(almost) vegetarian for the sake of the environment

I grew up in a small town in Greece where eating meat is an indispensable part of our diet. Whoever has been in Greece is aware of its local specialties such as gyros and mousaka both containing a considerable portion of meat. What is more, it is a tradition to roast a lamb at Easter in order to celebrate this special religious festivity. Needless to say that in my family and maybe this is true for many more families, we would never treat a guest with let’s say a pea soup or a salad. Giving a welcoming dinner to our guest always implied a meal containing meat. To sum up, meat has always been present in my memories and I daresay I was “educated” to love it and enjoy it without having second thoughts. This image was meant to change as I became an adult.

The increasing climate problems made me start wondering what the causes of them were. Was it only the increasing CO2 emissions or something more? I became gradually aware that the meat industry contributes the the deterioration of the planet but still that was something abstract. Then I saw the documentary “cowspiracy” and I was convinced that I have to rethink my eating habits.

The documentary raises some strong arguments about the impact of especially cattle industry on the environment showing that it’s not only producing CO2 and methane emissions but it is also resource intensive and responsible for the deforestation of a large part of Amazon and other forests. I won’t refer to numbers here but I encourage you to watch the documentary. It also raises some valid ethical arguments for the treatment of the animals but I won’t address them in this article.

Thus, I understood that eating meat everyday or many times per week is both not healthy for me and unsustainable for our planet. However as I was not ready to give up eating meat totally. Hence, I decided to stop buying it from the supermarket and to eat meat max once per week. I became almost vegetarian and it feels like a good choice both for me and the future generations! Maybe in the future I will give up eating meat completely. Change takes time most of the times… Therefore I invite you to reconsider your eating habits and take into account your indirect impact to the planet.

All this being said, I still find it hard to give up chocolate although I know it requires tons of water just to produce one kilo (kg) of it. I also find it hard to skip taking plane when I want to visit friends and relatives around the world. Perhaps it’s more manageable to tackle one challenge at a time!