Monday 17th June marks the beginning of World Meat Free Week.
Whilst there may be a lot of focus around the sustainability aspect of world meat free day, there is also a huge nutrition impact. If just one person went meat free for the day they would save themselves a dietary fat reduction equivalent to the weight of 6 teaspoons of butter (based on three meals per day).
As nutritionists we do not discourage the consumption of meat, however it is not essential to eat meat on a daily basis. Incorporating meat free days into your week is one way to reduce your energy and fat intake, and carbon footprint, and therefore your impact on the environment too. The food, labour and land required to produce meat is considerably more than that required to produce plant based foods, so much so that one meat free day would have a carbon saving equivalent to boiling a kettle 388 times – wow - and that’s just from one day!
If you head to the world meat free day official website you can use their sustainability calculator to show the impact just you, or your family or your whole workplace can have on the planet and health. It really is eye opening!
If going completely meat free all the time is not for you, adopting a more 'flexitaran' style diet can also help you reap many health and environment benefits. However if you decide to substitute just one meat containing meal for a meat free meal on Monday, you can eat happy knowing that you are creating a water saving equivalent of 8 days of personal water use. See below for some suggested meat free recipes or head to our recipe page for even more recipe inspiration!
Visit World Meat Free Day and Quorn for more information and don't forget to follow us and WMFW on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for lots of nutrition and wellbeing updates!
