Meat free Mondays

I’m upsetting the apple cart as they say, by posting today instead of Sunday. I have recently decided to investigate and challenge myself to take part in Meat free Mondays.

So what’s the big deal, are they asking me to eat no meat for the rest of my life on Mondays. I think its manageable, but why? How will this save the earth?

Been reading up on what the whole hoo-ha is and these are the facts:

-At least half of all the greenhouse gasses are due to livestock production.

-It requires 500 times as much land to produce 1kg of beef as it does to produce 1kg vegetables. Which means we will actually be able to feed more people if we start to grow food instead of slaughtering animals.

-It takes 250 liters of water to produce 1kg wheat, and 25 000 liters of water to produce 1kg meat.

-Cows, pigs and sheep bred for human consumption discharge millions of tons of methane, a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, which affects the degration of the ozone layer. Livestock accounts for about 18 percent of greenhouse gases, more than all the world’s transportation systems including cars.

I like a good steak every now and then and good food has always been a joy in my life but these facts speak for themselves. Giving up meat for one day a week seems to be the least I can do. Going to have to watch out when my mom cooks again though…

Photo from: http://goo.gl/ga8pP and info from http://goo.gl/MZoWI