vegan doesn't change any of that, but actually taking the time to consider what
you put on your plate in the first place may make you more likely to actively
seek out the balance you need. As ever, awareness and education are key.
Adopting a vegan lifestyle can seem like a big challenge. It
certainly is a commitment that touches on every aspect of how you live your
life and it’s ok for that not to be something everyone chooses to do. Life
would be very boring if we were all the same. Equally, those who take such a clear
ethical and moral position are to be applauded for their consistency of
thinking and actions, without using that to minimise the efforts of others. It
might well be that in Veganuary you don’t adopt a fully vegan lifestyle. There
might be shoes you really like, foods you don’t want to go without, choices you
aren’t comfortable making. But, from an environmental perspective it is clear
that any change you can make does make a difference. Being aware of the impact the
food we eat has on the planet we live on is key to helping build a better,
sustainable, future. So, experiment with meat free Mondays, try the vegan
option when you go to a restaurant, see if you can handle well sourced soya milk on
your B12 enriched cereal. Baby steps matter and they do add up.
Just make sure you have a banana instead of an avocado.
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