JOANNA'S FOOD: family cooking, from scratch, every day


Friday, June 22, 2007

One vegetarian day a week will save the earth, as well as your health

Today's the last day for entries to this month's Heart of the Matter ... the topic this time is vegetables, and I've already got lots of delicious recipes to share with you in the roundup. I'll start working on it tonight, and will post it tomorrow, so there'll probably be room for your submission even if it's a little late. All the details you need for submission are here.

Meanwhile, here's something interesting to spur you on ... going veggie one day a week will make a significant difference to the planet, as well as your health. This list of 10 reasons to go veggie one day a week comes from Wannaveg, a website I discovered this morning. It makes food for thought.

The top 10 reasons why adopting a vegetarian diet one day a week will make a difference. In a year you will…

* Save 84,000 gallons of water.

* Save 245 lbs of grain.

* Save 7,700 sq feet of rain forest. (That is equivalent to four good-sized houses.)

* Reduce your contribution to the over 10,000,000,000 animals slaughtered for food.

* Save 15.5 gallons of gasoline, good for one fill-up!

* Not contribute to over 403 lbs of manure produced by food animals.

* Reduce your contribution to over 24,000,000 pounds of antibiotics that are added to animal feed.

* Save 87 square feet of topsoil from erosion.

* Reduce your impact on our quickly-vanishing ocean life!

* Do not forget about your health! A vegetarian diet, even one day a week, will help reduce your risk of heart disease and cancer, and it may even help to drop a few pounds.


There are figures on the website to back up all these claims. It's often difficult to know how you can make any kind of difference ... this is worth thinking hard about, because it works in purely personal terms, as well as global ones, and there's no doubt we're all better at thinking about ourselves than the bigger picture!

6 comments:

Simona Carini said...

An impressive list of numbers. I have been a vegetarian for over 10 years now and I don't even notice it any more: it's just the way I am.

Katie Zeller said...

We used to do vegetarian one day a week but have gotten out of the habit, probably because we have decreased the amount of meat we eat per meal anyway.
But, it would be a good habit to get back into - and probably easier now.
Thanks for reminding me!

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

I'm so sorry I've missed the heart of the matter this month. I'm still working on my trip posts. I should have them done today. Just have to not be to hard on ourselves, somethings I just can't make happen.
I am impressed with the vegetarian numbers! I don't know when but any more I'm just OK with meat and eat less and less.
Looking forward to the round up.

Kristin said...

I did post a veggie recipe, but I think I forgot to email you - sorry!

If it's not too late to link, here's my post:
http://krissyscookingblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/basic-minestrone-recipe.html

Anonymous said...

I do about 3 veggie days a week, it's cheaper than meat!

However, what about the rainforests being cleared to make way for soya bean plantations?

Anonymous said...

Still trying to maintain 7-A-Day! So, one veggie day a week should be easier, now we are following your rule of thinking about the veg in the meal, before we consider the meat.
All good stuff. Thank you
TopVeg