Veganism not always best for our planet
DECIDING to become vegan is not just about the health benefits. One of the driving forces behind deciding to cut out meat and dairy products is to reduce the impact on the environment. Or at least, I thought it was.
People need to be asking: Where has this food come from? as they fill their shopping baskets with the fruits of the world: pomegranates and mangos from India, lentils from Canada, beans from Brazil, blueberries from the US and goji berries from China.
Eating lamb chops that come from a farm a few kilometres down the road is better for the environment than eating an avocado that travelled from the other side of the world.
As we greedily plunder the world’s bread basket, those at the source can be left high and dry. Take avocados and quinoa, whose prices have been pushed up so much by Western demand that they’ve become unaffordable to those who depend on them in their country of origin.
Kenya – the world’s sixth largest exporter of the fruit – banned exporting avocados recently because the country’s supply is at risk.
Back in 2013 – which the UN dubbed the year of quinoa – prices of the so-called miracle grain of the Andes had reportedly become too expensive for local people to buy a staple part of the their diet.
Shifts in the food industry reveal we are aware we need to eat less meat and more vegetables, but there needs to be a sensible balance. One way to do this is by sourcing food locally. Last year saw plenty of new restaurants open with their own kitchen gardens, growing seasonally and cutting out the carbon footprint of long distance transportation. Seasonality and plant-based diets are two huge trends from last year.
This type of farming is also better for the land.
“Growing these crops and increasing diversity spreads risk and reduces plant diseases,” says Josiah Meldrum, one of founders of the company Hodmedod that harvested the UK’s first commercial crop of lentils for local markets. “If you’re planting wheat year after year, you’ll need to do a lot more to control the diseases that wheat gets.
“Environmentally, growing a bigger range of crops is good for farmers.”
Simple changes can be made at home too – from growing your own to ordering a vegetable box, which cuts out plastic and waste.
Jack Monroe, chef and Veganuary ambassador, says you barely need any space to be able to grow your own, from strawberries in hanging baskets to a whole variety of salads that can be grown in loaf tins on windowsills.
Although it’s important to avoid food that’s travelled thousands of kilometres, it’s also important that we don’t boycott certain foods that are exported, as farming these foods are lifelines for developing countries.