Infographic – A Guide to Sustainable Meat

As part of One Brown Planets goal to help people live a more sustainable lifestyle, we have put together a sustainable meat infographic. We hope that this will help you make better choices when trying to decide what to eat. 

This infographic is not about taste or how to pick the finest choice cuts, it is about the consequences that our food choice has on the sustainability of the planet.

The infographic summarises 3 key parameters. We should all be aware of these when deciding what to eat.

  1. Water Usage – This is a measure of how much water resource is required to produce 1 kg of food. As the planet’s water resources become more and more stressed due to over population and desertification, we need to make more of an effort to reduce our consumption. Already, there are more than 1 billion people without access to potable water, we need to change our habits and try to reduce this statistic.
  2. Carbon Emissions – No-one needs to be told about the concerns of the ever-increasing carbon emissions and the contribution this makes to global warming. Agriculture alone accounts 15% of all carbon emissions worldwide and beef is responsible for 65% of this!
  3. Land Usage – One of the topics never really discussed, is how much land we need to make the food we consume. Around 70% of deforestation in South America occurs as a direct requirement for grazing of cattle.

So, what to eat then? There is so much conflicting evidence around that sometimes it is difficult to make a decision. How do you balance a healthy lifestyle with a healthy planet? Unfortunately, for the meat eaters in this world, the evidence is clear. The redder the meat, the more detrimental it is for the planet and for your health. So have a look at the infographic below and you will notice that the further down the environmental footprint scale you can go, the better the choice for the planet and our health.

Unfortunately, for the meat eaters in this world, the evidence is clear. The more meat we eat, the more impact we have on the planet. It is up to us to decide how much we prioritise the health of the planet over our taste buds.  Like most of what we talk about at One Brown Planet, the most effective thing we can do to help save the planet lie within ourselves and the choices we make. We hope you make some good choices today and start to live a more sustainable lifestyle.

Infographic