Bivo and meat consumption
In this post we try to provide our point of view on a topic which we care about: the consumption of meat in the current food model.
We believe that it is very important that our society will decrease its consumption of food of animal origin, adopting a type of nutrition based more on plant food.
In particular, consumption of animal meat has a series of negative effects, both on health and on the environment.
It’s often talked about the negative effects that an excessive consumption of meat cause on people’s health: the issue in the last years has been highlighted by the media.
On the other hand, there is still reluctance to speak out about the environmental effects that our food model produces.
It has been widely and scientifically demonstrated that animal meat production is absolutely the most important factor on the emission of greenhouse gasses (exactly, the number one). In our opinion, those evidences have not been emphasized enough and many people still don’t know what the reality is. Meat production is also cause of biodiversity loss, water pollution and deforestation.
Animal meat production is extremely inefficient: it is necessary to consume large quantity of electric energy, animal feed, land, water and in general economic and environmental resources to produce it.
At the same time, the yield in nutritional terms considering the the output is very low, relatively to the input used. All of this creates a factual and undeniable situation: the current food model is scientifically unsustainable.
We want to avoid to dwell upon ethical considerations about the situation in which we breed animals. Again, it is clear to everybody that to sustain the current level of animal meat consumption, often animals are forced to live in hellish conditions.
We specify that in any case we do not want to condemn the consumption of meat in itself. We believe that freedom is really the most important value of all, and everybody should be free to eat whatever she wants. We believe that who consume meat should do it consciously; in our opinion meat should be consumed rarely and only if it is high quality meat. In order to make this happen, we need to spread the awareness among all the people on what are the effects of our nutritional choices and on what we are really eating. People need to understand that, in order to produce high quality meat, the overall quantity of meat produced has necessarily to decrease. Meat should cost more than what we are used to: think about how much resources we need to breed an animal in a healthy and natural fashion; it is normal that meat has a high cost. We repeat, if meat costs less there is a single explanation: it is not high quality meat.
Bivo was born with in mind a different and sustainable food model. Bivo is food produced from natural ingredients of plant origin. Food like Bivo can make a concrete contribution towards a better food model, more sustainable and efficient for everybody.
LAUDAMUS VETERES, SED NOSTRI UTEMUR ANNIS – Ovid
PS: among the many sources at disposal to support the evidences which have been mentioned in this post, we suggest you to read the 2006 FAO report “Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options”, and to watch documentaries such as “Meat the Truth” of 2007 and “Cowspiracy” of 2014.
