Today is the first day of Lent for all those who don’t know, it marks the start of 40 days of ‘fasting’ in modern terms this means giving up something for this period of time, most often it is chocolate, sweets etc. However, I have been contemplating making the change to a fully fledged vegetarian for a little while now and as I have always taken part in Lent I thought what better than to give up meat, if I do well this will be the start of a life of vegetarianism (potentially one day veganism, working up to that). Day one and going strong, chilli bean burgers and salad for dinner, not forgetting the all important Tabasco addition. In life I wouldn’t call myself a meat eater as I only eat meat maybe twice a week and when I do it is pretty much chicken or minced beef, when cooking though I use meat substitutes (Quorn) or a filling vegetable such as lentils. Reason being I simply don’t enjoy the taste and can’t get the cruel treatment of most farm animals out of my head a lot of the time. Funny thing is, I don’t believe humans shouldn’t necessarily eat meat, controversial I know. What I believe we as humans have to understand is that we are one greedy species, we treat animals and our land like disposable objects, this over consumption of meat and fad foods is causing an issue we can’t ignore. 

WWF has reported on the environmental impact the demand for Soy products is having on the land and wildlife, as it is now an ‘it’ drink amongst ladies what brunch, the suppliers simply can’t keep up. Have you also ever heard the phrase ‘No meaty, no eaty’ simply meaning, if there is no meat in my food I won’t eat it, ridiculous. If everyone vowed to have say 2 days without meat, think about the strain taken off the need for animal products, if supermarkets scrapped their unrealistic demands for products which are perfect enough for the shelves, we wouldn’t see farmers throwing away tonnes of perfectly good produce and if people took more care about where their food was coming from and sourcing where possible from local butchers or produce stalls, we would see more money go back into local businesses. 

If you ask me it’s an all around win, I recently posted about the wastefulness of fast fashion which is a relatively new situation we face, wasting food and causing the inhumane deaths of animals and unforgivable waste of food is not to so new and yet we aren’t changing, so why don’t you try it take on the 2 day meat free challenge #2daychallenge.