World Vegan Day or Eat a Kangaroo Day, You Decide.

Just wanted to inform/remind everybody that November 1st is World Vegan Day. And November is World Vegan Month. In response to this, Jason and I have decided to attempt to go vegan for the month of November, which is no easy quest given our love for cheese. I want to challenge you to do the same, if not for the whole month, then at least for the one day? And if not vegan, then maybe just vegetarian? Many of you already know the facts about the connection between factory farm production and the environment. But just in case you don't or you'd like to be reminded, and most of all because I'm trying to motivate myself to lay off the cheese, ( I mean dairy cows are fartin' up the atmosphere too, right?) here are some cold hard facts:

This snippet is taken from Good: http://www.good.is/post/meats_multiplier_effect/

Since 1961 the world’s total meat supply has quadrupled from 71 million tons to 284 tons, and per capita consumption has more than doubled—rising twice as fast in the developing world, according to The New York Times. While American consumption is steady (about eight ounces per day, roughly twice the global average), there is growing concern about the fact that we process—that is grow and kill—10 billion animals a year, accounting for 15 percent of the world’s total. The catch is this: Processing animals is connected to energy use, and reducing meat-eating by 20 percent would have the comparable effect of everyone switching from a standard sedan to a Prius. It all comes back to the carbon footprint, doesn’t it?

Speaking of Priuses and meat, you may have heard about Michael Pollan's comment at the Pop!Tech conference recently. He said, "“A vegan in a Hummer has a lighter carbon footprint than a beef eater in a Prius.” This comment may be catchy, but it's not exactly true. Adam Pasick (http://blogs.reuters.com/adam-pasick/2009/10/26/crunching-the-numbers-on-a-vegan-in-a-hummer/ did some fact checking and it turns out, according to a published paper written by Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin of the University of Chicago, which looked at the relative carbon footprints of plant-based and red-meat diets, that the difference between a heavy meat-eating diet and a vegan diet was about 2 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per person per year. The difference between a Prius and an SUV (they used a Suburban, which gets about the same mileage as a Hummer) was 4.76 tons per year.

Here's another interesting fact: Did you know that the livestock population is expanding at a faster rate than the human population? According to the Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, livestock now outnumber people by more than 3 to 1. http://www.fao.org/ Given how overabundant the human population is, that's a scary thought. I mean I love cows and pigs just as much as the next guy, but I don't love them that much.

But this post is not all doom and gloom. If you think it would just be too hard to give up meat, have no fear! The Australians are here to save the day! Check this out from http://www.popsci.com.au/jaya-jiwatram/article/2008-10/ecological-leap:

Professor Ross Garnaut, a government adviser on climate change, is urging his fellow Aussies to serve kangaroo meat in place of beef or lamb, because the marsupials produce negligible amounts of environmentally damaging methane gas. On the other hand, cattle and sheep, according to Garnaut's 620-page study, produce a considerable amount of methane gas through belching and flatulence, and are among the millions of livestock responsible for approximately 67 percent of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. In order to help the environment, he proposes that Australia, which is one of the world's largest per-capita producers of greenhouse gas emissions, should decrease its cattle and sheep populations by seven million and 36 million respectively, and increase its kangaroo numbers from 34 million to 240 million by 2020. The study cites other benefits, too: kangaroo meat is low in fat and high in protein levels, and the animals survive better in times of drought.

So, now that we all have the facts, the choice is yours: what's it going to be, kale or kangaroo? I'm going with the kale. For one, I've already committed to a vegetarian diet which I am quite satisfied with. In fact, I just had my 5 year Vegetarian anniversary! which I celebrated by eating a double patty burger topped with chili and bacon. No. I didn't.

And the other reason I'm going with Kale?

Why would I want to eat Skippy, the most bad-ass, crime fighting kangaroo of all time?

Not to mention Kanga or Roo!