Cristina Bertagna
2022 is now over and it’s time to join the New Year Revolution with Veganuary 2023.
The UK’s meat consumption currently exceeds the global average per capita. It is estimated that reductions of a shocking 86% for white meat and 78% for red and processed meat are vital in order to align consumption patterns with UK Government guidance. As a result of the Veganuary campaign, this has contributed to a significant shift in consumer habits in the UK. The number of vegans has risen by a fourfold, with approximately one-third of the population having either reduced their meat consumption or cut it out of their diet altogether.
Over 629,000 people participated in Veganuary 2022, so the time to try vegan has never been better. If you’re ready, this is everything you need to know about Veganuary 2023 and why the cause is so crucial to saving our society and climate change…
What Is Veganuary?
- An initiative that pledges eating a plant-based diet for 31 days, with the intent of tackling climate change through a lower carbon footprint and providing environmental protection, animal suffering prevention, and improving the health of millions of lives in the process.
- Their vision is simple; a vegan world. A world in which food production does not pollute rivers and oceans, devastate forests, aggravate climate change and threaten the extinction of wild animal populations.
Why The Fork Do We Care?
According to Veganuary, the method in which we currently produce food is incredibly inefficient, unsustainable, and unable to meet the demands of and not allow us to feed a growing global population.
Animal farming on an industrial scale is a serious contributor to and responsible for
- Climate change
- Deforestation
- Species extinction
- A significant source of pollution. Killing billions of sentient animals annually.
- Surging the risk of antibiotic resistance and global pandemics drastically.
Methane and Climate Change
In addition to the animal cruelty associated with dairy farming, keeping cows in captivity also comes with environmental consequences.
Through no fault of their own, cows are by far the main contributors who emit vast quantities of this climate-changing gas, accounting for around 27% of all human-related methane emissions.
As a result of this the 13 largest dairy firms in the world have been discovered to emit the same amount of greenhouse gases as the entire United Kingdom.
Deforestation
Not only are forests and other important habitats cleared for cow grazing, but also to cultivate the soya used in their diet.
Only 18% of the calories we consume come from animal agriculture, despite using 83% of the world’s agriculture for animals.
The loss of wildlife comes with the loss of forests, and indigenous people are displaced. The world’s sixth mass extinction is now underway, warned by scientists, the key driver being animal agriculture.
River and Lake Pollution
Our waterways are dying all across the world as a result of dairy and other animal farms as well as increasingly severe algae blooms.
This explosive growth of algae blooms fuelled by nutrients found in animal waste and fertilisers required to boost crop growth to feed the billions of farmed animals, inhibits aquatic plant growth by obstructing sunlight and removing oxygen from the water, killing fish and insects as a result.
This is happening all over the world where dairy farming is significant.
Convinced that things need to change and fast, is why change is being advocated towards more plant-based alternatives and, eventually, a vegan world. To get closer to the vision of a more sustainable world, breaking down the main barriers is vital to ensure vegan consumption and plant-based foods are more visible, tasteful and accessible to the general public than ever before.
Health Benefits
It’s no surprise that many people are following suit and opting for a plant-based diet after learning that some of the best athletes in the world have adopted it to improve their health, performance, and recovery. The benefits are endless of animal-free eating including;
- Lowers blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
- Reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis and hypertension.
- Prevents and reverse certain cancers e.g. colon and bowel, heart disease and lower respiratory diseases.
- Weight-loss.
How you and What The Fork can help make a difference
