The End of the Journey
It has been a long, vegetarian journey…
And this is when the Do One Thing project comes to a close. I spent four weeks avoiding chicken and fish, and while it didn’t immediately pay off, it made me realize that it could eventually be a very beneficial and healthy lifestyle. Instead of making me instantaneously healthy as I first imagined it would, it required time and effort, since I missed eating the meat that was often the easier and tastier solution, but it allowed be to try many different types of food, especially green food, that I wouldn’t have tried otherwise. I still try not to think about all those types of green foods, which most people call vegetables, that I had to eat in order to stay healthy without breaking my diet.
Also, the vegetarian diet saved many chickens from ending up on a plate. By calculations based on my data, if I continued this diet, I would avoid eating about 53 pounds of chicken a year, which can amount to a lot of animal lives saved, especially if others who eat around the same amount of chicken as I do took up a similar diet. It would have even more impact for those who eat all kinds of meat more regularly to give up meat altogether. If all 7.7 billion people on Earth ate chicken as much as I do, and decide to become vegetarian, people would save approximately 408 billion pounds of chicken a year, according to my data.
However, even though this vegetarian diet can save the lives of many animals, I’ve decided that I don’t want to be vegetarian. It might sound selfish or contradictory, but I just can’t give it up. Aside from meat being a huge part of traditional dishes from my culture, it just tastes really good. Although I want to help the planet and reduce greenhouse emissions, there are so many different ways to choose from that don’t involve giving up meat completely. I fully support people who decide to go vegetarian or even vegan, and I hope some of you choose to help the world in that way, but eating less meat, or giving up red meat, which I did years ago, can have an impact too. Anything done to help reduce our ecological footprint helps, no matter how big or small the sacrifice is. A while ago, my parents switched to fully renewable energy in our house, allowing us to use sockets or the washing machine as much as we want without it contributing to global warming. That, in itself, is a lot. I’m not saying that you should continue harmful lifestyles that increase global warming, only that taking small steps is also a victory, and that how many you take is up to you.
