The Green Impact blog is being handed over to the ACS teams this week! This post is by Fran Bird, Contracts Assistant in Accommodation & Commercial Services. If you or your team would like to contribute to the blog, email greenimpact@sheffield.ac.uk.
Did you know that raising animals for food produces more greenhouse gas emissions than all of the cars, planes, and other forms of transportation combined? In fact, raising animals for food (including land used for grazing and growing feed crops) now uses a staggering 30% of the Earth’s land surface.
Nearly 80% of land deforested in the Amazon is now used as cattle pasture, and in the United States alone, 70% of the grain grown is fed to farmed animals. Imagine how many people we could feed with that food.
By going vegetarian, we can reduce the impact of climate change, rainforest destruction, and pollution, while saving water and other precious resources. Growing crops to feed people rather than animals uses less land, water and other resources. The amount of land needed to produce food for someone following a typical meat-based diet could feed two and half vegetarians, or five vegans.
If going vegetarian sounds impossible to you, try taking it one day at a time. Taking part in Meatless Mondays is a great way to practice eating vegetarian one day a week. It’s a small change, and it can help you stay on track while trying out new foods. Once you get the hang of it, you can add more meatless days each week!
In addition to this, eating according to the seasons helps you enjoy fresh fruit and veg at its seasonal best. That means better value, better taste and a better deal for the planet. Each fruit or vegetable has a prime time when it’s at its seasonal best. That means extra flavour, extra crunch, extra juiciness – all super-fresh and great value. To find out more and to see what fruit and veg is in season now, check out http://eatseasonably.co.uk/.
My Favourite Meatless Monday Meal:
Ingredients
- 800g large potatoes, peeled and cut into thick chips
- Low calorie cooking spray
- 6 plum tomatoes, halved
- 4 Portobello mushrooms, thickly sliced
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 4 eggs
- 1 tbsp dried parsley, to garnish
Method
- Preheat the oven to 220°C/Gas 7.
- Place the chips in a saucepan of lightly salted boiling water and cook for 4-5 minutes. Drain thoroughly and place in a medium-sized shallow baking dish. Spray with low calorie cooking spray and bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes.
- Add the tomatoes and mushrooms to the chips and toss gently to mix. Season well and bake for another 15 minutes, turning occasionally.
- Remove the baking dish from the oven and make four wells in the chip and vegetable mixture. Break an egg into each well, return the dish to the oven and cook for 5-6 minutes or until the eggs are cooked to your liking.
- Garnish with the parsley and serve.