It's all about your food choices

One week ago we celebrated International Earth Day and today I want to write few words about what we can do protect our planet (maybe a little bit late, but this topic should always be current).

Since early years of school, we are taught about garbage segragation, recycling, saving water etc. More and more often we hear that we all should choose public transport instead of driving our own cars. The zero waste movement is becoming more and more popular. And all of this is absolutely true and super important. But there is one more thing about protecting the Earth that is closely related to our everyday life. I mean food choices. Have you ever been wondering about the connection between what you eat and our planet condition? I'm not surprised if you haven't, because it's not a common issue during school classes and in media.

Until last year I also didn't see this connection, but everything has changed when I became vegan and I've started to learning more about meat industry.

My point today is not talking about ethical aspect of veganism. Not everyone cares about animals and I understand it. Instead I want to talk about how meat industry affects our planet.

First of all, meat industry is responsible for about 60% of greenhouse gasses emission. It includes producing meat, dairy and eggs. Even though there is more people who give up on eating animal products, the number of people in developping countries is increasing. The most popular diet in those countries is a diet rich in meat, dairy and eggs.

Another issue is wasting water. About 30% of fresh water on the world is used for animal breeding. It's not only water that animals drink, but also water that is used to produce their feed.

Animal feed production also requires huge amounts of land. According to Green Peace, 80% of deforestation is caused by food production and big majority of it is related to pastures and cultivating plants for feed. More than 90% of world soy cultivation is destined for animals' feed.

Those are of course some basic information, because it's a large topic and I didn't want to bore you with many numbers. I just wanted to pay your attention on this often skipped issue and I hope that maybe at least one of you got interested after reading this.

You don't have to completely give up on eating animal products. If you care about our planet, maybe try to reduce eating meat, dairy and eggs by starting from having one plant-based day per week. 

PS. If you got interested and if you like documentaries, I really recommend you to watch "Cowspiracy" (available on Netflix).