Why eating more plant-based food should be one of your new year’s resolutions
Australians are the second biggest meat eaters in the world. We eat approximately 110kgs of meat per person per year, which is roughly 2kgs per person per week. This huge amount is 545gms per week above Australian dietary guidelines for cooked lean red meat (which includes beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton, venison and goat), and a whopping 1.9kgs per week more than recommended by the authors of the ambitious Planetary Health Diet (a diet designed to achieve improved global health and environmental outcomes).
What is so problematic about eating so much meat and dairy?
The sheer scale of the livestock sector combined with unsustainable farming methods has contributed significantly to global deforestation, desertification, erosion, water shortages, pollution, biodiversity loss, animal suffering and the development of ocean dead zones. Industrial animal agriculture has been associated with antimicrobial resistance and is a significant source of food-borne pathogens. Livestock farming has a direct climate impact; 14% of global greenhouse gas emissions have been attributed to animal agriculture.
Excess red meat consumption also has a significant impact on human health. High red meat consumption is linked to heart disease, obesity, bowel cancer and type 2 diabetes . Heart Disease is Australia’s largest health problem, one in three Australians are obese, and colorectal (bowel) cancer is the third most diagnosed cancer in Australia. Despite the links between excess red meat consumption and these diseases, a 2019 Sydney-based survey found that 42% of survey respondents believe that meat is healthy and nutritious. Whilst this may be true in small quantities, Australians appear to have lost sight of eating meat in moderation.
The controversial and deeply disturbing 2018 documentary Dominion put ethical issues related to industrial meat production on the Australian map. Screening the daily realities faced by sentient and intelligent animals in bloody detail, the movie explored how animals are routinely killed as waste products (for example, the calves of dairy cows and male chicks are often killed shortly after birth), the poor, unsanitary and cruel living conditions that deny animals the opportunity to follow instincts, and violence and abuse in numerous slaughterhouses.
Our food choices impact on the sustainability of our food system
A 2019 study estimated that 83% of the world’s farmland is currently used to farm meat, fish, eggs, and dairy, but animal agriculture only contributes 18% of calories and 37% of protein globally. The industry’s high water consumption is likely to become increasingly unpalatable in a country wracked by severe water shortages and an increasingly dry and hot climate. According to a recent Wilderness Society report, over 1.6 million hectares of forest and bushland has been cleared in the last five years in Queensland alone for cattle farming, with consequent impacts for emissions, erosion and pollution. Livestock are resource intensive and eat far more protein and calories than they produce for human consumption. In short, industrial scale livestock operators are huge contributors to inefficiency, animal suffering and environmental damage in our food system.
With the global population expected to reach almost 10 billion people by 2050, and global meat consumption expected to rise by 70% in this time, we need to ask ourselves:
Will we be able to produce enough food to feed the global population if we continue to eat this much meat?
How can we produce the food required for a growing world population with limited arable land? Our agricultural system currently uses 43% of the world’s ice-free and desert-free land, and 83% of this land is used for meat production.
How can we keep global green-house gasses within safe limits if we expand our meat consumption globally? By 2050 emissions from agriculture are predicted to hit 50% of emissions associated with human activities.
A shift towards plant-rich diets appears to be inevitable if we prioritise and act on health, agricultural efficiency and sustainability in our food system.
The need for a national food policy
We need a national food policy to support dietary shifts towards a plant-rich diet and enable farmers to transition to more sustainable and healthy food production methods in both livestock and plant based food production. Our agricultural practice is a serious concern to our future food security; land clearing has led to dry land and irrigation salinity, and over-use of chemical inputs has led to soil acidification. Historically Australia has been a strong food exporter. Trends indicate, however, that Australia’s agricultural productivity is not increasing at a rate needed to cover our own food requirements; in future the country will rely more heavily on global supply. An integrated approach to policy development which moves beyond traditional cost/benefit analysis to include analysis of food security and climate change is arguably necessary in the changing world.
Australia is not alone in needing to take this critical action. Just this week, the former Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK government recommended a reduction in livestock farming and consequent reduction of meat consumption by roughly 90% in the UK. His proposition included transitioning farmers away from livestock to storing carbon dioxide, helping prevent floods and providing beautiful landscapes where people could boost their health and wellbeing.
Despite calls for the government to take action, it is the private sector at the forefront of demand creation for plant-based protein alternatives in Australia, in a market predicted to add nearly $3 billion to the economy and 6,000 new full-time jobs by 2050. Whilst many of these new offerings provide a good transition food for meat eaters wanting to get the texture and taste of meat without negative health, ethical and environmental side-effects, they are not necessarily healthy and can involve significant food miles, or in the case of a few products (for example Palm Oil), have their own environmental challenges. Processed meat alternatives should be eaten sparingly, with the focus instead being on a seasonal, local whole-food diet of legumes, grains, nuts vegetables and fruit.
Time to make a new year’s resolution?
In the absence of a national food policy, individuals can and do make a difference. Your purchasing power impacts on producers and the availability of food options.
A recent research project highlighted that in the US for example, switching two-thirds of meals from meat to plant-based would cut food-related greenhouse-gas emissions by nearly 60%.
Given that we know eating more plant-based food and less meat and dairy products is critical to the development of sustainable food systems, a reduction in GHG emissions and improvements in human health and animal welfare – don’t you think it is time to commit to eating more veg, more often?
The Veg Action Group of MRSG has plenty of ideas to help you eat more plant-based meals. Join our facebook page for vegetarian or vegan recipe ideas or come to our regular Pot-Lucks to sample a range of delicious food and meet like-minded people. You’ll soon find that vegetarian and vegan food is completely delicious!
There are so many small steps you can take to get started on this journey. Here are just a few to get you started.
