When Will You Stop Eating Meat?

For around 8 years now I’ve reduced my meat consumption by ~80% by eating meat 1-2 times per week. I made this decision whilst studying environmental architectural design at university and stumbling across a TED talk by Graham Hill, the founder of Treehugger. 

Graham's proposal to significantly reduce meat consumption and consequently its associated environmental impacts, without actually giving up meat seemed like a good compromise.

Over the last 8 years, my wife and I have been enjoying this lifestyle, making the most of the money saved and in turn buying the best meat for our favourite meat-meals. We enjoyed having no restrictions in restaurants and built up a wealth of appreciation and knowledge about vegetarian food. I've since found out that this is called being a flexitarian (or a vegetarian who cheats) and I highly recommend it.

However, with the need for increasingly urgent action to avert catastrophic climate change, the recent arrival of our new baby and the introduction of two cats to our family this year, the premise of eating animals at all has been pushing us towards becoming proper vegetarians.

This push become a shove after watching Simon Amstell's Sci-fi Vegan Comedy 'Carnage'. Set in 2067, it looks back on what we are currently doing to animals and depicts a world where our kids can't understand the barbaric and weird nature of our intensive farming practices (with a comedic spin).

Whilst considering becoming vegetarian, we thought we also wouldn't be able to justify eating eggs, given the majority of male chicks are killed as hens are in greater demand for egg laying. This is shown through a kids cartoon featuring a blender in Carnage...

So after initially deciding to trial being vegetarian, it has turned into us trying to adopt a plant based diet (a rebranding for vegan) to feel less guilty about animal welfare but also push the environmental benefits as far as we can. 

It feels good to know that many are in the same position, as recent data from the UK shows the number of people eating a vegan diet has increased by 400% in 5 years and about a third of the population are now eating less meat, or none at all. This is exactly how Simon Amstell's film said it would happen...

The idea of not eating meat has gone mainstream, with WeWork recently announcing that they are no longer providing meat for catered office events or allowing their 6,000 employees to expense meals with meat, to reduce their environmental impact.

The final aspect we're interested in is that various studies point towards health benefits with longer life expectancy and reduced levels of chronic diseases, however these are harder to prove. I went looking for concrete evidence but it was a minefield as undertaking a controlled test isn’t ethically possible and there are so many other factors at play.

Anecdotally people report higher energy levels and optimum physical performance, and with some of the worlds best athletes eating a plant based diet (Lionel Messi, Sergio Ageuro, Venus Williams, Lewis Hamilton, Pamela Anderson, David Haye to name a few) the myth of vegans being weak with low energy levels is at least busted.

So we're trialling it until Christmas and enjoying the challenge so far.

Can you imagine a future where you don't eat meat?

Editor's note: Since starting to write this I've already had a couple of false starts following a late appearance at a BBQ with abundant leftovers and a surprise cheese filling in a pide. I must try harder...