Eat less meat

Hi ALL,
I have no intention of becoming a vegetarian, however my wife and I have been researching our health now for some years and we are changing the way we eat. As you are probably aware "it is what we eat that determines our health and our ability to ward off disease" With this in mind we would not put used dirty oil in our brand new car for it' 10,000klm service , so why feed our body junk.
In the last few years I have put on a gradual amount of weight. Don't get me wrong..I'm not obese and Jennifer loves me being cuddly...but I do know that I need to trim it a little. I have gone from an active job working 8-10 hours a day to sitting behind a desk and computer. So this has not helped my 'spread' We walk daily for at least 40 minutes, but still I need to control my weight.

The answer has to be in what we eat.
My research tells me that I must consume more plant-based foods and fewer meat- based ones.But I love my meat! My typical day would be a cereal with milk for breakfast, sweat biscuits or cake for mid-morning, a good hearty lunch, usually deep fried, from a snack bar.During the course of the day I would drink a large amount of flavoured milk with probably a scary amount of sugar added. The evening meal was based around 2 or 3 vegetables with a good sized portion of meat like steak or chicken. Rarely would I have fish. And to top this all off....3 glasses of good red wine.

Whilst looking at my diet and health in general I have discovered some facts that I would like to share with you here.

• There are 10 animals raised for food every year for each person on this planet. That's 60 billion.
• By 2050that consumption will increase to 120 billion.
• To grow grain for food, you expend 9.2kj of energy to yield only 4.2kj of protein. however if you process that grain for animal feed, and add to that the animal's other requirements- land use, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, machinery, transport, antibiotics and last but not least water- you're responsible for 167kj of energy to get that same 4.2kj of protein.
  

Make you think, Doesn't it.
We are going around this in reverse.

But back to my change in eating habits.
Meat is not a part of our evening meal anymore.
I have seen an improvement in my health because of it and I am losing weight.
We are eating more plant-based foods and loving it.
We may eat meat at our weekly restaurant outing but that's all, So we are not strict-vegetarian.

I trust this has given you something to think about.

Till next time
Talk soon

FrankW