What we eat affects everyone's health: World Vegetarian Day October 1st

October 1 is World Vegetarian Day

World Vegetarian Day is observed each year on October 1st.

This kicks of Vegetarian Awareness month.  The focus is timely and imperative. 

Let's face it.  What we eat - and what others eat - effects the long term health of each of us. This is for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is environmental impact.

It has been well documented that: “The food system is responsible for about a third of greenhouse gases,” Michael Pollan told NPR’s Renee Montagne. “It is also responsible for the catastrophic American diet that is leading 50 percent of us to suffer from chronic disease, and that drives up health care costs.”

Factory-farmed beef consumes 33 calories of fossil fuel for every single calorie of meat produced, as well as creating huge amounts of air, soil, and water pollution, and–can–cause serious health problems in those who over-consume. Pollan further states:

25 to 33 percent of climate change gases can be traced to the food system. Another surprise is that we know that diet-related chronic disease is a big deal, but I was surprised, looking at the history of nutrition, that those diseases that we take for granted as what will kill us—heart disease, cancer, other cardiovascular diseases, diabetes—were virtually unknown 150 years ago, before we began eating this way.

Of course, Pollan is referring to the bigger picture of not only over-consumption of meat, but the high incidence of processed foods, fats, and sugar in the modern SAD, or standard American diet.

Yes, those who choose to eat animal products and protein can argue and lobby for an overhaul of the current environmentally-disastrous feedlot system, humane farming, and other shifts of impact. According to the World Resources Institute, more than half of all grain grown in America goes to feed animals and not people; a huge fraction of the petrolieum-based herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers applied to grains plus all agriculture land and water use are put in the service of livestock. Eating lower on the food chain can dramatically effect the use of fossil fuels and water. (Mike Tidwell, Audobon Jan-Feb 2009).

I would never go so far as to say that all of my personal choices, dietary or otherwise, can stand up to the scrutiny of environmental impact. Yet in venues where it undeniably makes a difference and where there are alternatives, it behooves us to examine our habits and make adjustments that can have an effect on sustainability and impact for the present and future health of us all.

World Vegetarian Day was established by the North American Vegetarian Society in 1977 .  Endorsed by the International Vegetarian Union  "To promote the joy, compassion and life-enhancing possibilities of vegetarianism" , World Vegetarian Day  is designed to bring awareness to the ethical, environmental, health and humanitarian benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle.