Did you know twenty-six percent of our planet’s habitable land is used for farming livestock? Did you also know that thirty-three percent of all cropland is used for livestock production? As the food gap widens, we must find new ways to make more food to feed everyone, and livestock seems to take up an unnecessary amount of space that could be used to grow crops to feed people. 

Most people, myself included up until recently, eat meat very frequently. A McDonald’s burger is super cheap and not the worst thing in the world to eat. This makes it and most fast food burgers good options for most people in America that want a quick meal, and is part of the reason we have such a huge meat market. Eating meat is a part of human culture and most societies, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that until you take a look at the effects livestock farming has on our environment, how much land it takes up, and how unethical it can be. If we want to lessen the food gap and the greenhouse gasses emitted every year, a step we as humans can take is to reduce the amount of meat we eat as a whole. I’m not saying everyone has to become vegetarian, but if everyone reduced their meat consumption to once a week or every other week, the amount of land we could use for other things would benefit us greatly. 

According to the North American Meat Institute, the average male American eats 4.8 ounces of meat every day, while the average woman eats 3.13. In 2017, the US alone produced 52 billion pounds of red meat and 48 billion pounds of poultry. When you take into account the unethical farming practices, a large number of crops and water used to farm livestock, the greenhouse gasses emitted from cows, and the energy used to raise all forms of livestock, it seems like a pretty good idea for everyone to cut back on their meat consumption. Nobody has to give up meat forever; we all just need to eat less of it. Most people assume cutting back on meat means they will not receive enough protein; this is fortunately not true. So many protein alternatives exist; some examples are peanut butter, soy products, dairy products, nuts, and more. 

Changing our eating habits to not eating meat every day would not be very hard to do, and we honestly don’t have to cut all meat out of our daily intake; we can just focus on red meat to start as that is the worst form of meat for our environment and ourselves. I personally decided to cut red meat out of my diet to see what it would be like, and because the way it is mass-produced does not sit right with me, this experience has made me realize that I ate way more red meat than I thought, and I feel better in general now that I don’t eat it. Completely cutting red meat out of my diet has not been as hard as I expected it to be, and I assume most people will be able to reduce their consumption without cutting it out, which would still be a helpful way to help have an impact on this issue. While this is a worldwide issue that is not very straightforward and has many different paths we can take to solve it, I believe that with a little effort from everyone, we can all make a difference.