Meat is really gross anyway.

For someone who considers himself an environmentalist, I do tend to eat a lot of meat. I’ve chosen to stop eating meat because of all of the negative impacts industrial animal production has on the environment. Industrial pork, beef, turkey and chicken production is responsible for methane emission into the atmosphere, runoff into rivers and oceans, and even the clearing of the Amazon rainforest for grazing land. Most of my meat consumption occurs when I get my nightly sandwich at Simon’s. This tasty tradition sadly will be coming to an end.

According to the Footprintnetwork website it takes 15.7 global acres to support my lifestyle. A significant percentage of this comes from grazing land and crop land. If everyone used the same amount resources I do we would need another three Earths. Not consuming meat would significantly reduce my ecological footprint.

I also took the Nature.org carbon calculator survey. Meat eating made up 11% of the 48 tons of carbon that I’m responsible for yearly. Emitting 48 tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year is way above the national average, so I think its right that I’m cutting back on meat eating. Omitting meat from my diet is clearly the easiest and most effective way to reduce my coverall yearly carbon emissions.

I’ve tried to “go veggie” in the past without much success. In fact, over the summer my girlfriend and I attempted to stop eating meat. Shes still a vegetarian to this day, and obviously I’m not. I actually only lasted a week and a half. So I think it will definitely be hard initially to cut meat out of my diet, especially bacon. But in the long run I don’t think I’ll have a problem with not eating meat thanks to all of the options Bon Appetite provides for vegan and vegetarian students. I also just watched a really graphic video online about industrial slaughterhouses and I’ve decided that at least for the moment meat is really really gross anyway.

image from:http://showthelove.com/notsomuchlove/2009/02/genetically-modified-meat.html