We have a winner! The last 3 litres of Tayport Apple Juice goes to Carmen for her fab plant-based recipe for a Devine Chocolate Mousse (recipe 15 in the photobook above). She told us that she chose this recipe because:
It is so healthy and delicious. Suitable for breakfast, lunch or supper!
A big thank you to all 28 people who contributed their ideas for meat-free dishes to our Tayport PLANT Kitchen competition over the last couple of months. We hope these recipes will inspire us all to shift away from eating so much meat and dairy to a greener and healthier plant-based diet.
We were amazed by the range of reasons people picked a particular dish to share – our favourites were:
My husband Dave and our granddaughter Nianh, who is vegetarian, made it together recently. It was very tasty. I bought all the special ingredients for it so we will definitely make it again. Jennifer
This soup is creamily delicious and even people who don’t like carrots can sometimes like it! In the 1980s when people were demonstrating against Cruise and Pershing missiles all over Europe, we used this recipe to feed friendly demonstrators – easy and cheap to make, can store then dilute, freezes well. Fiona
My veggie friend invited me for tea with her family and knew my favourite dish was Chicken Alfredo. She adapted it and opened my eyes to how delish meat-free meals can be. Auril and Keira
You can read through them all in the collection of recipes here.
And what about our inspiration for the PLANT Kitchen competition? It all started before Christmas with a quote from Joseph Poore:
Reducing meat and dairy in your diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth. It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car, as these only cut greenhouse gas emissions.
He is a researcher at the University of Oxford and made this comment after publishing a new research paper in late 2018 looking into environmental impacts of animal agriculture, which was covered widely in the media at the time. Impressively, he decided to ‘walk the talk’ and gave up eating animal products 4 years ago.
Meat and dairy production comes with a surprisingly high climate change impact – it accounts for 14.5% of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions. That is about the same as the emissions from fuel used by the whole world’s transport combined. Most of those emissions come from the infamous cow burps containing methane, a greenhouse gas more powerful than carbon dioxide. On top of the climate impacts, animal agriculture is also a leading cause of species extinctions, ocean dead zones, water pollution and habitat destruction. So – pretty serious stuff!
In contrast, plant-based food has strikingly lower footprint across the board. For example, while peas and beef are both sources of protein in our diet, even the lowest impact beef is responsible for 6 times more greenhouse gases and 36 times more land.
You can check for carbon emissions from your own favourite foods by using a handy BBC calculator, based on Joseph’s research.
As a bonus, it turns out that letting all that unused grazing land ‘go to seed’ may be a part of the climate change solution. Regeneration of natural forests, peatbogs and wetlands can provide an essential, low-tech sink to draw down and lock up the excess carbon we have already put into the atmosphere. Can’t help having an inspired vision of the Great Caledonian Forest coming back to the Highlands!
We don’t know if it’s our heightened interest of late, or it’s been a particularly prolific time for this kind of news, but another bit of it that arrived as we were launching our competition in January, was the idea of Planetary Health Diet, this time developed by planet-loving medics. Who knew that what’s healthy for the planet is also healthy for us! For Europeans, Planetary Health Diet would mean “eating 77% less red meat and 15 times more nuts and seeds” and similar shifts worldwide “would save at least 11 million people a year from deaths caused by unhealthy food”. Needless to say it would also help tackle world hunger. You can watch a 60 second video summary on Now This website here.
So it looks like for the love of the planet, animals and yourself it may be worth giving meat and dairy a miss on a regular basis. Our Tayport PLANT Kitchen Cookbook has some really yummy ideas for vegan and vegetarian treats which will cater for most needs – from a quick family supper to a showy dinner-party centrepiece!
Other helpful resources:
- Meat Free Mondays. Go meat-free one day a week and follow #MeatFreeMonday for ideas. They also share news on new vegetarian and vegan options available through major supermarkets and restaurants – and there’s been a fair few of those recently such as Gregg’s vegan sausage roll, M&S Plant Kitchen range, and the vegan version of Burger King’s Big Whopper.
- Veganuary. Ready to try going meat AND dairy free? You can take on #Veganuary! Lots of great recipe ideas and nutritional tips!
- Join in the Darwin Challenge via an iPhone app: record your meat-free days, get the feel-good updates on your stats and set up competitions with your friends. Join in Tayport Carbon Heroes group. Great for motivation!
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