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Meat Eater's Guide to Climate Change and Health
On the fence on whether to be a vegetarian or not? Or, do you enjoy eating meat every once in a while, but would like more information on the most sustainable ways of doing so?
The Meat Eater's Guide to Climate Change and Health offers tips and solutions to making informed decisions about what you eat.
Although to some vegetarians the obvious option would be to simply cut meat out of your diet all together, the reality is that a large-scale move towards a vegetarian or vegan diet is unlikely.
From the Meat Eater's Guide to Climate Change and Health:
Different meats affect our health and environment differently. Lamb, beef, cheese and pork generate the most greenhouse gases. They also tend to be higher in fat and have the worst environmental impacts, because producing them uses the most resources - mainly feed, chemical fertiliser, fuel, pesticides and water.
Lamb has the greatest impact. Beef is second. Cheese is third. Beef has more than twice the emissions of pork, nearly four times more than chicken and 13 times as much as vegetable proteins such as beans, lentils and tofu But vegetarians who eat dairy aren't off the hook, because pound for pound, cheese generates the third-highest emissions.
Here's how eating less meat measures up against other climate-saving activities over one year:
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IF YOU
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It's like taking your car off the road for 320 miles, or line-drying your clothes half the time. | |
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IF YOUR 4-PERSON FAMILY
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It's like taking your car off the road for 5 weeks or shortening everyone's daily shower by 3 minutes. | |
| IF YOUR 4-PERSON FAMILY skips steak 1 day a week |
It's like taking your car off the road for almost three months. |
Better for your health, better for our environment
By now, most people would have heard that cows are voracious methane producers. Methane is a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2). Nearly 20 percent of all edible meat ends up in landfills. That makes the chemical fertiliseer, pesticide and water used to produce the wasted meat unnecessary, and the resulting emissions and environmental damage entirely avoidable.
For you as an individual, eating a lot of red meat is linked to increased risk of heart disease, certain cancers, obesity and, in some studies, diabetes.
Climate and environmental impact of the foods you consume:

Although this graph is in US measurements, it is a useful look for anyone to see how individual food choices affect the climate:
Click here to view the Meat Eater's Guide to Climate Change and Health.
Click here to go to the Environmental Working Group website.
