i knew i loved Ghent

[Guest guest]

MEAT-FREE THURSDAYS

In Belgium, the small city of Ghent, with its cyclists, winding canals

and towering spires, has declared every Thursday a day free of meat,

fish, and shellfish – “Donderdag – Veggie Dagâ€, as they say in

Flemish, making it the first community in the world to do so.

 

Each Thursday, every restaurant and canteen will offer at least one

vegetarian dish, and some will go fully vegetarian. Starting in

September, the city's schools will make a meat-free meal the default

option on Thursdays, unless parents insist on their children having

meat, and at least one hospital wants to join in.

 

And while many of Ghent’s burghers will doubtless still enjoy their

burgers, the city is encouraging people to embrace the change by

distributing 90,000 maps listing the best places to eat a meat-free

diet, along with recipe booklets and food samples.

 

In America, The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in

Baltimore is spearheading a " meatless Mondays " campaign with 28 other

public health schools, running outreach programs to promote a meat-

free start to the week. In England, Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono, Richard

Branson, Bryan Adams, Sheryl Crow, and other celebrities have just

launched a campaign for Meat-Free Mondays.

 

Might this be the beginning of a critical mass in public awareness

about how harmful the meat industry is to the global environment? We

are all familiar with how we should be walking, cycling and taking the

bus instead of driving, and rightly so, since transport produces 14%

of the world’s greenhouse gases.

 

The world’s livestock industry, however, produces 18% of the emissions

– more than all the world’s transport. It does so because of the

constant burping of methane by cows, the nitrous oxide emissions from

fertilizers and manure, the natural gas that is needed to make the

fertilizers, and the destruction of tropical rainforests to raise

cattle and grow soybeans to feed them.

 

If the animals are raised locally, organically, and are grass-fed on

pasture instead of being fed grain in an intensive feedlot, the impact

is significantly less – and the health disadvantages fewer - so there

is a way out for meat-lovers.

 

 

In addition to its climate impact, raising meat – and beef in

particular – uses vast quantities of water. David Pimentel of Cornell

University has calculated that each kilogram of beef requires an

incredible 100,000 litres, or 714 bathtubs full of water. Ponder that,

the next time you save water while showering or brushing your teeth.

 

And yet at most environmental gatherings, if there’s meat on the menu,

most people still chow down on it.

 

You might have thought that the horrible cruelty of factory farming

would persuade people to stop eating meat – but not so. In the US,

meat consumption has risen from 63 kg per person a year in the 1950s

to 126 kg per person today. In Canada it’s 97 kg per person, per year

– requiring 69,000 bathtubs full of water to raise it.

 

There are also the health arguments. William Castelli, MD, Medical at the Framingham Cardiovascular Institute, says that a low

fat plant-based diet would lower the heart-attack rate by some 85%,

and the cancer rate by 60%.

 

The China Study, which found 8,000 links between diet and disease,

found that those who ate the most plant-based food were the

healthiest, while those who ate the most animal-based food got the

most chronic diseases. The greatest benefits came to those who ate the

greatest variety of plant food, with the least heating, salting and

processing.

 

Eating meat is also associated with obesity, probably because it

increases insulin levels, which may cause a hormonal response that

increases body growth - meat-eaters have three times the obesity rate

of vegetarians, and nine times that of vegans. It is very rare to see

a vegetarian with a pot belly.

 

Turning the data about the benefits of vegetarian and vegan food into

public policy has always been a challenge, however – until Ghent

showed the way forward. Which city will be the first in North America

to follow?

 

The larger food agenda is slowly making its way into policy.

Copenhagen is pursuing the goal that by 2015, 20% of the food consumed

in the city will be organic – 80% in municipal institutions.

 

The Swedish city of Växjö, which reduced its carbon footprint by 32%

between 1993 and 2007 and is chasing 50% by 2010 and 70% by 2025, en-

route to being a fossil-fuel-free city, is increasing the purchase of

ecological foodstuffs for municipal institutions to 25% in 2010. They

have also set a goal that 30% of the surrounding farmland should be

managed ecologically by 2015.

 

In North America, Berkeley has included a goal in its Climate Action

Plan that by 2050, “the majority of food consumed in the city is

produced locally – i.e. within a few hundred milesâ€, and it has

matched this with 20 actions, including public education about the

merits of vegetarian and vegan food.

 

We can no longer ignore the impact that meat has on our planet and our

health. Will one of BC’s municipalities - or perhaps the Legislative

Assembly itself – lead the way, and start serving only vegetarian food

one day a week?

 

- Guy Dauncey

 

 

 

 

 

 

" Hobbes: Do you think there's a God? Calvin: Well, SOMEBODY'S out to get me. "

[Guest guest]



<<Turning the data about the benefits of vegetarian and vegan food into public policy has always been a challenge, however – until Ghent showed the way forward. Which city will be the first in North America to follow?>>

 

My guess is Berkeley.

 

Dena

[Guest guest]

>>>> I think it'll be someplace in the middle -- an unexpected

forward-thinking backwater (at least in the opinion of those on the

right and left coasts). A small cosmopolitan place. Oberlin? Bozeman?

Austin? <<<<

 

My money's on somewhere in Vermont.

 

Cheers,

 

Trish