Transportation and factory fumes aren’t the only things hurting our environment. It’s also the food we eat.
Story and photography by Xueting Zhao
Every second, a section of rainforest as big as a football field vanishes in the Amazon. Ninety percent of them are deforested in order to raise cattle for beef that will eventually be distributed all over the world until finally they land on one’s plate.
Many environmental problems are blamed on transportation, industrial manufacturing and the consumption of fossil fuels, whereas the reality is a lot of damage is caused due to the food we eat.
“The worldwide demand for meat is a big factor in terms of how much land is cleared to feed livestock,” says David Alexander, executive director at the Toronto Vegetarian Association (TVA). “It doesn’t matter if you are getting a burger here or getting a burger in South America.”
A 2013 report by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) found the livestock sector is responsible for 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions – an amount that surpasses the GHG generated by all cars, trains, planes and ships combined.
“The livestock industry is the No. 1 cause of greenhouse gas emission,” says Helen Goreski, a vegan advocate and graduate student in Environmental Sciences at the University of Toronto.
“Even trying to build more eco-friendly cars that does not address the primary causes of carbon emissions.”
The livestock industry also consumes an enormous number of natural resources, including agricultural land, water and grain crops, which could otherwise be distributed to people who are in desperate need.
In August, 2014, the Washington D.C.-based Worldwatch Institute determined that almost 70 per cent of the world’s cultivated land is used for animal pasture; nearly 40 per cent of grain products are used to feed animals, along with 250 million tons of soybeans and other oilseeds.
“If you look at meat consumption in Canada and compare (it) to the US and other western countries, like Britain, we are pretty close,” Alexander says. “About 75 per cent of the grain crops growing in Canada are fed to animals.”
While global meat production has increased more than fourfold over the past five decades and reached a new peak of 308.5 million tons in 2013, a growing population in Toronto have showed their willingness to adopt vegetarian or vegan diets in order to make their own contributions to benefit the world’s environment.
Julia Mroczek is a student from the University of Toronto who became a vegan about a year ago for health reasons. But after reading some vegan literature, Mroczek soon realized how her dietary habit could affect not only herself, but also the surrounding world.
“I think environmental veganism is the most important and most tangible reason (for me) to go vegan.” Mroczek says. “We are projected to not have enough food for the whole world not far into the future. I think it’s really important to take a stand on issues like this.”
Having been practicing and advocating for veganism for more than seven years, Goreski believes adjusting your dietary choices is by far the single greatest thing you can do to protect the environment.
In fact, a 2014 Oxford University study pointed out that going vegan could reduce one person’s carbon footprint by nearly 60 per cent compared to the carbon footprint of an average meat-eater.
“There are definitely more people choosing to eat vegetarian or vegan,” Alexander says. “That’s a very good sign. If you get a lot of people committing to even a small action, it can have a big impact on the environment.”
For those who don’t have much vegetarian or vegan experience, Alexander suggests pro-vegetarian movements, such as Meatless Monday, which encourages participants to skip meat on the first weekdays, as a good place to start.
“We are very supportive of those steps and we encourage people to do whatever they can to reduce their environmental footprint,” he says.
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