Eating meat

[nwhyte]

Ian is sceptical about the prospects that people might choose to have a vegetarian meal once a week for the sake of fighting global warming. I am not so sure. I first heard this idea a few months ago from the former Dutch liberal party leader Lousewies van der Laan, who is now a UN consultant on environmental issues. Then last weekend in Bled I was

Comments

[white_hart]

I posted a poll about this a couple of years ago (and in fact, you were one of the few people to say that you never had a main meal that didn't contain meat or fish). We have always eaten a mixture of meat and vegetarian meals, mostly because we like the variety.

Given rising food prices, I would think that cost alone might push people into eating less meat.

[nwhyte]

Yep, I've certainly changed my own habits since then, though I couldn't put a precise date on it! I wonder if your poll would show a significant shift if you did it again?

[white_hart]

I'm certainly tempted to post another one in the light of the current recommendations.

[applez]

Please do - I believe I'm eating more meat since then, actually. ;-)

[bopeepsheep]

My frequency of vegetarian meals has gone up from 1-3 per week in 2006 (thanks to white_hart's poll!) to 3-5 per week in 2008. Which is a combination of 'lunch at work', 'growing my own vegetables', and 'smallclanger likes cauliflower cheese now'. :D

[redfiona99]

While my childhood memories are very vague, along with Schuessel being the silly man in the bow tie, I think he's actually a vegetarian, but I could have got him confused with someone else.

Also, you'd be amazed the number of people who already have a vegetarian meal once a week, pizza for instance.

[nwhyte]

Schüssel certainly was the guy with the bow tie (though he seems to have dropped that in recent years). But I can't find any record of his being formally vegetarian - and what he said last weekend was certainly more on the lines of giving up meat once a week rather than giving it up altogether

[redfiona99]

I do dread to think who I've confused him with. Possibly Guido thingy with the silly car. I definitely have vegetarian appended to a politician who does something silly/unusual.

[rozk]

I have always thought that arguing for everyone cutting back on meat would be far more productive than telling everyone that they were bad if they did not give it up altogether. The real problem for the world is the massive casual consumption of meat in snacks.

[webcowgirl]

I am imagining the lack of impact of people in Europe cutting down their meat consumption as compared to the huge rise in meat consumption in China and kind of laughing - they may get people to go for it here but I don't see Europeans being able to change the situation with global warming by doing this. No Chinese participation, no progress. (Normally I'd say this about India too but I have the idea they eat less meat there.)

[inuitmonster]

I bet, though, that the huge rise in consumption in China and India is like the Indian and Chinese "huge rise" in oil production - they are still way behind what the West consumes, both on an absolute and per capita basis.

Not that I have actually checked figures or anything.

[webcowgirl]

My recollection is that there absolute production of carbon is now higher than any country in the world. Sure, per capita it's small - but it's _the largest in the world_.

No idea how the meat consumption thing is going in China on a per-country basis, though.