We have already discussed about sustainable life and how to achieve it. Here in this article, we shall look deeply down to how sustainable diet help in attaining sustainable life and what is the role of livestock in sustainability. We will look into the pros and cons of livestock in detail.
A sustainable life can help us attain environment sustainability. When we were discussing the different aspects of sustainable life we came across the fact of sustainable diet. Let us see how we can sustainable life is achieved with the help of diet.
When we are talking about sustainable diet, it is mandatory that we go through the same heads which we have already discussed in detail. As the article demands for it, we will explain what is sustainability, definition of sustainable energy, and what sustainable life is, crisply so that a new person to our website, who has not seen our other articles can understand it clearly.
What is sustainability and definition of sustainable energy?
Sustainability means the ability to be maintained at a certain level, according to Oxford dictionary. That is a thing is said to be sustainable when it is keeping up the same level even on continuous use of it. It never gets depleted on use is the exact conveyed meaning
Sustainable energy means that energy which doesn’t get exhausted on continuous use and remain the same for future. The best example of sustainable energy is: solar energy, wind energy etc. Definition of sustainable energy: “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”, according to Charles. F. Kutscher.
What is sustainable life
Sustainable life is a life that focuses on minimal usage of the resources of the Earth and also causing less damage to the environment. Those who practices sustainable life will have a less wastage life, or moreover a zero-waste live. Practising minimalism is the underlying factor of sustainable life.
Definition of sustainable life: according to Lester R. Brown, sustainable living in the twenty-first century is “shifting to a renewable energy-based, reuse/recycle economy with a diversified transport system”.
What is sustainable diet
We have come across sustainability, sustainable energy and life also and now on the topic, sustainable diet. Those who have gone through the above would have understood that the bottom line of all is that which are sustainable will have no harm on the environment and will be available always. Hence sustainable diet is also having the feature of less effect on environment and food supply and besides being healthy.
Definition of sustainable diet: “Sustainable Diets are those diets with low environmental impacts which contribute to food and nutrition security and to healthy life for present and future generations. Sustainable diets are protective and respectful of biodiversity and ecosystems, culturally acceptable, accessible, economically fair and affordable; nutritionally adequate, safe and healthy; while optimizing natural and human resources.” {https://www.fao.org/3/i3004e/i3004e.pdf}
The definition itself is so understandable. It clearly communicates that it should:
- Have low environmental impacts
- Provide good nutrition
- Provide healthy life
- Protects the ecosystem
- Be economical
It is always a question that whether we have thought of any of the aspects discussed above. To be honest, I haven’t unless and until I started studying about nature, environment and its well-being. Now let us see the aspects of sustainable diet, and what it includes.
Plant based diet are considered sustainable, is the first and foremost aspect of it. Vegetarian food is more sustainable food as the animal-based diet have heavy impacts on the environment. There is no given study or proof that how much animal or non-veg food intake can determine that it is sustainable or not.
Preventing wastage of food is another way to be sustainable. Wastage of food can lead to landfill to a certain level. When that doesn’t happen sustainable can be achieved to a certain level. Another aspect is making your own food, meaning cultivating what you need.
Initially in the introduction we mentioned that livestock is being discussed here in this article. It would have brought in the relevance of livestock here, in your mind at least. It is learned that livestock releases more greenhouse gases and affect the environment so harshly and also pave way for climate change. Coming back to sustainable diet, it buttresses our obligation towards environment. Concentrating on fruits and vegetables, less consumption of meat and fish, thereby creating less wastage and protect the environment.
Advantages of sustainable diet
- Livestock produces 14 percent of the total greenhouse gas emission. Depending on livestock for food ends in more production and thus resulting in more gas emission. While switching on to sustainable diet, dependency on meat reduces which inversely reduces the livestock and green house gas emission.
- Dependency on fish all over the world is increasing which has led to the extinction of several species and has affected the ecosystem as well. When we start concentrating on sustainable diet, we will have less fish.
- Health is another advantage. Depending on sustainable life gives you good health and nutrition. The recent studies prove that neglection of fruits and vegetables on diet have started taking lives and also obesity have started dominating the World.
- Livestock requires a lot of land and lot of trees have been cut for their breeding. When the consumption of livestock declines, automatically the land requirement will also be less. It saves a lot of trees and deforestation doesn’t happen.
- As discussed earlier, there are lot of species extinct as the result of man depending too much on meat and fish. Along with that there are lot of endangered species as well, which will be saved when the whole or the majority of the population switches to sustainable diet.
- Cultivation of cattle and livestock also contaminates water to a great extent causing water pollution. The decline on the cultivation will also bring in considerable reduction in water pollution.
- When we switch to sustainable diet, we concentrate on foods that are not processed and also sustainable diet means we depend on food that are produced with less fertilizers and chemicals.
- Sustainable diet gives us a healthy world and also a healthy future generation. That’s why it is becoming ‘sustainable’.
Since we were discussing about sustainable diet, we were put putting light on diet and thus didn’t emphasize on farming. Since we were talking so much about livestock, we shall see the livestock as well.
What is livestock?
Livestock is taming and growing animals to produce work and products such as milk, meat, eggs, wool, leather, fertilizers and the like. it includes domesticating of only animals like goat, cow, sheep, pig etc. According to United States Agriculture department, categorizes red meat only as livestock and not chicken and fish. And this livestock, emits around 15% of the world’s greenhouse gases.
Livestock is a part of the agricultural industry and is considered the most fastest growing sector. Livestock farming is not just limited to the above-mentioned animals but also extends to bees, rabbits, mules, donkeys etc.
Conclusion
Sustainable living is also known as zero-life living. Anything can be sustainable, be it living, food, travel etc. Sustainability is very important as the resources on our planet is depleting and we are getting exhausted. Even there is change in the climate and now we live on an unpredictable scenario. Thus sustainable living on this planet Earth is of high significance as we do not have a replacement for our planet!
