Thursday 17 April 2008

Consequences of biofuels and "the food crunch"

I've just read George Monbiot's article about global food shortages and biofuels, which follows on very eloquently from the article on the Biofuels demo we did at Ruth Kellys office on Tuesday this week.
Here's a link to his article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/15/food.biofuels

He's basically saying, there are already food shortages in the world at this point in history where we are now obligating all drivers in the UK to have a 2.5% biofuel mix in their tanks. It's only going to get worse. We should all go vegan, but he can't advocate that because from the sound of it he's not kicked his meat addiction or more likely from what he says he's not figured out how to be a healthy vegan.

Whilst I respect his honesty about his own diet most of us could at least reduce the amount of meat and dairy in our lives. I've been veggie for years, but I struggle with my cheese and chocolate addictions that keep me away from veganism. Having said that, some of the time I eat dairy products because I'm eating processed food that has things like whey in it. It's what I call unnecessary non-veganism, I think it's caused by the dairy industry needing something to do with their by-products and nothing to do with the food product being any better for having whey in it. So if we avoid processed food, eat more fruit and less cake, that's a step towards veganisim and lower carbon emissions. There's not enough public debate about the impact of our food habits on climate change, it's time for some more information on the real cost of our food.

We could all be more vegan without actually being completely vegan and we could be healthier for it.
I guess it's time for some recipes........................

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