Green Diet Ch.1

My first task for my 21 day challenge is to create a greener and less environmentally impactful diet. My current diet does include many fruits and vegetables, grains, small amounts of dairy and also a lot of poultry and red meat. In my current personal day I consume meat daily and dairy weekly.

For the average livestock lifecycle it starts with the production of food commonly causing deforestation, then the transportation of food known for large greenhouse gas emissions, followed by the livestock’s life on farmland where farm upkeep produces more greenhouse gas emissions, then the emissions produce during the processing, packaging and transportation to retail sources. Worldwide there are 1 billion pigs, 19 billion chickens, and 1.4 billion cattle bread each year for livestock purposes. Now imagine the lifecycle of livestock times how many of these animals are being bred each year and realize the impact that’s made. Livestock producers 40% of greenhouse emissions world wide… World wide! Livestock is also the most significant contributor to nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in waters worldwide. Cattle ranching is also to be blamed for D4 station in the Amazon. 80% of Brazil’s deforested areas are used for pastor use. The water consumption for our meat and dairy needs in one year is 403,000 L. It has been proven that the lowest environmentally impact for milk is still worse for the environment then the worst soy milk.

So why tell you all this? Well this information is what made me consider and eventually change my mind on how I want to eat in my daily lifestyle. Before researching and considering all this information I never realized how much my diet impacted my environmental footprint. So for this 21 day challenge chapter 1 of green diet I have decided I am going to attempt a vegan-based diet. I believe that changing my diet will create the change in my environmental footprint that I am looking for.

So what will I be cutting out of my daily meals? Ive cut out all dairy and meat products and aimed for a vegan based diet full of healthy and sustainable fruits and vegetables. As well as trying out new sustainable vegan based foods that can replace my dairy and protein needs. I will consume poultry every couple days as an exception.

The first couple days have been fine. I’ve replaced milk with soy milk and chocolate soy milk, in my lunches I bring fruits, vegetables and humans as protein and a healthy fat. I’ve enjoyed many vegan pasta salads and even tried a Pinterest recipe of stuffed sweet potatoes for dinner the other day. The hardest part has been making different food choices than mom and dad when they are having a non-vegan meal for dinner.