No One Cuts My Steak in Half to Save the Planet! By James Reed
On the road to the total elimination of meat, the agenda now is to first cut down on meat, then cut it out completely. It is part of the war on protein. But fight back. eat the biggest juiciest steaks you can afford. Enjoy it while you still can. Let the planet save itself; make mine, meat, red meat, marbled with fat!
“For some, a big juicy steak is the star attraction on a dinner plate.
But the meaty treat should take a back seat if you want to save the planet, an expert has said.
She also warned, however, that going vegan can take its toll on the environment too.
Halving the weight of your steak could be ‘just one thing’ people can do to cut their carbon emissions, said Sarah Bridle, a physics professor working on food and climate change at Manchester University.
And in a move that may outrage beef enthusiasts, she recommends sticking to a cut weighing 4oz. She told the Cheltenham Science Festival: ‘Thinking about the quantities and reducing the quantities can make a big difference.
When you choose your next meal or just think about the different options available, try and think about which ones will affect the climate most and include that in your decision making.
‘So if we get an 8oz steak and chips, for example, that itself blows the amount of greenhouse gas emissions for food for one person for one day from that one meal. But if it was half the quantity of steak, that would be below the global average of food impacts for one day.’
Professor Bridle said opting for smaller cuts, ideally from local suppliers, could result in tastier meat.
Beef has a notoriously high carbon footprint due to the amount of land and resources required to raise cattle. Scientists found that a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions come from food production, while half of all farmed animal emissions come from beef and lamb alone.
Professor Bridle said turning vegan can make a big difference in the bid to save the planet. But she warned vegans still need to be aware of what they eat and how they prepare their food.
She said: ‘There are things you can do as a vegan which could be quite harmful for climate change. So I might be standing by an oven with a jacket potato in there for two hours using electricity.
‘At the same time I might pop to the shops to get some fresh green beans that have been flown in from another country.
‘These are things that would not be good for the environment, but they’re vegan. So we need to think about transportation of food.’
A 2019 survey revealed there are now around 600,000 vegans in the UK – a number that has quadrupled since 2014.”
Yes, but vegan food has a high so-called environmental costs as well, such as from soil loss. And one has to eat mountains of the stuff to stay alive, consuming all of those toxins and whatever that now dominate agriculture.
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