At the risk of becoming something of a bore on this issue, there seems to be a real flurry of interest in the whole 'eat less meat and save the planet' debate. (Nice to have been ahead of the game for once in my life).
For those who missed it, here's John Harris' article from the Guardian: The new vegetarianism: meat is more murderous than ever. And the debate continues in this Sunday's Observer food supplement: Is meat off the menu?
The Observer also had a feature on their restaurant critic Jay Rayner trying to go vegan for a week - Eats leaves and shoots... himself. He says "I also don't believe you can be genuinely happy and vegan. I think the two are mutually exclusive." Hmmm... The article is complete nonsense by the way. In my humble opinion.
4 comments:
The decent Rayner article was in the news section on 'Thanet Earth' and the future of sustainable farming in this country:
- "To the hard-core foodies, Thanet Earth is an abomination, the exact antithesis of local, seasonal and organic. Increasingly, though, those buzzwords look like they were engineered for another, more comfortable age. What matters most now is the efficiency of production and the environmental impact of the food we are eating, whether, in short, it is low carbon, which the crops from Thanet Earth will be" -
Being a vegan certainly gives you max points from an ecological footprint viewpoint Kerry.
http://www.vegansociety.com/html/environment/
Thanet Earth came up in the food security debate on Monday. It looks as if Jay Rayner has his stats wrong - he says the UK's food self-sufficiency is at 60%, whereas I think 74% was quoted in the debate.
Glenn,
Have you read "Livestock's Long Shadow" - a UN report about the impact of meat/ dairy production on the environment, particularly re greenhouse gas emissions. It's very authoritative and worth looking at. I did post a link to it on a previous blog, but many months ago now.
I read in the paper this week that Prince Charles has managed to reduce methane emissions from his cows by feeding them a better diet!
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