It’s no secret that Falmouth is a fairly eco place to be. From the ominous wind turbines spinning proudly beyond Miss Peapods, to the influx of allotment grown veg sold weekly at the university; Falmouth certainly knows how to keep its carbon footprint minimal and its residents healthy. Recently, Falmouth, along with many other places in the country, have seen a huge rise in the amount of vegetarian and vegan cafes available. Now even your standard meat serving restaurants wouldn’t dream of not having at least one veggie or vegan option on their menus. What was previously a diet chosen by a small minority, is now fast becoming a lifestyle choice that many of us are ready and willing to buy into. The topic often causes much controversy amongst us, splitting people into the categories of a) I love meat, what a pedantic stupid health fad, or b) healthy, economical and animal friendly? Sign me up.
No matter which side of the fence you sit, you cannot deny that there is a new vegan wave sweeping its way across the country.
So what’s changed? Could it be the health benefits alone which spur people on? Is it merely a fashion statement? Has an environmental conscience become the chanel No.5 of this generation? Or perhaps we’ve been witness to one too many meat industry documentaries, and can no longer bare to think of our delicious friends being brutally bludgeoned after a lifetime of captivity?
We should by now, all be aware of the current issues we are facing with global warming and the responsibility, which us humans must take for the rapid speeding up of its processes. Organisations such as Greenpeace do their best to campaign against the fishing and oil industries and so on, who over-work the planets resources in order to reap the financial rewards. In schools the importance of recycling and reducing your carbon footprint are now widely taught topics, and the governments recycling scheme has brought to our attention the severity of our wasteful ways. Despite these efforts, our lifestyle choices accompanied with our expanding population seem to be destroying the planet at an alarmingly rapid rate. As individuals, it can at times seem almost unfathomable that any small action we make can have the desired effect and help prevent any further damage.
So, if the situation has really become so dire, and our current recycling attempts appear to be in vein, what can we actually do?
This is where veganism comes into play. If a lean torso and a clearer animal welfare conscience aren’t reasons enough for you to step away from the burgers, maybe it would be helpful to approach the debate from a different angle. A lesser known implication of eating meat, dairy and eggs is the large contribution it makes towards global warming. The animal agriculture industry is the largest cause of deforestation, greenhouse gases, and overall human induced climate change. To put it into perspective, each dairy farm with 2,500 cows produces just as much waste of a city with a population of 411,000. Animal agriculture alone is responsible for a whopping 18% of greenhouse gases, whereas merely 13% is produced from all forms of transportation combined.
Go figure, perhaps walking to Uni doesn’t make us as green as we’d hoped!
The sheer volume of water needed to maintain livestock accounts for 80-90% of US water consumption, and the increasing volume of food needed to feed the animals is enough to sustain the entire human population, twice. When you take into consideration that droughts and famine are undeniable world issues, those numbers are difficult to ignore.
If it is possible to limit the main stressor on the planet and eradicate the leading cause of- species extinction, ocean dead zones, water pollution, habitat destruction and the main cause of greenhouse gases; does veganism really seem like such a bad idea? Some of the stigma surrounding veganism can perhaps be attributed to what some describe as pedantic dietary requirements. It has for some, become something of a statement to call themselves vegan. Not only does it signify that you are an environmentally conscious and healthy individual, it has now become somewhat iconic to be seen in vegan café’s drinking vegan drinks, with your vegan friends, wearing fair trade clothing.
However, trend or not, veganism, if carried out by enough people; would undeniably make a huge difference to the degradation of the planet. So, perhaps next time you hear the word vegan, you may be able to look past the stigma of yoga practicing, animal worshiping hippies, and instead view it as an informed lifestyle choice which benefits both individual health and the health of the planet.
For more information on this topic, we suggest you check out a documentary on Netflix called ‘Cowspiracy.’