WHAT?
The June challenge >>>
Go meat free!
Go vegan, (or vegetarian, if vegan feels too hard), or vegan ++ (see below) if you are already vegan
WHY?
Tell me more...
Reducing our meat consumption is evidently good for our health and the planet (not to mention our wallets and the poor animals).
The energy needed to produce meat far outweighs the energy needed to produce plants (that we typically then feed the animals with) and plants don't generally fart methane back into our atmosphere!
If you have tons of time to invest in this topic you might want to watch Cowspiracy or Carnage.
If you are time poor, we highly recommend commiting less than 10 minutes of your life to watch this incredibly balanced and well researched video by Kurzgesagt.
HOW?
The basics
- Think about reducing your meat and dairy consumption. Any reduction in your regular meat and dairy consumption is going to have a positive impact on your physical health (think less fat, less time digesting) but also an important impact on the world (and your purse)!
- Go completely vegetarian. Try spending a month without eating any meat, that would be a great achievement. There are some fantasitc veggie cook books and web pages a plenty. Here are a few of our favs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
- Go Vegan. Go on, do it... it's only a month. There are tons of vegan replacements (for butter, milk and even cheese) so in the simplest form you can replace all your normal fare with vegan fare. Here is the Veganuary website to get you in the mood. And a few lovely recipes.
Take it a bit further...
Vegan ++
What if you are already vegan? Firstly, well done! It is a massive comitment, to the animals, to the planet and to yourself. Whatever the reasons you became vegan and have stuck at it, well done.
So, once I am up off the floor placing my hat back on my head, I am saying to you, what can you do to take it one step further?
Maybe there are a few things you have said to yourself it's OK not to worry about, like honey... seriously who cares about bee sick or wine... vegan wine, is there even such a thing. Maybe go all out and do these things.
But more than this, I challenge you to spend some time thinking about the reasons you became a vegan in the first place. If it was due to animal cruelty I challenge you to spend some time this month researching the impact veganism is having on our planet and your body. If you are mainly vegan for environmental reasons I challenge you to look at the impact of the meat indudustry on animal cruely.
I know it might not feel big, but I challenge you this month to bring a new perspective on your veganism.
Good luck!