This week is the Dutch week of meatless meals. This week is organised by Isabel of the Hippe Vegetarier, to create consciousness about meat consumption. We like this initiative and  therefore we will join the challenge. The past year people have been eating less meat, and there are more people who turned vegetarian or vegan, which is very good already! Vegetarian people do not eat meat, and in addition to not eating meat vegans do not eat or drink animal products like milk or egg. Also there are people who sometimes do not eat meat, those people are called: flexitarians. In the Netherlands, about 90% do not eat meat for at least once a week.

Health
In meat there are nutrients that we people need, like proteins, iron, vitamin B12 and vitamin D. However, you can get these nutrients by eating something different than meat, like egg, dairy, soybeans, nuts or legumes. These products also contain nutrients that are important and healthy for your body. Next to that, most meats contain a lot of saturated fats and salt. Too much of this can cause chronic illnesses on the long term, like heart diseases or diabetes type 2.

Sustainability
Eating meat is also bad for the environment. A cow needs a lot of food and water, to get more food for the animals there need to be more plantations. These plantations are made in South-America, by cutting of the trees in the forest. Cattle industry is also bad for other organism like plants, insects and fish. This is caused by the manure that is produced which contains different harmful fabrics like, ammonia and methane.

What can help?
The things that are described above may sound very negative however there can be a solution. By only eating less meat you have a positive influence on everything! It does not mean that you can not eat meat at all, but try to create one or two days of no meat a week. If more people are doing this on long-term: Less cows are being bred, so there is less food needed and this leads to less cattle industry.

Meat substitutes
Meat contains nutrients that are important for the body. To get these nutrients when eating less meat, you can choose to eat meat substitutes. Like discussed before you can eat eggs, legumes and nuts as healthy meat substitutes. Furthermore, it is important to get enough vitamin B1, B12, protein and iron. Vitamin B12 is mainly is dairy and egg. Vegans can take vitamin B12 pills, so they get the vitamins.  

We will be eating vegetarian all week. To show how we tackle this, we share vlogs everyday at 14 PM. Stay tuned!