*Editor’s note: This year, World Meat-Free Day is June 12, 2017. 

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June 13th is World Meat-Free Day.

It’s a simple aim: to encourage people to experiment with taking a day off from eating meat, with the long term view of gradually reducing overall meat consumption—to help the sustainability of the planet as well as our own personal health.

When one person forgoes meat for just one meal, the planet is spared enough carbon emissions to boil a kettle 388 times, plus the daily water usage of nine people.

That’s quite a saving for one person and one meal—just imagine the cumulative savings made if we reduced meat consumption en mass.

Well, we don’t have to imagine it. World Meat Free Day has produced a nifty little sustainability calculator that tells us precisely the effect we can have:

One person going meat free three times a week saves the equivalent of 26.7 days of personal water use and the carbon equivalent of boiling 1165.2 kettles.

Five people going meat-free twice a week saves 88.9 days of personal water use and the carbon equivalent of boiling 3883.9 kettles.

100 people going meat-free twice a week saves 1778.7 days of personal water use and the GWP (Global Warming Potential) equivalent of driving a bus for 3,957.2 kilometers.

 1000 people going meat-free twice a week saves 6.2 years of personal water use and the GWP equivalent of driving a car for 19,261.2 kilometers.

We could go on and on with the permutations, but the message is clear: meat consumption is a critical factor in environmental sustainability.

And with experts predicting a 30 percent increase of the world’s population to over nine billion people by 2050, we’re looking at an associated increase in meat production that could reach 200 million tonnes—unless we change our dietary requirements.

Because producers aren’t likely to reduce output unless the demand drops.

Let’s think about reducing the demand.

For those who, at this point, can’t possibly consider becoming vegetarian or vegan, reducing meat intake is no great hardship. This site alone is littered with delicious meat-free recipes that will satisfy even the heartiest of appetites.

So why not search through our recipes and give #WorldMeatFreeDay a go?

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Relephant:

21 Facts You Don’t Want to Know if You Eat Meat.

Here’s Another Big Reason to Quit Eating Meat.

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Author: Hilda Carroll

Image: hobvias sudoneighm/Flickr

Editors: Caitlin Oriel; Renée Picard