Recipe
Veganuary, Tasty Foods and Healthy Habits for the New Year
January 9, 2024
Top view set of healthy raw vegetables on the green background with Veganuary message on wooden blocks. Vegetarian and vegan diet. Veganism concept. Sustainable lifestyle, good, real plant-based foods.
It’s the start of a new year, and like everyone else, the We Don’t Waste team has new beginnings, challenges, and goals for ourselves on our minds. This January, we can’t help but think about what challenges we can try to care for our planet—which is how we stumbled onto Veganuary.
Veganuary is a way to encourage people to try veganism for the month of January. Get the name now? We recognize that changing your diet and shopping practices is never easy, and is, frankly, a privilege. It can impact your budget and even how you feel, and it is a great experience to reflect on how you might like to maintain your current food habits or would consider changing them in the future.
If you would like to join us in removing animal products from your diet this month (or maybe even just Meatless Monday) here are some reasons it would be beneficial:
- Vegan diets produce 75% less climate-heating emissions, water pollution, and land use than a carnivorous diet
- According to a report from GRAIN and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, The world’s five biggest meat and dairy producers emit more combined greenhouse gases than ExxonMobil, Shell, or BP, the top three oil production companies
- To support eating meat, we must grow crops to feed said animals. For example, 25lbs of grains are needed to produce 1lb of beef. With there being 75 billion farm animals on the planet for just 8 billion people, that results in us growing an astronomical amount of food to be funneled down to animal feed. Especially considering crops such as lentils and soy produce the same amount of protein as meat such as chicken.
- Communities most affected by climate change are also disproportionately experiencing food insecurity. By reducing our carbon footprint through our own diets we can help mitigate the harm that others experience.
To make this challenge a little bit easier, we’ve got a few recipes to recommend you try out. Like this waste-free bouillon bag that can be the base of your next soup.
Or a carrot-top pesto to go on pasta or use as a dip for carrot chips.
If you’re feeling extra creative, give our Carnitas a try–they aren’t pork-based, but they are made from banana peels and are every bit as delicious. Do you think you’ll give this challenge a try?
