Its world food day, how does your diet effect world hunger?

"Your money is power, so be aware of the products you're buying and the companies you're supporting to make sure you're helping the companies that are leading the way in sustainability" - Gretchen Bleiler

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The power to reduce your impact on the planet is on your hands. On the 1st of June 2018 Science magazine released a research article titled "Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers" This article details the different impacts of diet choice on environmental and over all food supply. The article goes through five environmental indicators. It looked at 38,700 farms and 1,600 processors, packaging types and retailers. The study found that producers have limits on how they can reduce their impact on te environment but most startlingly they found that even the lowest impact animal agriculture and products exceeded those of vegetable agriculture and products. This article even goes on to suggest that there should be more importance placed on dietary change in order to reduce global impacts of food production.

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This has not been the first article or study or indeed statement that has urged people to move away from animal based products and to move to a plant based diet in order to curb environmental damage. In June 2010 the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) released a report which stated “Impacts from agriculture are expected to increase substantially due to population growth increasing consumption of animal products. Unlike fossil fuels, it is difficult to look for alternatives: people have to eat. A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products.” The author of the report Prof Edgar Hertwich stated “Animal products cause more damage than [producing] construction minerals such as sand or cement, plastics or metals. Biomass and crops for animals are as damaging as [burning] fossil fuels.” The livestock used to create these animal products also consume a large portion of the worlds crops, some 36%* in-fact of the worlds crops go to feed animals that then get slaughtered to produce less calories and protein than they consume. Animal farming takes up 83% of the world’s agricultural land, but delivers only 18% of our calories. A plant-based diet cuts the use of land by 76% and halves the greenhouse gases and other pollution that are caused by food production.*SRC

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There have been study after study produced, published and promoted in an attempt to get people to reduce if not exclude meat and animal products from their diets, most of these have fallen on deaf ears so what has changed since then? Well, not a whole lot. However the latest report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) the world’s leading scientists warned there are just a dozen years in which to keep global warming under 1.5C! After which the effects of drought flood and extreme heat not to mention storm systems will worsen at an ever accelerating rate.

We have just 12 years to stop this!

All images unless otherwise sourced and noted as such are my own. Sourced images are clickable to show their source. My own images are typically taken with my HTC ONE.

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