Is Eating Less Meat Better for the Environment?
As January concludes, and we can start to look forward to lighter nights (even if it’s only by minutes!), so also comes to the end of the annual Veganuary campaign. In this blog, we’ll take a look at what the campaign is (ready for next year if you missed it), what the science says (we are a university after all) and some recipes to get you started if you do want to try and make some vegan food yourself.
Veganuary is a campaign held each year in January, that people commit to eating a vegan diet for the whole of the month. This year, Veganuary enters its 10th year as a campaign and over the course of its inception has seen millions of people participate. Around 1.8 million participants signed up in 2024 [1], not including the many who officially pledge but never sign up. The organisation makes it very clear what their aims are: a world without the effects of factory farming. However, they also recognise the other impacts that animal agriculture can have such as the detriment on the environment.
Whether you eat meat or not, it is unequivocal that the concept of factory farming is one that is designed to disregard sustainability in favour of maximum product output. Population size, eating habits and supermarket domination have all caused a growth in demand on food production. Unless you are in a fortunate financial position to purchase “farm shop” products, it is high likely that your food comes from a factory farm which we now know are highly damaging to the environment.
Do people stay vegan after Veganuary? In 2020, 72% of people stated they would stay vegan after the initial month was over [2] – which shows it can be an effective way of trying to get people to adopt a plant-based diet. According to the “vegan calculator”, in this month a participant would save 124,917L of water, 84m2 of forest, 543kg of grain, 273kg of co2 and 30 animal lives [3] – not bad going.
Let’s look into what environmental impacts veganism can actually do – here’s what the science says.
The Science
There is lots of research into the effects of animal agriculture, with different challenges being presented to different locations around the world to varying degrees. Nonetheless, on a global scale animal agriculture brings a multitude of issues including greenhouse gas emissions, habitat degradation, deforestation and water pollution to name a few of the major ones.
Some facts that highlight the problem of the scale:
- meat accounts for nearly 60% of all greenhouse gases from food production [4]
- Livestock provide just 18 per cent of the calories we eat globally, farming them uses 83 per cent of all farmland. Data collected from around 40,000 farms. [5]
- Every 1kg of beef requires 15,400L of water [6]
Does animal agriculture affect the UK environment?
Closer to home, here in the UK, animal agriculture is having a major effect on our waterbodies such as lakes and rivers. According to Defra, in 2019, just 14% of rivers in England met ‘good ecological status’ with agriculture being the single largest cause of river pollution in the UK, contributing approximately 40% [9]. Run-off from fertilisers and animal manure are washed into rivers, are a major concern to the ecological status of rivers. Additionally, UK rivers near livestock farms have been found to contain superbugs and antibiotic residues, an example being the idyllic River Wye, research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has found [10].
Other Benefits
There are many other benefits to environmental impacts from eating more vegan food.
- Trying new ingredients and dishes improving your culinary knowledge and skills
- Weight loss – a vegan diet has been shown to help people lose weight.
- Nutrients – Having more whole foods and plants in your diet can improve your health.
- Better ethically – as mentioned previously in the blog, a vegan diet avoids the use of animals in agriculture and can avoid the use of factory farming.
Vegan Recipes
Are you interested in trying vegan but not sure where to start?
Here’s some recipes you might want to try. This first one is a really easy and quick!
Spice Harissa Butterbean Stew – from Avocado Skillet
Ingredients
- onion
- garlic
- Chopped Tomatoes Can
- full fat coconut milk
- harissa
- basil
- nutritional yeast
- paprika
- butter beans
- kale
Recipe-
- Chop onions, garlic then fry for 4-5 minutes.
- Add the chopped tomatoes, basil, butter beans, kale, harissa paste, paprika
- Simmer for 10-15 minutes
- Stir in half a tin of coconut milk.
- Serve with toasted bread to ‘mop up’ the juices
Chickpea Curry - from BBC Good Food
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- ¼ tsp salt
- ½ tsp ground cumin
- ¼ tsp ground coriander
- ¼ tsp ground tumeric
- ¼ tsp red chilli powder
- 1 fresh tomato, chopped
- 400g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 5cm/2in piece fresh root ginger, grated
- pinch garam masala
- pitta breads or plain basmati rice, to serve
Recipe
- Heat the oil in a deep saucepan or a medium-sized wok. Fry the onions and garlic until the onions are caramelised
- Add the salt, cumin, coriander, turmeric and red chilli powder. Cook for a minute and then add the tomato. Cook the sauce until it begins to thicken.
- Add 4 tablespoons of water and stir. Stir in the chickpeas. Mash in a few of the chickpeas, cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the ginger and garam masala. Cook for another minute.
- Serve with pitta breads or rice.
Homemade Tomato Soup
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 onions, chopped
- 1 carrot, peeled and diced finely
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- 1 celery stick, finely chopped
- 450g/1lb fresh ripe tomatoes, halved
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 litre/1¾ pints vegetable stock
- handful fresh basil, shredded (optional)
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
Recipe
- Heat the oil in a large saucepan and add the onions, carrot, garlic and celery. Cover and cook gently for 10 minutes until soft.
- Add the tomatoes and sugar. Season with salt and pepper, stir and cook for another 5 minutes.
- Add the stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Liquidise until smooth. If using the basil, stir in just before serving.
All this information… What should I do?
It’s all part of a scale. Chicken for example has a lower footprint than pork, albeit marginally. But these options have a lower footprint than lamb or beef. Eating less of the high impact options is still better than doing nothing. While adopting more plant-based options in your diet should be your long-term aim, starting with achievable goals will help make a difference.
We’d recommend choosing an approach that is more mindful of carbon emissions. So if you can create dishes using local produce from a nearby green grocers then go ahead. If you make dishes that use in season produce, that’s great. If there’s dishes that you want to try that are plant based or you can “veganise” by swapping some ingredients, then this will have an impact on your emissions output. All of these actions add up, and you can help make a difference.
References
[1] – Vegetarian Statistics 2024: Meat Meals On The Rise (worldanimalfoundation.org)
[2] – Veganuary 2020: Official Survey Results – Veganuary
[3] – Vegan Calculator – Calculate the impact of an animal product free lifestyle
[5] – How does going vegan help save the planet? Here are the facts | WIRED UK
[6] – How Much Water Does it Take to Produce Meat? | The Cattle Site
[7] – Why the vegan diet is not always green – BBC Future
[8] – Latest water classifications results published – Defra in the media (blog.gov.uk)