Market

Market

Friday, December 4, 2009

"MEAT FREE DAY"-CAN IT REDUCE GLOBAL WARMING?

Man became a carnivorous creature due to the accident of evolution, though he is not designed to hunt or eat animals. With affluence contributing to a life style based on meat rich diet, food animals became a resource for commercialized industry. To day one can see organized farms that churn out designer animals like cows for beef, pigs for bacon, poultry birds for egg and white meat, turkey birds, shrimps and fish to meet the increasing demands from the affluent consumers who can afford to consume them every day. It is another matter that such a life style also contributed to many health disorders of serious nature. To add to this distortion, intensive farming also contributed to environmental degradation and global warming affecting the very basis of food production. This realization is persuading many denizens to shun meat consumption at least partially, if not in toto.

"By making a simple change in the way you eat, you are taking part in a world changing campaign where what's good for you is also good for the planet," the former Beatle told the Parliament Magazine. "Having one designated meat-free day a week is a meaningful change that everyone can make," he said. "Above all, remember that the future begins with the actions we take now."McCartney is fitting his campaign in Brussels for a "Meat-free Monday" into a European concert tour which starts Wednesday in the German city of Hamburg, where the Beatles began building their fame in the early 1960s.McCartney, a longtime environmental campaigner, told the EU magazine that there is "clear" evidence that meat production is "major contributor" to climate change.World leaders at the upcoming Copenhagen summit on climate change should regard a sustainable food policy as a key part of the fight to curb CO2 emissions, he said."A lower-meat diet could see greenhouse gases reduced by as much as 80 per cent," he said."Western countries currently eat meat at least seven times a week, but using a series of projected world diets, latest reports recommend reducing that to twice or three times a week."Joining McCartney in Brussels will be Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN intergovernmental panel on climate change, and Olivier de Schutter, UN special rapporteur for the right to food.

Relating what is being practiced within the house hold to the potential disaster that awaits the planet if the present trend continues is a difficult task and involvement of reputed personalia can be expected to lend the campaign some respectability and credibility. Meat eating can be a habit forming practice and it requires tremendous will power and firm conviction to shun meat consumption even if it is for just a day in a week. Strong survival instinct of the man may still save this planet and it is a question of time before man adjusts to a world without meat.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

No comments: