Eat Less Meat
by Breezy on Jan.30, 2009, under Life
Albert Einstein said, “Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
Check out these articles:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19526134.500-meat-is-murder-on-the-environment.html
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/02/21/parker/
Surprise, surprise… the meat industry is one of the leading causes of deforestation, pollution and carbon dioxide emissions in the world.
Let me set the record straight - I don’t believe in going total vegetarian - as this can be really difficult for people raised on meat. But most people aren’t aware of how many options they have when it comes to going meatless. When they think of eating less meat, they think of eating more veggies and foods they don’t like to compensate.
As someone who has spent the majority of their life being a vegetarian (I didn’t even TRY meat until I was 12 or so) and also being someone who HATES most vegetables and gross foods, I can tell you being vegetarian or eating less meat does NOT = having to eat things most people find gross like broccoli and tofu.
For instance - most recipes that include meat as just one ingredient but not the main one can easily be substituted with more of the other ingredients and taste just as good or better. I’ve been leaving out the chicken in pasta and the bacon in casseroles my whole life and everyone seems to find these foods really yummy still.
To substitute the amount of protien you’ll be missing, eat some beans and nuts. They have even more protein than meat, and all the same vitamins and nutrients. Fill your tacos with beans instead of beef, try a black bean burger at chili’s… it’s AMAZING. Just don’t get the low fat ranch on it - ask for barbeque sauce or something yummy and get the fries instead of the veggies that come with it.
Like I said, I don’t think everyone should cut meat out of their diet… but if we all ate less, Brazil wouldn’t be hacking down as much rainforest, major cities wouldn’t be so smoggy they have health warnings in effect, and we would leave our planet and ourselves healthier if we did. After all, the first job God ever gave man was to take care of his creations, and what is the point of eating more meat than you have to if it’s helping destroy our planet? (Not to mention the animals themselves)
If we all ate less meat and ate more of everything else, these farmers would start planting more crops instead of raising more cattle and cutting down more tress. Cattle and animals need a LOT more land to farm.
I’m a firm believer that you can’t stop anything unless you get to the very ROOT of the problem, which in this case is demand. If there was no demand for more meat, these problems wouldn’t exist. Just like if there wasn’t a demand for slaves, there wouldn’t be 27 Million people in the world today who are enslaved. Simple as that.
That’s my one serious post for a while. These take a lot out of me 
