Climate Positive Diet – Belgium’s Ghent leads the way

If you know much about climate change you’ll know that cows and sheep produce a lot of greenhouse gas. In fact a cow can produce around 200 litres of methane a day, and methane has global warming potential 23 times greater than carbon dioxide. To put that into context thats 1.2 tonnes of greenhouse gas a year per cow, a bit over one quarter of the greenhouse gas produced by a car over a year. I once did an audit of a large business that grazed cattle basically to keep grass under control (it was by no means their core business), and the cattle accounted for 10% of their carbon emissions. Needless to say I recommended they switch to grazing kangaroos, which don’t produce methane.

As reported by MX The town of Ghent in Belgium has now declared Thursday a vegetarian day to help reduce carbon emissions. All government departments and schools are banning the consumption of meat on Thursdays.

Now this may seem radical to some, but I believe this is a fantastic “climate positive” initiative. In fact its something we may start in our office – a vegetarian Thursday. Its easy to do, it will save you money, and its good for the environment, and if you eat a lot of meat its good for your health too. A triple win!

And if you do enjoy meat the other days of the week consider kangaroo. Its lean. Its inexpensive. You can buy it in the supermarket, and it tastes delicious. YOu can buy it as a roast, plain, marinated and you can even get kangaroo sausages. My favourite is roast skippy.