BOSH! How to Live Vegan. Henry Firth
level, the main barrier we think we all face is a feeling of helplessness.
What can we really achieve, as individuals? How can we change what’s being done by billions of people, if even governments and big businesses are not able to stop it? While some people are unwilling to make changes to help the greater good, surely the vast majority of humanity would want to help, if only they knew how?
Ian went through a phase of using bamboo toothbrushes and tried to live as close to zero waste as he could. But in our job – developing recipes every day – it’s almost impossible to live like this. We made a decision that we could have more impact if we concentrated on our main message of making delicious plant-based food available to everyone. We use sustainable ingredients as much as we can, but we can’t do everything all at the same time. And that’s OK – we do what we can.
We held our love for steak and roast dinners on a proverbial weighing scale and compared it with our love for the world and the future we wanted for the next generation. We loved food, had our favourite meals, and didn’t want to give them up. Henry’s obsession with fish and chips, swimming in tartare sauce, held him back for a while. But as we looked deeper into the facts, we were unable to resist the reality of the situation.
THE MAIN CAUSES OF CLIMATE CHANGE
There are two main causes of climate change which far outweigh any others: animal agriculture and transport.
Let’s start with transport. A return flight from London to New York costs the Arctic three square metres of ice per person.[33] One thing we can all do to reduce our carbon footprint is to consider flying less and avoiding air-freighted goods. Following the rule of supply and demand, if we fly less, fewer flights will take place and air travel will cause fewer carbon dioxide emissions in the future. The same goes for choosing to drive electric cars instead of standard diesel or petrol vehicles.
Animal agriculture, however, has much further reaching consequences. Cutting down your transport emissions reduces your greenhouse gas output. This is a simple equation.
Using the same rule of supply and demand, cutting down on animal products reduces carbon dioxide and methane emissions, land and water use, rainforest deforestation and destruction of wildlife.
If going vegan seems a stretch too far, then even just eating one more plant-based meal per week is a powerful action. If everyone in the UK dropped meat from one meal a week, we could slash emissions by more than 8%, equivalent to taking 16 million cars off the road. It would also mean a 23% reduction in the UK’s domestic and international farmland use and a 2% reduction in our water use.[35] And in the US, if everyone replaced chicken with plant-based foods in one meal per week, the carbon dioxide savings would be equivalent to taking half a million cars off the roads. [36]
The international committee for climate change has said that in order for the UK to reach their emissions targets of a net zero emissions economy by 2050, households will need to undergo at least a 20% reduction in their beef, lamb and dairy consumption.
Source: Climate Change – The Facts
So the science really is that clear. The single biggest thing we can all do as individuals, much bigger than changing our approach to transport, is to eat more vegan, more plant-based meals. Given the wealth of experts across all fields of research telling us to eat fewer animal products, it’s time to act. We now know we can fight climate change with diet change. We are now aware of the consequences of our actions. Past this point, we’re to blame if we don’t take action.
Will we rise to the challenge and save the world we live in, for ourselves and future generations? Our preferences for meat and dairy have led us to destroy the planet, turning forest and grasslands into grazing lands because we love the taste of hamburgers. Come on, guys! That’s madness!
We make enough food to feed everyone on the planet, and yet nearly a billion people starve. We feed the food that they could eat to cattle, so that we can eat steak. Eighty-two per cent of the world’s starving children live in countries where food is fed to animals, which are then killed for meat and exported; eaten by wealthier individuals in developed countries like the US, UK and mainland Europe.[37]
It’s time we stepped up to the (vegan) plate and took some positive action.
Animal farming uses up 83% of global agricultural land, but provides just 18% of global calories.[38]
These were the facts that we faced four years ago, that led us, as extremely devoted lifelong meat eaters, to make the decision we made. We loved the taste of meat and dairy, but that didn’t sit right with us. We wanted to make a change. So we went vegan.
That’s all the bad news out of the way. Now for the good news.
Making the decision to cut animal products out of our diet was the best decision we ever made. It’s not restrictive. We eat a wonderful variety of foods and have all the flavours and choices we want.
Since becoming vegan we’ve both become infinitely more open-minded about our food choices. Closing the door on meat, dairy and fish has enabled us to open up a thousand other exciting plant-based doors. Our attitude to food now is far more broad-minded than ever before and, as a direct result, our diet is more diverse than we would ever have imagined.
Ian especially really enjoys ‘veganising’ dishes, and cooking delicious vegan food has become our hobby, passion and our job. When we nail a brand new dish, and we mean really nail it, we get a dizzy sense of satisfaction. High-fives, fist-pumps and whoops are all commonplace in our kitchen. One of the dishes we’re most proud of is our Crispy Chilli Tofu, which mimics one of Henry’s old pre-vegan favourites, Crispy Chilli Beef, perfectly.
Contrary to what the media would have us believe, choosing to become vegan is a powerful and motivating change, and it is actually really easy to do. The power to save the planet is literally in your hands.
Taking shorter showers or using your bathwater to flush the toilet will all have a great impact. Replacing your toothbrush with a wooden one and cycling everywhere will help in so many ways, too. But avoiding meat and dairy is the single biggest way to reduce your impact on the Earth. A plant-based diet – or a more plant-based diet – is better for the planet and will drastically reduce your annual carbon footprint.
Even the least sustainable plant-based food is more sustainable than the most sustainable animal products.[39] That’s something we like to remind ourselves if we ever worry about using ingredients that have questionable sustainability or have travelled far.
A global switch to more veggie-focused diets could reduce