Staff from the Housing, Health and Wellbeing team at Newark and Sherwood District Council visited the fair to talk about the benefits of reducing our meat consumption and to tempt us with some samples of delicious vegetable chilli (recipe below) with nachos and cheese. They also gave out additional plant-based recipes to try at home.
The ‘Meat free Monday’ initiative began with Paul McCartney and his family back in 2009 but has risen to become a global movement for change. Reducing your meat intake can have a positive impact on your health, lower carbon dioxide emissions from food and reduce animal suffering. It can help to protect biodiversity, keep staple grain prices lower and benefit the planet generally. We know that animal agriculture creates vast amounts of harmful greenhouse gases, depletes the world’s resources and is a major contributor towards to climate change so reducing your meat intake can make a big difference.
To find out more about this and what sort of difference giving up meat for one day or more can have, head over to their website www.meatfreemondays.com and try out the ‘Impact calculator’. You will find lots of recipes to try and ideas on how you can make simple sustainable choices to help slow climate change, protect the environment and live a healthier life. For a more detailed discussion of the impact of our food choices on the environment, you can also read ‘There Is No Planet B’ by Mike Berners-Lee which has an interesting chapter on food.
Green Southwell 