• Question: Will we eventually have to stop eating meat?

    Asked by anon-232570 to Mark, Liam, Laura, Kasia, Gina, Felix on 19 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Mark Johnson

      Mark Johnson answered on 19 Nov 2019:

      I don’t know if we’ll ever need to totally give up eating meat, but reducing how much meat we consume would be great for the environment. Unfortunately, producing red meat (like beef) can be very damaging for the environment, because it requires a lot of land and releases huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. I really enjoy burgers and steak, but I’m trying to reduce how much I eat to look after the planet a little bit 🙂

    • Photo: Liam Gaffney

      Liam Gaffney answered on 19 Nov 2019:

      I don’t think we will stop completely, but we do eat too much meat in this country. The diet of our very late ancestors only had meat once a week or so when a hunt was successful, the rest of the time was fruit and vegetables, so we don’t need it to survive. Also, vegetarians and vegans still manage to be healthy and even some top athletes perform without meat.

      The big issue is of course the environmental impact of large scale farming of animals. This could easily be sustainable if it was much smaller and wouldn’t impact greenhouse emissions or cause deforestation like it is doing now. We just have to be prepared to pay a little bit more for our meat and eat less of it!

    • Photo: Laura Sinclair

      Laura Sinclair answered on 19 Nov 2019:

      That’s an interesting question, more and more meat-like products are being grown in the lab. So if it tastes like meat and has the nutrition of meat, do we need to farm and kill animals?

      Beef is a huge source of carbon emissions, huge parts of the Amazon are being cut down to make space for cows and their food. The current rate of meat (and dairy) consumption is not sustainable.

    • Photo: Felix Warren

      Felix Warren answered on 19 Nov 2019:

      In a ideal world we would drop meat from our diet and eat efficient foods that are good for the environment and help feed the most people. Buutt meat tends to taste good and makes up a large portion of our favourite foods. Many scientists are looking into meat alternatives such as lab grown meat.

    • Photo: Kasia Clarke

      Kasia Clarke answered on 20 Nov 2019: last edited 20 Nov 2019 8:55 pm

      I think eventually, not eating meat will become the norm. There are already meat-free days in cafeterias nearby, and so many more choices of vegetarian and vegan alternatives than there were 5 or 10 years ago so I don’t think it will be long before meat-free diets or lab-grown meats are the typical diet for everyone. I think younger generations are becoming far more conscious of our health and our responsibility to the environment which will further the meat-free trend over time.

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