First off I want to apologize. I have a pretty bad headache today so I can’t guarantee that my blog entry will make the most sense.

Earth Day is almost here and there are some of us who actually do care.

I wanted to talk about a couple of changes that someone can make to their lifestyle that will greatly reduce their carbon footprint.

When you stop eating meat you reduce your contribution to global warming.

Think of all these wasted resources associated with meat:

1. Ten times the land is needed to grow food for cows than humans would consume. Without out all that land being used to feed animals we could easily have more than enough asparagus to go around. That is a great misappropriation of resources.

2. The by-products of feedlots and slaughterhouses pollute water supplies. I am pretty confident that with less meat farms there would be less e-coli contamination etc.

3. And as Al Gore was so brilliant in pointing out, cow farts yield greenhouse gases. Personally I think gas shouldn’t count but it’s a point regardless.

3. Then there is the transportation of cattle from fields to fields to slaughterhouses to grocery stores to your home. There is a pile of greenhouse gasses just in emissions from trucks.

Even Al Gore (Al Gore pff!) mentions it on his Inconvenient Truth website. Granted he slips it right in there along with using energy efficient light bulbs. But can you blame him? Cattle ops are in his family.

As a bit of an off topic, I really resent someone when they get paid thousands of dollars per engagement for sharing something that is supposed to be of critical importance. It detracts from the message if you ask me. If Saint Gore was truly worried about the earth you’d think he’d be more worried about getting the message out there and less worried about padding his wallet. But whatever…

There are other ways to reduce your carbon footprint. You can try to buy food locally grown (and it would be healthier too. Not just because the food is riper but because the U.S. and Mexico use more chemicals than we do and they use ones that are banned in Canada).

That leads me to point two, buy organic. You’ll be supporting farms that are sustainable and are gentler on the soil as well as food that is not covered with cancer causing chemicals.

And one more thing, eat whole foods. The more processed a food is, the less nutritious it is and the bigger the carbon footprint.

Anyways, this Earth Day, be green and make yourself a tasty, whole foods vegan dish!

I was on a Facebook group today that talked about the ecological (and likely economical) sustainability of the Vegan lifestyle. There was a link to a blog from a former-vegan (not sure if I believe that) where he talks about how being vegan doesn’t help sustainability and that organisations like the UN are wrong to say that.

These were his reasons (in a nutshell): If you feed cows grain and cut out the cow, then people get the grain directly. To him cows eat grain = people eat grain.

This is not true. Cows eat about ten times more grain that people. Then we slaughter the cow and the cow feeds the equivalent of maybe one person. So if you cut the cow out you can actually feed 10 more people. This could, theoretically, end world famine. The reality is: Cows eat grain = 1 person eats meat = 10 people eat grain. The yield is much higher for the veg sources.

And if cows were out of the equation (again theoretical), you would have even more land to use for the production of produce, beans, soy etc. This makes a higher yield at a lower cost.

Not just that but there are areas in the U.S. where there is drought because water sources have been rerouted to feed cattle. There are cases of water contamination from manure and from the wastes of slaughterhouses to be reckoned with as well.

Slaughterhouse have always been a concern in regards to water contamination. Plus they use many resources to make sure that you get your perfect slice of meat. It’s cruel and not Eco-friendly.

Plus, depending on how you buy your produce (I prefer bag-less and unwrapped) then you aren’t contributing to the ecologically unfriendly practise of wrapping meat etc. in petroleum based Styrofoam plates and cling wrap.

Eating plant based food is a very green option. Especially since people with yards can choose to grow their own carrots, onions etc. If they have green thumb and enjoy it.

I am not trying to discredit the efforts of non-veg*n people but rather clarify some lies. I think that people shouldn’t be berated for not being good enough but praised for trying. So you still refuse to stop eating animal flesh but you recycle your cans and cereal boxes. Congratulations! You are contributing to a greener world! We all need to do something!