VEGAN
As a business devoted to caring for our planet and all of its inhabitants, we will never sell or promote the use of animal products. Not only is animal agriculture a cruel and dated practice that is now completely unnecessary in many societies, it is also causing profound damage to our environment, our health and the delicate balance of nature’s ecosystems.
Evidence suggests that animal agriculture is one of the leading causes of climate change, responsible for 18% of greenhouse gases, which is more than all transportation worldwide (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2006)! This is unsurprising when you consider that there are around 70 billion animals reared for food globally each year (Lymbery, Phillip. 2013), all producing alarming amounts of methane that will inevitably enter our atmosphere and trap unwanted heat. If we want our children, grandchildren and all future generations to be able to enjoy this planet as we have, we must stop supporting the current system of intensive animal farming practices, it is simply not sustainable. As said in the Ethical Consumer, “A vegan diet is responsible for about half the greenhouse gas emissions of an omnivorous one” (Wexler, J. 2019) and it is just not necessary in this day and age.
Not only is animal agriculture causing significant damage to our environment through greenhouse gases, but it is also exhausting our fresh water supply. 71% of the earth is covered in water, of which only about 3% is fresh water. This is the water we use for pretty much everything; washing, cleaning, flushing the loo, watering the garden, etc. We have become more and more aware of how important it is to conserve water and many of us have been taking steps towards reducing our water usage by having shorter showers and collecting rainwater to water the garden etc. However, it is important to consider the water used in the production of our food too. An astonishing 20-33% of the world’s fresh water supply is used for animal agriculture (Science Direct, 2013). For example, it takes a whopping 1,799 gallons of water to produce just 1 pound of beef and 576 gallons for 1 pound of pork as opposed to just 216 gallons for the equivalent weight of soybeans or 108 gallons for corn (foodtank, 2013). To put it simply, to grow plants we must water them, to produce meat we must give the animals water to drink and also grow and water plants to feed them. Surely it makes more sense to just eat the plants and cut out the middleman!
Using the same logic, it takes a hell of a lot more land to produce animal products than it does to produce plant-based foods. “As the largest land-use system on Earth, the livestock sector occupies 30% of the world’s ice-free surface” (William C. Clark, 2013). Therefore animal agriculture is a huge contributor to deforestation and soil degradation. An acre of land could be used to produce 250 pounds of beef, or the same acre of land could be used to produce 20,000 pounds of potatoes AND 50,000 pounds of tomatoes (ZME Science, 2019). But what about deforestation? Fingers are often pointed towards vegans when the subject of deforestation is brought up, due to the mass production of soy in South America. However, around 75% of soy is grown to produce high-protein animal feed (WWF, 2014)!! Not only this, but unlike most soy in products designed for human consumption, soy produced for animal feed is mostly GM. Now think of all this land used to produce soy and other crops for animal feed and add on top of that all of the land needed to rear the animals themselves. Surely it makes much more sense to simply go directly to the source and eat the plants!
If we want to consume a diet that has a low impact on our environment, it simply cannot include animal products.