From inews.co.uk
The CO2 shortage should encourage Britons to reassess their meat consumption and consider adopting a more plant-based diet
This week’s gas crisis has shown exactly why more people need to take veganism seriously.
The UK's carbon dioxide (CO2) shortage prompted fears among meat producers that they would soon have to call a halt to production, putting supplies of pork and poultry at risk.
The rhetoric from the meat industry suggested the farmers would be the ones unfairly affected by the energy crisis, when in fact the animals would suffer the most.
This is because if farmers are unable to slaughter the animals, millions of pigs and chickens are at risk of being culled due to overcrowding and welfare concerns.
“If birds can’t be slaughtered, they must be kept ‘on farm’. Then there’s going to be the potential for welfare issues to arise, so to avoid that flocks can be culled,” the British Poultry Council (BPC) said.
“They can’t enter the food chain, and so then there’s an issue about food waste.”
The RSPCA was extremely concerned by this, and urged the Government to intervene to help prevent animal “suffering on a huge scale”.
The crisis that faced the meat sector, which has been temporarily averted now the Government has struck a multi-million pound deal with a fertiliser plant to restart CO2 production, shows Britons need to seriously consider adopting a vegan diet to reduce meat consumption.
Every year in the UK approximately 2.6 million cattle, 10 million pigs, 14.5 million sheep and lambs, 80 million fish and 950 million birds are slaughtered for human consumption.
Of the millions of pigs sent to slaughter each year, almost 90 per cent are stunned using high concentrations of CO2.
This method, though considered humane, has raised ethical concerns for years.
Tor Bailey, Campaign Manager of Animal Aid, described the practice as “horrendously cruel” as pigs are shown to be in distress when first coming into contact with the gas.
He told i: “Many people are unaware of the horrendously cruel practice of using high CO2 concentrations to stun pigs.
“Studies have shown pigs gasp for air, their airways burning as they squeal, panic and struggle to escape for up to a minute before losing consciousness.
“As a ‘nation of animal lovers’, we cannot continue to condone and financially support this horrifyingly cruel practice. A better solution to this issue is for people to choose a vegan diet and spare animals this unimaginable suffering.”
Last year the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published a report on the welfare of pigs at slaughter, and concluded CO2 stunning was a “serious welfare concern”.
The scientists said: “Exposure to CO2 at high concentrations [defined in their opinion as higher than 80 per cent by volume] is considered a serious welfare concern because it is highly aversive and causes pain, fear, and respiratory distress.”
The EFSA panel recommended replacing CO2 with other gas mixtures that are less aversive.
Additionally, a scientific study conducted by the University of Bristol also found concentrations of more than 30 per cent are highly aversive for pigs.
They concluded pigs endure “moderate to severe respiratory distress” from CO2 stunning as the animals are not rendered unconscious immediately.
Even the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), which released a report on the topic in January, condemned the method saying: “There are longstanding concerns about the negative welfare impacts of high concentration CO2 stunning systems for pigs.”
As a result the director People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) has called on Britons to re-examine their relationship with meat.
Elisa Allen told the i: “The carbon dioxide shortage is an opportunity the UK should seize to re-examine how this ‘animal-loving’ nation slaughters the objects of its affection and to start respecting animals for who they are, rather than for their utility.”
High meat consumption is proven to be bad for the environment, with the industry being the single biggest cause of deforestation globally; contributing to climate change through the emission of greenhouse gases and using up 75 per cent of the world’s agricultural land.
Whereas, if everyone were to eat a plant-based diet, 75 per cent less farm land would be needed – the equivalent to the US, China, Europe and Australia combined.
This is because it takes significantly less land to grow food directly for humans than to feed animals, which humans then eat.
Research suggests making just slight tweaks to our diet, such as going vegan for just one day a week, can have a huge impact on the planet.
By swapping red meat for plant-based meals just once a week, UK greenhouse gas emissions could be cut by 50 million tonnes – the equivalent of taking 16 million cars off the road – and resulting in up to an 8.4 per cent reduction in the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
The analysis, carried out by University of Oxford researcher Joseph Poore, also found switching just one red meat meal to plant-based a week could result in a 23 per cent reduction (eight million hectares) in the UK’s domestic and international farmland use, and a two percent reduction in the UK’s water use – the same as taking 55 fewer showers per person per year.
Eating a vegan diet, even if just once a week, can have huge benefits for the environment and could help reduce the UK’s reliance on CO2 production.
A spokeswoman from The Vegan Society said: “People are often surprised to hear that they can reduce their food-related carbon footprint by up to 50 per cent just by going vegan and cutting out all animal products.
“A vegan diet requires about a third of the land and a third of the water compared to a traditional western diet. We need to think differently about what we eat to save the planet.”
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