Making the Case for Plant-based
Whatever your position on Extinction Rebellion’s actions, it cannot be denied that global warming affecting our planet. its ecosystems which affected our food systems and ultimately the health of the global population.
A friend of mine, who was camping out in St James Park, invited me to a talk by two doctors as part of the ‘Doctors for Extinction Rebellion’ protect. I was immediately intrigued when I read their justification - ‘climate change is an impending public health catastrophe’ – and their case was extremely compelling.
Above all it was refreshing to listen to actual certified, erudite medical professionals discuss these crucial topics – all their statements were backed up by irrefutable examples of studies and first-hand evidence of how a plant-based diet can drastically improve one’s health. One of the speakers even drew on the example of a patient of his who, in a matter of months, managed to reverse his Type II diabetes simply by adopting a plant-based diet.
So what do we mean by a plant-based diet? Well in essence it means eating more vegetables, more fruit and most of all, eating less meat, fish and diary and replacing this with increased legumes, pulses and other sources of protein from plants rather than animals.
There is a wealth of evidence that a plant-based diet has a positive environmental impact. One such pivotal and seminal study is by Joseph Poore study (you can read the full report here) – it’s one of the most comprehensive analyses to date into the detrimental effects farming can have on the environment. It included data on nearly 40,000 farms in 119 countries, examining the different techniques used to produce the same foods and found vast distinctions in terms of environmental impacts. For example, beef cattle reared on natural pastures used 50 times less land than those raised on deforested land. Those cattle reared on deforested land yielded 12 times more greenhouse gas emissions by comparison.
Joseph Poore himself also emphasised that “A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use.” Most crucially he added, that “It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car,” – responding to the climate crisis is so much more than just a need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Ultimately this study concluded that cutting meat and dairy products from your diet could reduce an individual's carbon footprint from food by up to 73%; and that if everyone stopped eating these foods, they found that global farmland use could be reduced by 75% - an area equivalent to the size of the US, China, Australia and the EU combined.
Imagine if food was priced according to its ecological cost…
But what of the positive impact that adoption of a plant-based diet has on an individual’s health?
The XR talk also addressed the concerns over anti-microbial resistance and that essentially by eating meat and dairy, we are also ingesting the tons of antibiotics that are being pumped into these livestock. For more information on this fascinating topic check out the talk by Cóilín Nunan on the Eating Better site underlines the importance of - the ‘less and better’ approach to meat and dairy consumption. Nunan highlights that routine antibiotic use is “now undermining the foundations of modern medicine” adding that “a healthier and more sustainable food system will require us to accept eating less meat and dairy, and to choose better-quality meat where animals are raised more naturally and without routine antibiotic use.”
Although the EU has banned using antibiotics for routine disease prevention, this legislation will only come into force in 2022; and with Brexit around the corner, what does this mean for the UK? The audience members were most worried about the UK’s possible USA and China trade deals that could result in the importation of food that has been drenched in insecticides and pumped full of antibiotics – further exacerbating this already dangerous issue. A member of the audience asked the speakers what this meant for us in practice – the doctors highlighted that it can mean anything from swaths of the population having increased digestive issues (as these antibiotics mess up gut florae) to infections being so easily contracted in hospitals that ‘routine’ operations would be hugely risky, increasing mortality rates.
Although this is quite distressing, the intention of this talk was not to scaremonger - nor indeed is this blog post meant to freak everyone out! It just means to raise awareness of what we can do as consumers - it’s an issue on which we should all be educated so that we can make informed choices and avoid this predicted ‘public health catastrophe’.
I’m certainly not trying to force everyone to go Vegan or stop eating cheese and meat – on the contrary, I appreciate that if farming is done in an organic, sustainable and regenerative way it is a major – and presently fundamental - part of our society and economy. After all, we also have to consider people’s livelihoods and if the world stopped eating meat etc. overnight, this would be detrimental to those who are trying their best to be environmentally conscious.
But one thing we can do is just eat fewer animal products, and more vegetables – and if we want to have a steak, have one that is from a reliable, organic, sustainable source, where the cow has been treated well and the farmer actually CARES about his livestock. Because if there’s one area in which we can instigate change as part of our efforts to protect the future of our planet, it’s food; and first and foremost that starts with our own diets.