There are numerous ways that a plant-based diet is beneficial.
Ending cruelty, improved health, dietary benefits, and addressing medical issues ranging from pimples to cancer are just some of the ways that removing animal products from our diets can improve our personal wellbeing and that of other sentient beings.
Eating Our Way to Extinction - a new documentary by filmmaker Otto Brockway - takes a running tackle at the elephant in the room: the inseparable and indisputable connection between climate change and our dietary choices.
Animal agriculture is more environmentally damaging than the entire transport industry, including air travel [1]. Its effects are multifold; some abattoirs, mostly in the pig industry, use CO2 to (supposedly humanely) kill livestock, CO2, of course, being one of the major contributors to global warming; animal agriculture uses huge amounts of water. Healthy waterways help to absorb CO2 but are being toxified - killed, in effect - by factory farming; at least 75 percent of agricultural land is used solely for animals, accounting for just 18 percent of our calorie intake [2]; this arable land has to be clear-cut of all forests, forests which would otherwise absorb huge amounts of CO2; even the fish industry is contributing, with oceans being reaped of their populations, so by reducing the fertilization and proliferation of ocean flora, again a major sink of CO2.
In fact, as stated in Eating Our Way to Extinction, if we were to reduce our meat intake by just 10 percent, we would create the equivalent benefit of planting 2.7 BILLION full-grown trees. That’s a reduction of less than one day a week.
Narrated by Academy Award winner Kate Winslet, endorsed by champion for the planet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Eating Our Way to Extinction is endeavoring to drive this cold, hard message home to a world population that is still living as if it is invincible.
Otto Brockway is under no illusion that these decisions are optional:
“Even if the whole planet went to Meatless Mondays,” he states in a recent interview with LiveKindly, “that would still not come close to what we really need. Without trying to sugarcoat it, the more a person can do the better.”
And what a person can do is eliminate animal products form their diet. Behind fossil fuels, the meat and dairy industry is the largest contributor to climate change [3]. With this one simple act, we can make more of an impact than if we were to never use carbon-emitting transportation ever again. Yet because our food emissions are removed, intangible and essentially invisible to us, many people still haven’t connected the dots.
By developing our plant-based directory, VegReg is aiming not only to connect those dots, but to make the journey from animal products to a plant-based diet a short and enjoyable one.
Our plant-based directory helps to promote and strengthen the businesses that are creating sustainable food solutions. With little or zero joining fee, depending on the package chosen, VegReg plant-based directory makes it easy for these amazing companies to connect with a wider audience; with vegans and vegetarians, of course, but also with flexitarians and even die-hard meat eaters who might be searching for a healthier alternative from time to time, or looking for ways to make a difference, fulfill a Meat-Free Monday commitment or support a friend or family member who has already made the move towards a plant-based diet.
Brockway’s message, portrayed so impactfully in Eating Our Way to Extinction, is a bleak one: in a very real sense, we are doomed. We are on a trajectory of almost certain collapse, our rise in population, consumption and emissions driving our little blue and green home beyond the fragile brink of sustainability.
Change is inevitable, but hope remains. While there is no possible way we can go on the way we are, and there is a strong likelihood that our understanding even of our daily lives may drastically change, by taking highly impactful actions now we are reducing that change to what will hopefully be an acceptable level.
To prevent a Mad Max-like near future, we need a paradigm shift, but without a doubt the single most simple, impactful and beneficial actions we can take is to eradicate animal products from our diets… today.
Pre-order Eating Our Way to Extinction now on iTunes and Apple TV | release date: 30 Sept, 2021.
[1] https://www.worldanimalprotection.org.au/news/trillion-cow-burps-damaging-planet-daily
[2] https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture
[3] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181102-what-can-i-do-about-climate-change