Mixed salad topped with tempeh and vegan bacon fricassée

Well, I guess it’s been over three months now since I made the decision to become a vegan and I still have no regrets. I am still enjoying all the benefits and finding that the only disadvantage concerns the amount of time it takes to keep cooking two meals a day if the rest of your family are not vegans.

I am also still discovering new taste experiences from vegan bacon to liquid smoke and nutritional yeast and I have taken up jogging before I go to work in the morning. Although my sole motivation for becoming a vegan was animal welfare, the spin-off has been a loss of 3 kilos in 3 months and a renewed sense of fitness in body and mind.

In recent weeks, perhaps as the result of so many fatal and horrendous “natural disasters”, I have been stumbling across articles about how a plant-based life-style is essential for the protection of our environment.

Among the major issues we face in the modern day are climate change, dwindling natural resources, global health epidemics, and the inhumane treatment of animals. What do all of these problems have in common? Each one is intrinsically linked to, and largely driven by, our global society’s dependence on animal-sourced protein.

As developing nations have gained wealth and worldwide demand for meat and dairy has subsequently risen, the animal agriculture industry has mastered the art of producing animal products en masse in the cheapest, most “efficient” way possible.

As a direct result, the environment, our resources, and all life on earth are now in grave danger. In fact, our obsession with cheeseburgers and chicken wings has brought us into such a disastrous situation that the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) recently labelled meat as “the world’s most urgent problem.” And this is not an exaggeration.

Industrial animal agriculture is responsible for producing more greenhouse gases than the entire transportation sector combined. Not to mention this destructive industry is to blame for widespread air and water pollution, plus mass deforestation, all of which are threatening species around the world and rapidly advancing global warming and resultant climate change.

Given the magnitude of the problems associated with industrial meat and dairy production, scientific experts have emphasised that there is simply no way for us to meet the targets spelled out in the Paris Climate Agreement unless we significantly cut back the scale of animal agriculture on an international level. Global problems are never some one else’s responsibility.

I am delighted to say, however, that some global companies are moving in the right direction. Google, for example, has designed their cafeterias to be “plant-forward,” analysing consumer behaviour to encourage their employees (or as they say, users) to consume more plant-based foods and fewer animal products at meal times. And the Human Society of the US’s comprehensive Meatless Monday campaign that has helped 263 school districts provide meatless meals one day a week (and consequently eliminated close to 600,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions and saved the lives of 10.3 million land animals in just five years).  This is especially encouraging because we know that changing human behaviour starts with education, whether we’re talking about racial tolerance, understanding that religion is a social construct or animal welfare and protecting our environment.

Furthermore, promoting a plant-based life-style has been a taboo in schools for decades since parents quickly put a stop to it by claiming their children are being brainwashed by radical lefties and animal rights campaigners, an objection which is mainly based on parents not wanting to have to change their own diet and certainly not wanting to have to go to all the extra effort of preparing vegan meals for their children. This objection is certainly not based on empirical evidence or an education that tells the truth about human meat and dairy consumption. I can only hope that this will continue to change thanks to the people in HSUS, Peta and other such organisations.

So, my friends, stopping asking others why they have become vegans and start asking yourself why you are not.

Finally, if you’d like to see the videos that effected this radical change in my life, here they are again:

“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”  Albert Einstein