I just returned from Seattle to see my family there. While I was there, we went to the Bite of Seattle. I was so disappointed at how difficult it was to find good veggie options. I would say 80% of the carts had a meat focus, 18% were desserts and drinks. The only true veggie carts I saw, was the roasted corn ones. Good, but hardly a whole meal. I am counting carts as meat-focused if for example, like the Yakisoba one- it features pork and chicken, as the main entrees and the only veg option is noodles only. Rather than a tofu and vegetable choice.
During my visit, I saw my very good friend (we’ve known each other almost 30 years!) who gave me the encouragement to keep posting, and keep talking about this. I do feel like this is an unpopular subject, and sometimes futile. However, I want to try to make a difference, and will do what I can to help a situation that each of us actually does have some control over. It’s just facing a reality that is different that what we are used to.
I know that change is coming, but it is disheartening to see how far the needle needs to shift. This article just came out a month ago from a popular British magazine. If this information is to believed, and I have never read anything that refutes this, this is extremely important.
Here are some key points I pulled out (bolded words are mine):
World hunger: We could eliminate the worst cases of world hunger with about 40 million tonnes of food. And it would be easy enough to find: nearly 20 times that amount of grain, 760 million tonnes, is fed to animals on factory farms every single year.
Environmentally devastating: The United Nations reports that the meat industry is “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global”.
Producing 1 calorie of animal protein requires more than 11 times as much fossil fuel as producing 1 calorie of plant protein.
It takes more than 2,400 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, while growing 1 pound of wheat requires only 25 gallons.
Economically harmful: if we do not reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, it will take less than 40 years for climate change to cause up to a 20 per cent drop in the world’s gross domestic product.
Skyrocketing healthcare costs: …attributable in large part to the increase in human consumption of meat, eggs and dairy products.
Animal suffering: the meat, dairy and egg industries cause immense suffering to more than a billion animals every year in the UK alone.
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This doesn’t address the antibiotics concern, or the impact on the oceans, or the massive amounts of waste. There are so many articles like this, published by the United Nations, and unbiased sources. Theses are facts. It is NOT sustainable. We may make it through unscathed for the most part, but our children definitely will not.