By Karl El Haddad
I want to start this article by asking You: What do you do to slow down climate change; especially when it relates to water consumption?
Personally, for the past couple of years, I tried to adopt new sustainable ways of living. Living in Montreal for the past 6 months, my bike is my best friend. I use it to move around the city wherever I go (unless it is -30 degrees Celsius outside). I also support local businesses that switched to environmentally sustainable business models. Surprisingly, I was also able to convince my family in Lebanon to install solar panels and start recycling. I always felt this gratitude feeling that I am helping the planet even if it is on an individual scale.
But my mindset changed drastically after I went to a vegan restaurant in Beirut: I was with friends, and they encouraged me to take a tofu burger. Being a fan of burgers, I was curious to see how different from the actual burger it tastes like. When dinner was served, the waitress looked at me (I was the only non—vegan on the table) and told me: On this table alone, you just saved 165 bath’s water usage. She then proceeded to tell me that we saved 1.25 pound of methane gas; which at first seemed a little amount. But I realized that we are only one table at one restaurant on one night. I then did my research and learned that cows alone produce more greenhouse gases than the entire transportation system.
All the efforts that I thought were doing good to the environment were erased by one burger alone. This is without accounting for all the Lebanese dishes that for the most part incorporate meat and chicken. Just look at what you ate this week and try to calculate the water used for the meat. The numbers are alarming. Sure, reducing cars is a good step towards a sustainable environment, and using solar panels. But a bigger part of the problem is never even mentioned in the news or environmental NGOs campaigns. And to tell you the truth, I will never be vegan. Or at least not in the near future. But at least now I know the repercussion of a simple meal on my surroundings.
Frankly, we will never be able to remove meat and diaries from our nutritional habits. Some don’t actually care, others like the taste, other try to give scientific explanation on how we humans are meant to be carnivores (“food chain”, which is not a sound argument). But as we evolve and as more studies are being done on the topic; we are learning that for example, besides mother’s breast milk, it is unnatural for humans to drink milk. It is proven also that meat is not the best option for human body. So why no one is talking about that? If not for our generation, for the future ones to decrease their unnecessary consumption of livestock. All this is without mentioning the animal agriculture farms that due to overpopulation, are using massive animal cruelty to supply enough food for selective parts of the world. I don’t see any positive outcomes to meat consumption other than happy taste buds. The problem is people’s ignorance about this subject.
