I've Cut Down On My Red Meat

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• I've Cut Down On My Red Meat

Food accounts for around 27% of Kingston's eco-footprint, which makes it the sector with highest environmental impact in the borough.

The ecological footprint of food is so high because we waste around a third of the food we buy, because most people tend to have a high meat and dairy diet, because of transportation (food miles) and because of excessive packaging and because of energy intensive agriculture. Animal products account for around 80% of the impact of the average diet in the UK.

The good news is that reducing it is under individual’s control and it’s easy to reduce and be healthier too.

Why is cutting down on red meat is good for you?

It's good for your long term health  

The high level of meat and saturated fat consumption in high income countries exceeds nutritional needs and contributes to high rates of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus and some cancers.

Intake of 100g or more of red or processed meat per day - approximately a 4oz steak, is considered high and bad for your health.

“No one's saying that people should avoid bacon or burgers completely, but evidence tells us that cutting down on these foods can reduce the risk of dying from cancer and other diseases” Ed Yong, Cancer Research UK.

It's good for your pocket

Reduce at least one intake of meat a week and you will notice the difference in your household expenditure.

It's good for your Footprint

If you switch to vegetarianism, you can shrink your carbon footprint by up to 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide a year, according to research by the University of Chicago. Trading a standard car for a hybrid cuts only about one ton—and isn’t as tasty.

Why is it good for the environment?

Meat production generate more green house gasses than all of the world transport

According to a recent report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, livestock production, dominated in the West by large-scale factory farming, is responsible for 18% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions - a bigger share than all of the world's transport.

Or see it this way: a kilogram of beef is responsible for the equivalent of the amount of CO2 emitted by the average European car every 250 kilometres, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days. ( Akifumi Ogino of the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Tsukuba, Japan)

Meat production requires vast amounts of water

Producing meat requires between twenty-five and two hundred fifty times as much water (depending of technology used) as producing an equivalent amount of grain for direct consumption.

Buying more locally grown food can reduce your food footprint by about 10%

For example, every tonne of strawberries we fly into the UK from north Africa or the Middle East releases more than four and a half tonnes of CO2, whereas the same amount of locally grown, seasonal, strawberries will only release 17kg - one-threehundredth the amount!