Manchester Friends of the Earth campaigners are encouraging to people across Greater Manchester to take the Meat Free May challenge and give up meat for a month in May. (1)
Our current diets are harming our health and our planet. How our food gets to our tables is almost unrecognisable from 50 years ago. While people in some parts of the world do not have enough to eat, others suffer from obesity, and our current diets are causing massive environmental damage.
Meat Free May provides people with information to make cutting down on the amount of meat and fish we eat less daunting. The campaign will provide easy and tasty meat-free recipes. The idea of Meat Free May is to get us thinking about meat consumption and encourage us all to eat a more varied diet with more fruit & vegetables to reduce our impacts on the environment and animal welfare.
Manchester Friends of the Earth food campaigner, Rachel Kenyon said: “I eat very little meat anyway, so to make my impact I’m taking the commitment further by eating an entirely vegan diet for the month. If you’re too much of a meat lover to face the commitment of the entire month, you could go meat-free every other day, this will get you thinking about your meat consumption and should mean you have a more varied and healthy diet, whilst also lowering your environmental footprint”.
What are the problems with eating too much meat? (2)
* Health: eating a diet with less meat and more vegetables/grains is better for us than eating meat regularly, which is difficult to digest and limits uptake of other nutrients.
* Environment: livestock production makes up 14.5% of total global greenhouse gas emissions and is a significant contributor to deforestation and climate change.
* Resources: it takes many times the volume of water rear livestock, compare 15,000+ litres of water to produce 1 kilogram of beef, compared to 255 litres for a kilogram of potatoes.
* Animal Welfare: billions of animals are farmed and killed for meat each year. Most of them are raised in intensive factory farms; by eating less but better quality meat we can avoid intensively farmed livestock.
* Biodiversity: unsustainable fishing had been stripping the seas; over 70% of the world’s fish stocks are over or fully exploited, by cutting down our consumption we can allow stocks to replenish.
ENDS
Contact for comments: Manchester Friends of the Earth food campaigner, Rachel Kenyon, Mobile: 07769 535829. Email: Rachel@manchesterfoe.org.uk
Manchester Friends of the Earth, media officer, Lyndsey Fall. Email: lyndsey@manchesterfoe.org.uk
Notes for Editors.
1) More details on the Meat Free may website
2) Flexitarianism: the environmentally friendly diet. Friends of the Earth briefing.
3) Manchester Friends of the Earth is an award-winning environmental campaign group, raising awareness and lobbying for policy changes at a local, regional, national and international level. The group consists entirely of volunteers, and its campaigns are funded by membership fees and individual donations. Up-to-date information is available on the group’s website: www.manchesterfoe.org.uk. Manchester Friends of the Earth is a Licensed Local Group of Friends of the Earth, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. www.foe.co.uk
4) Manchester Friends of the Earth has endorsed Manchester: A Certain Future, an action plan for the city of Manchester to cut its carbon emissions by at least 41% by 2020. For more information, visit www.manchesterclimate.com
