How I Went From All Meat To No Meat & You Can Too
It's a great way to take Climate Action
If you want to take Climate Action, the easiest thing you can do is vote for politicians that will take Climate Action. Individual climate action is needed, but systematic change is what will make the most impact. Every election from now on is a climate election.
Use your vote as a climate vote.
After that, reducing or eliminating meat & dairy from your diet is a great way to take individual climate action. Here’s how I did it. Maybe it will help you to do it too.
I didn’t go cold turkey. Like many Irish people, I grew up eating meat for 2 or 3 meals a day. Breakfast cereal and jam sandwiches in primary school were the only dishes where meat wasn’t automatically involved. Despite this lifetime habit, 7 years ago at the age of thirty-five, I started weaning myself off meat.
I had been recently introduced to the bestselling book How Not To Die by Dr. Michael Greger. In it, he describes how a whole food plant based diet can be leveraged to massively reduce the risks of contracting most major diseases, backed by a wealth of scientific analysis, which is constantly updated on his website nutritionfacts.org. The year before, the WHO had classified processed meat as a carcinogen, which had come as a shock to me, having eaten ham sandwiches for lunch for at least 2 decades, not to mention all the fry-ups. Dr. Greger’s book gave me the final push I needed to try reducing my meat intake.
I started by slowly removing meat from the food I ate at home. Chickpeas came to my rescue by replacing the consistency of meat in a meal. I began to love peas. Sooner rather than later, I was experimenting with all sorts of vegetables & food that I didn’t even know existed months previous. Hello avocado, quinoa, & romanesco!
I substituted where possible, buying meat free slices to replace the ham in sandwiches, bean burgers and Quorn fillets instead of beef and chicken. Granola with nuts, seeds, and soya yogurt was my new breakfast. Meals eaten out became meat treats, but after 8 months, my eye started to wander to the vegetarian & vegan items on a menu, which had been an undiscovered country for me. I started experiencing all new tastes and flavours outside of burgers, sandwiches and Sunday roasts. The end of the year arrived, and I decided on a New Year’s resolution to stop eating meat entirely for a month. I’m still going 7+ years later.
It was hard at the start. I craved rasher sandwiches and hot chicken rolls. Most convenience food contains meat, be that meal-deal sandwiches or fast food, and replacing them meant more planning and not giving in to temptation. I relied a lot on cereal bars and protein bars, I still do, but after a while you find the least bad ones (like PhD Smart Plant & nakd bars).
Life becomes a lot easier once you discover falafels!
The first couple of Christmases were tough but the longer you go without eating meat, the investor bias kicks in and your no-meat streak motivates you to stay the course, at least it did for me. Then, during my third meat-free Christmas, something happened that shocked me. I got the smell of the turkey and ham cooking, and I was repulsed by it. I realised that my body was done with craving meat. When the smell of cooked meat makes you sick, it’s a lot easier not to eat it!
Aside from the internal battle between my will-power & determination versus craving & convenience, social and familial pressure was also an unfortunate hurdle that needed clearing, repeatedly. The first question you always get asked is a shocked why, the second is about protein.
Regarding the why, health grounds used to be my answer. Now, I can also add Climate Action to my reasons. Meat by far produces the most greenhouse gas emissions compared to other foods. The 6th IPCC report states that drastic reduction in emissions is needed within this decade if we have a chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees, and not eating meat will help reduce the emissions from farming & land use. The UK’s Climate Change Committee recommends a 20% reduction in meat & dairy intake by 2030, increasing to 35% by 2050. The changes we make to emissions in this decade will control how bad it is going to be later in the century.
Image: UN Food and Climate Change
Regarding protein, food such as tofu, seitan, lentils, beans, nuts, and the reliable pea are all great sources of protein. For weight-training, vegan protein power is an easy substitute too.
Having answers to these question doesn’t automatically take away the difficulty, unfortunately. Some people feel challenged by your decisions about your diet, as if they in some way reflect on or are judgements on their own, especially at gatherings. This is where you need to be clear with yourself about your reasons for going meat-free.
For me it started out as a health decision, so I could approach any difficult conversations or confrontations by saying I want to try to be healthier. Nowadays, given how important it is to take Climate Action, I reply by saying that reducing or eliminating meat is a great way to take Climate Action. It also acts as a possible segue into a conversation about the Climate Emergency that is focussed on Climate Action rather than climate despair.
Ten years ago, I would have laughed, scoffed, and got annoyed at anyone who asked me about not eating meat, it was part of my identity as an Irish person. If I can give up meat, anyone can, including you.
Going meat-free is a challenge, but it is not an impossible mission. My advice is to take it slow, make incremental changes, and before you know it, you won’t have as much of an appetite for meat any more. This has the double benefit of being good for you and good for the planet.
Image: Cow Stare, November 2020.