http://www.thestar.com/News/article/299724

This week's Earth Hour challenge

Eat less meat. To be specific, go vegan for one day a week
Feb 02, 2008 04:30 AM
Peter Gorrie
Environment reporter

That means no animal products. Which means taking meat, poultry, fish and dairy off the menu.

MOTIVATION: Meat and other animal products come with hefty health and environmental price tags. There are plenty of alternatives. Most are as tasty as meat products, just different. Meat production is responsible for nearly one-fifth of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, says the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

By comparison, all the polluting vehicles in the world account for only 13.5 per cent of emissions.

Why change? Mainly because:

The average Canadian eats about 33 kilograms of beef and nearly 38 kilograms of poultry each year. Per capita consumption has declined a bit here in the past few decades, but globally, meat consumption has soared by 500 per cent since 1950 and is forecast to double again by 2050.

70 per cent of Earth's agriculture land is devoted to pasture or feed crops.

One-third of global cereal crops go to feed livestock.

Transporting that feed generates 160 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year.

About 43 per cent of the world's meat is produced in factory feedlots, and contains a higher proportion of Omega 6, a "bad" fat.

Vast tracts of forest are cleared for livestock grazing and feed crops.

The average North American eats about 100 grams of protein a day That's about twice the amount recommended by the U.S. government. Three quarters comes from animal products. So, dietary experts say, we could dramatically cut consumption without any ill effects and, in fact, probably with less heart disease and cancer.

Put it all together, says Keith Stewart, of WWF-Canada, and switching from the average Canadian diet to meat-free would cut per capita greenhouse emissions by 1.3 tonnes a year. Since the average total is about 20 tonnes, that's a substantial gain.

PROCESS: Eliminate animal products from your diet one day a week. Don't increase their consumption the rest of the time. This isn't about seaweed and tasteless heavy grains. Think spicy lentil casserole, fragrant baked beans or golden cubes of tofu in a Thai coconut-curry sauce. For some ideas, check our Green Life blog at www.thestar.blogs.com

COSTS AND SAVINGS: Hard to calculate, but plant-based foods are generally cheaper than animal products.