From reusable shopping bags to renewable and clean energy sources, experts are giving their suggestions about how to live more sustainable lives and lower our negative impact on the environment.
The major daily change we can make is our diet- food significantly influences our environment and has been a burning topic in the last couple of years.
Plant-based diets aren’t just praised for their significant health advantages, but also because they can help our planet earth.
Joseph Poole, Oxford University’s lead research for comprehensive assessment of farming’s influence on the environment claims that a plant-based diet may be the single best method to decrease our negative effect on the planet.
If you’re considering a plant-based diet yourself, you may start the journey sooner by learning about these 5 amazing advantages of going animal-free in your diet.
Check them out below…
5 Benefits of Plant-Based Diet for the Environment
- Reduced carbon footprint
Carbon is produced and released into the atmosphere during the process of raising land animals or tilling soil to produce crops for feeding them.
EPA claims that this is only 9 percent of the US carbon emissions; however, it’s also emitted through the whole animal agriculture process.
This includes lighting barns, transporting animals, clearing land, etc.
When we stop eating animal products, we can lower our footprint by around 40 percent or a metric ton per year.
- Cleaner water
Water sources are also impacted by animal agriculture. Overuse of pesticides and fertilizers for crop feed makes them seep into the water and leech into streams, rivers, and lakes after rain.
Further on, this contaminates our water. Animal manure, when overfull, can go into clean water and contaminate it with phosphorus and nitrogen.
These two substances produce algal blooms and deplete oxygen in water and end up killing marine animals.
On the other hand, responsibly growing plants to eat can lower the fertilizer runoff problem.
- It saves the habitat of animals & plants
Were you aware that almost 1/3 of the arable land in the world is used for animal agriculture?
This is why animal agriculture leads to deforestation and desertification. This happens when livestock grazing destroys vegetation and contributes to soil erosion.
Both of these phenomena lead to the extinction of species like red pandas, sloths, and orangutans.
When you switch to a plant-based diet, around 260 million acres of land can be restored and 14 trillion gallons of water could be saved yearly.
The land which isn’t proper because of drought or poor quality can be restored prairie land and used as a farm for solar and wind energy and thus, help us in lowering our fossil fuel dependence.
- Healthier soil
FAO notes than 95 percent of the food we eat is directly or indirectly from the first inches of the earth or the topsoil. Adequate management is crucial for growing food long-term and continuing nourishing our population.
On the other hand, animal agriculture impedes the soil maintenance and causes it to degrade. This happens by heavy doses of fertilizers and pesticides, monocropping soy and corn for feed, etc.
This destructive cycle can be reduced if we stop consuming meat and animal products by lowering the usage of harmful chemicals in our soil.
- You support species repopulation
Around 80 percent of deforestated land in the Amazon is now used as a pasture for cattle.
If we’re able to lower the land needed to feed ourselves, we can help restore native forests, natural habitats of endangered species, and prairie land.
Agriculture contributes to habitat loss and it’s one of the major reasons why animals are added to the list of endangered species.
One study showed that global farmland usage can be lowered by 75 percent if we stop eating dairy and meat.
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