DO MEAT FREE MONDAYS MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

WRITTEN BY TOM F - YEAR 7

A lot of natural resources are required to produce meat, but these resources could be used for other foods that would feed more people. Climate change is getting worse and worse, and I am hoping this topic will help people to understand that meat doesn’t just appear on a plate. Meat production contributes to greenhouse gases and every small action we take can create a big impact. There are many people doing the best they can to get the message out that our world is slowly getting destroyed. Sir David Attenborough is one of those people, he is such an inspiration and I have watched all his documentaries Blue Planet, Planet Earth, Seven Worlds One Planet and programmes like this illustrate how the world is being torn up by climate change. David once said, “the future of humanity and indeed all life on Earth depends on us ” . To save our planet we need to stop the things that are putting greenhouse gases into the air Farming contributes to global warming and I’m wondering, if everyone has a meat free Monday would it play a part in tackling climate change? I am passionate for our planet, its animals, its rainforests, its oceans and when I’m older I do not want to see a world of devastation.

Climate change is the biggest problem we are facing at the moment and if we don’t start to act and make a difference then in the future our world would have fallen to ruins. One of the biggest impacts on the environment is global warming, the carbon emissions floating into our atmosphere are making the world warm up I can see on TV that Antarctica is slowly melting away, which causes the seas to overflow and that will make floods and there would be less land to live on Floods can cause masses of people who live by the coast to move further inland and that can lead to over population in these areas The animals that live on the ice would become extinct because their homes would be destroyed There have been massive floods in Pakistan which destroyed and damaged about one million homes, wrecked 3000km of road and killed 2000 people Bush fires are breaking out in Australia, burning down the trees that create oxygen and habitats for many animals like koalas and birds Even in England last year there was a heatwave and a drought, I had never experienced anything like that before. It got so bad that my local pond dried up and you could walk in it without getting wet Then in November it seemed to rain forever and in December it was freezing My football matches were cancelled for six weeks, half the time because of waterlogged pitches the other half because of frozen pitches!

All the world leaders came together in COP27 (Conference of Parties) to discuss what the world could do about climate change One of their objectives was to work together to limit the global temperature rise to 1 5 degrees Celsius There are excessively big effects on the environment and our use of natural resources when it comes to farming livestock for meat The first problem with farming livestock is the amount of land that is needed for the animals to live on. To get this land it might involve having to chop down trees and get rid of lovely landscapes, animals and their habitats

An area of rainforest equal to 100 football pitches is cut down every hour to make room for livestock Around 60% of the world’s agricultural land is used for beef production, yet beef only produces less than 2% of the world’s calories. Livestock, particularly cows, create more pollution than the entire transport system, this is because the animals are constantly eating which causes them to burp and break wind, and that creates methane It doesn’t sound like much but imagine the difference that is made when 1 5 billion cows are burping every minute Methane has 80 times more warming power than carbon dioxide, and every day the world is getting that slightest bit hotter Agriculture creates 14 5% of the world’s carbon emissions, 9 4% of the world’s carbon emissions come from the production of beef and cow burps

A beef cow will give you 300kg of meat

That’s about 1500 portions of food

The process of meat takes a lot of time and effort to make It may take more than you think to turn an animal into edible food but, is all the effort and resource worth it? By resources I mean the land, water, vegetables, fruits and plants that are used to feed the livestock, which is the first process of meat Many crops are needed for livestock, 62% of the world’s cereal crops are used to feed livestock and only 23% to feed humans. Imagine how much other food we would have if more than half of our crops weren’t given to cows, pigs and chickens It takes around two to three years until a cow is ready to be slaughtered for meat Then the beef would have to be processed so it is ready for eating It can sometimes take 30 bathtubs of water to produce one beef burger which is a big waste

However, cows eat a lot of vegetables and crops, the amount of food a cow eats in its lifetime could feed more people than the cow itself! This is why plant-based food is better for the environment because it doesn’t waste our world’s natural resources The process is also cheaper because you just use the food that is already available rather than feeding it to livestock A vegetarian diet requires two and a half times less the amount of land needed to grow food This land could be put to better use, and we could re-create rainforests so animals can have their habitats back rather than it being used for livestock

All the above indicates, it would be so much better for the environment to have a vegetarian diet You could eat plenty of plant-based meals which are healthier for you and don’t put Earth’s natural resources to waste I do like pork ribs, steak and beef burgers but I’m wondering now if there are alternative options out there. Maybe I could swap my bacon bap for a beetroot burger

On a Monday I would normally have cheerios with milk, but given cattle are also in farms because of dairy production as an alternative option I could have cereal with oat milk instead For lunch I could swap a roast beef sandwich with mustard for a beetroot burger with lettuce I would have a chickpea and sweet potato curry for dinner rather than a chicken katsu curry because chickens are the third biggest livestock pollution producers I spoke to dietitian Amy Gittins about what foods I would need to eat instead of meat to get the right nutrients to keep healthy. You can get protein by eating things like lentils, beans, chickpeas, seeds and nuts Eggs and dairy are also good There are meat substitutes like soya burgers and Quorn which are good for protein but apparently, they can often be salty and high in fat so I need to make sure I don’t eat too much Vitamin B12 is essential but only a small amount is needed and is found in eggs and dairy.

Dairy foods also help with calcium, but so do dried fruits, nuts and leafy green vegetables such as kale. Iron is needed to keep us healthy and without it our bodies won’t produce enough red blood cells which will make us tired Iron is found in dried fruits, wholegrains, nuts, beans and leafy green vegetables but iron from these foods isn’t absorbed by the body as well as it is from meat Amy advised to eat fruits and vegetables that have lots of vitamin C to help my body absorb more iron from the plant sources I eat. Amy said zinc is particularly important for me as a child because it helps with growth and to fight illness Like iron, you get more zinc from animal foods than plants but eggs and milk help, as well as wheat germ, beans, nuts, seeds, mushrooms and some fortified breakfast cereals

All this information has proven to me that meat free Mondays would make a difference and has convinced me to try it out The Meat Free Monday initiative is already supported by some companies, schools and even Burger King, but I think more should be done. We should all stop talking about what’s going to happen in 2050 and start to take action to prevent the bad things from happening

Only 5% of our world’s population is vegetarian but if we can bring that up to about 15% then there will be a massive difference