Descendant of Darwin urges meat-free day once a week

CHARLES DARWIN’S great-greatgrandson has called on the country to eat less meat.

Chris Darwin has urged the public to go without at least one day a week in order to save money, their health and the environment.

The 57-year-old conservationist said the cumulative life expectancy of the current UK population would increase 300,000 years by June 2019 if everyone opted to have one meat-free day a week from today.

In research conducted for The Daily Telegraph, Mr Darwin found the country would save £2.3billion and an area of forest the size of all national parks in England and Wales if it adopted his diet.

“If we could persuade everyone in England to have one meat-free day, the impact would be colossal,” said Mr Darwin. “The current western, big meat diet, is taking a lot of time, years even, off your life. And it’s not only good for the individual, but for society.”

Mr Darwin also said the meat industry was the main cause of the extinction of the species. “But for people who lead busy lives, talking about cute animals doesn’t motivate them to alter their behaviour,” he said.

Mr Darwin instead compiled research about the health and financial benefits of switching to plants that he has used to create an app called the Darwin Challenge, which incentivises users to cut down on the amount of meat they consume.

Launched in time for World Meat Free Week this week, the app adds up the impact users have for every day they avoid eating animals.

In 52 days without meat, people could add a day to their life expectancy, help raise two people out of chronic malnutrition, save the water of 300 baths, a tennis court-sized forest and the greenhouse gases created when driving from London to Birmingham.

Around 6,000 users logged 58,000 meat-free days on the trial version of Darwin’s app, which is available to download free on IOS devices.