The First of Many Meatless Mondays


My personal impact habit will be to cut out meat from my meals on Monday. This means that every Monday instead of eating things such as bbq ribs, steak, or even chicken I will instead eat meatless alternatives like pasta or leafy greens. I plan on starting this habit next week and plan on continuing it until January 7th, 2019. 

This habit will allow me to help address my many ethical concerns for the estimated twenty two billion livestock being raised around the world (1) and reduce the estimated 9% of all american greenhouse gas emissions that are emitted while raising livestock (2). One such ethical concern that eating meat often helps to promote is that of factory farms which according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, (also known as the aspca) “ are industrial operations that contain upwards of 95% of all American livestock in inhumane conditions that harm their animals. “ Additionally, there are also tangible health  benefits to reducing the amount of red meat that I consume on a daily basis. For according to a recent Harvard health study, “New data shows substantial [health] benefit[s] [to] eliminating or reducing consumption of red meat and substituting healthier proteins.

However, while this habit may be better for environment and me, it won't be easy. For to transition away from my meat dominant diet by substituting some of my favorite foods with plant alternatives. Although, I feel that this difficulty in the transition can be countered with a support structure of both family and friends to help me overcome any meat temptations or temporary lapses in judgement. 


Thus, by committing to this new habit I can commit to creating a more sustainable world while living a longer and healthier live as a result. 




References 

http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/carbon-footprint-factsheet


https://www.aspca.org/animal-cruelty/farm-animal-welfare


https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/cutting-red-meat-for-a-longer-life


Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 10, 2019 at 1:29 PM

    I noticed you stated you will be incorporating a support structure and using it as a support system to ensure you stick to your goal, in order to raise your cogskill score I would suggest putting in how you will accomplish this.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kid RaiyaJanuary 15, 2019 at 9:57 AM

    I agree that being more conscious about what goes into your system is healthy and a positive decision, but how can you prove that you've cancelled out meat in your life to a random stranger? Are there things that feel different?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mid-point Reflection

As I've reached the midpoint of my personal experiment I feel that its now a valuable time to reflect on the progress that I've made so in adopting a new habit. As such, on this on this third week, I would proudly say that I have succeeded in not eating any meat on Monday. This habit has become easier to stick to overtime as I've gotten used to planning out what I'll eat ahead of time with my parents. If I was to end the experiment now I would most likely be able to easily continue on with this habit as the parental support and my association with Mondays and not eating meat. Additionally, my motivation to reduce carbon footprint by estimated 6.6 ponds of CO2 per meal (1) and decrease my support for industries that inhumanely raise billions of livestock every year (2) has helped to insure that I stick to my habit after the project ends. Also, the fact that my habit only involves not eating a specif food once a week helps to insure that this habit isn't something
Read more

Calculating Impact

Image
1) Reflection on the 2nd week - Describe (IN DETAIL) how your 2nd week went with your behavior to reduce your environmental impact? - What did you do? How did you do it? How often did you do it? As I complete this second week of my environmental habit project I feel that it is necessary to further underscore the numerous ways that cutting meat from your diet will help contribute to reducing my  carbon footprint. For such data will help me commit to sticking to my environmental habit. To start, according to the University of Michigan's Center for Sustainable Systems , creating a four ounce serving of beef, pork, or poultry produces an estimated 6.61 (beef), 1.72 (pork), or 1.26 (poultry) pounds of Carbon Dioxide per serving respectively. As such by simply swapping out beef for pork or poultry alternatives one could save as many as 68.46 pounds of carbon with strictly pork or 74.9 pounds with only poultry. Additionally if one was willing to make the commitment cutting meat
Read more

The Mauling of Meatless Mondays

As this last week of my habit comes to a close I feel that it's now a good time to evaluate my success at sticking to my habit. Over the course of this project I felt that I did a good job of sticking to habit with help from my family and friends. However, there were several notable instances over the course of this project where I did cheat on meatless Mondays. Specifically, Christmas day and the following Monday were instances in which it was impossibly hard to overcome the urge to enjoy holiday meat with family. Although, despite these instances sticking to my habit wasn't too difficult as long as I pre-planned what I was going to eat. While I will return to my meat eating habits, this project has helped me to consider the many environ- mental impacts of the products I use and the habits that I indulge in. Through the opportunity to truly explore how my products are made, I have been able to fully understand the numerous and lasting  ecological effects  of my habit. The ex
Read more