9/14 The Declining Consumption of Meat
Last night I read the most gratifying article from VegNews online. It was an article talking about why for the first time since World War II, meat consumption is on a steady decline. The numbers are actually staggering. According to Paul Shapiro of VegNews, over the last five years, meat consumption has dropped by 12.2 percent.
It didn’t sound like reason enough to plan a vegan soiree to celebrate until I read this, “During that same time period, the US population grew by millions, yet because of this drop in per capita meat consumption, we’ve been raising and killing several hundred million fewer farm animals each year, amounting to billions of fewer animals enduring inhumane factory farming practices than would be expected given historical trends.”
Put into perspective, that is truly unbelievable.
The thing I find so phenomenal about the declining consumption of meat, is that according to a national poll completed last year, the average number of vegetarians has remained relatively unchanged at 5%. According to Shapiro, “The same poll found that a whopping 16 percent of people now eat vegetarian more than half the time. In other words, take 50 million people and put them on a so-called “flexitarian” diet, and the shrinking figures for meat consumption start making sense.”
This means that it is not just a dedicated group of vegans or an active and outspoken group of vegetarians leading the charge. It is every single person that has tried a Meatless Monday or a new veg recipe. Every single time someone went for the marinara sauce or the veggie burger instead of a meaty counterpart, it has made an enormous impact on several hundred million animals that were spared from becoming our meals.
The ripple effect this has generated has positively impacted not just the animals, but our environment and our own bodies, simply because we made a different choice that day. It didn’t even have to be a choice that affected all the rest of our days, just that 
one.
I think that is astonishing. Where else in our lives do we have a recurring opportunity, several times a day to save the life of a living , feeling thing simply by choosing a vegetarian or vegan entree?
Reading an article like this makes me feel ecstatic and proud. I am proud that I am willing to try and it makes me proud of everyone for trying too. Our collective choices are adding up to create measurable, undeniable, positive changes for all of us to experience and enjoy. Keep it up my friends. We are doing it, one step, one meal at a time.
Have a delicious day.
Here is the link to article in its entirety. Why US Meat Consumption is Falling
Images taken at SASHA Farm Animal Sanctuary by S. Duquet
Tags: compassionate eating, meat consumption declining, Meatless Monday, Paul Shapiro, plant based diet, vegan wannabe, VegNews
