No Meat May starts May 1st, will you join us? Here at Flora & Fauna, we and most of the team eat a predominantly plant-based, vegan diet. There so many reasons for this and we each have our own. Julie, our founder was a long time vegetarian and always advocated for animals rights. About 6 years ago when she became vegan, she realised there weren't many vegan products on the market, or one place to find them all, and so Flora & Fauna was born.
Some of us are vegan for the environment, animals and even for health. In this blog, we break down what No Meat May is and all the benefits of going meat-free or even animal products free for the month of May and beyond.
What Is No Meat May?
No Meat May is a campaign and registered charity that challenges people to eliminate meat from their diets for 31 days, for 4 big reasons - health, environment, animals, and food security.
Launched in 2013 by Ryan Alexander & Guy James Whitworth, No Meat May started with thirty of their friends all giving up meat for the month of May. With participation more than doubling year on year, No Meat May is now a global campaign with thousands of new recruits participating each year. 94% of people reduce or eliminate meat permanently after participating. No Meat May is a great way to make that first step is (hopefully) going vegan!
Why Is It Important to Reduce Your Meat Consumption?
TheBeet.com says that meat is full of antibiotics, causes inflammation, and meat's saturated fat can lead to heart disease, while studies show that people who eat more red meat have a higher incidence of certain cancers, obesity, and type 2 diabetes.
So as you can see, reducing your meat consumption for your health is very important.
Reducing meat consumption has 4 big impacts; it helps our planet, helps end animal cruelty, a plant-based diet can have a positive impact on your health and finally, it helps ensure food security for all. Let's dive into this a little more.
Help Our Planet
Livestock and their byproducts account for at least 32,000 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, or 51% of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. - Cowspiracy
Less farmed animals helps reduce our greenhouse gases, helps reduce water usage, reduces overfishing and results in less deforestation.
Upwards of 50,000 acres of forest are cleared by farmers and loggers per day worldwide. An area equivalent to over 10,000 football fields is destroyed each day in the Amazon Basin alone. - https://sentientmedia.org/
Help End Animal Cruelty
Live export and factory farms are cruel and something we want to see eradicated. If you're not too sure what goes on behind the scenes to produce the food you eat, we suggest watching these informative and eye-opening documentaries.
We also wrote a blog about what we learned from Seaspiracy about the fishing industry if you want to learn more.
"Humans kill 67 billion land animals and trillions of marine life every year. If we slaughtered the 7.5 billion humans on this planet at the same rate, it would take 17 days for our race to become extinct". - https://thehumaneleague.org/
Improve Your Health
Eating more veggies and less meat has been proven to help improve symptoms of many chronic diseases and decrease the chances of developing things like heart disease, cancers, and other illnesses.
Here are some great documentaries to watch, plus we have lots of delicious recipe books at Flora & Fauna.
Food Security
The truth is, our Earth can produce enough food for everyone, so why are we feeding more grains and water to livestock that produces less food than they consume? This just seems nuts, right? For example, a study found that a Beyond Burger generates 90% less greenhouse gas emissions and requires 46% less energy, 99% less water and 93% less land compared to a quarter pound of U.S. beef.
Animal-based farming is way more resource-intensive than plant farming and if we didn't have to feed livestock grains and provide an increasing amount of land and water for them to grow, we'd be able to yield a higher amount of plant-based food to feed our world.
What Can You Do?
Commit and sign up to No Meat May here. You will receive tips, tricks and lots of recipes and nutritional advice. The recipes are seriously good!
Enjoy the challenge of not eating meat in May. Try different food and vegetables and enjoy it. No Meat May's website has quite a few recipes and we've got some great recipes, food and health tips at Flora & Fauna too.
You can find more info about No Meat May here.
So, will you sign up for No Meat May? Give it a shot... you never know, you might realise you don't need meat or any animals products in your life! When we spoke to Ryan & Guy, founders of No Meat May, last year, they were delighted by the huge amount of people who continued with a plant-based diet after May. If you're looking for a big and good change to make in your life, this might just be it!
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