Picture by tunnelarmr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Today we bring you an #EcoMonday tip in the true spirit of Easter! Read this stuff before you start filling your stomachs with eggs :P. Because this week's tip is: dropping any meat-, fish, dairyproducts and EGGS from your lunch. Why would you? To conserve energy and save the world!

Say what?
The PB&J (Peanutbutter & Jelly) Campaign promises us a savings of over 1kg of CO2 emission, 500 liters of water, and over 2 square meters of land. Just by eating plant-based food. The general way it works out like this is simple enough: everything we eat is - indirectly - plantbased. Whether it is a bowl of cornflakes or a ham-sandwich. Livestock needs to be fed plantbased products before they grow fat enough to end up in our sandwich. So when we eat our hamburger, we indirectly eat the plantbased stuff that went into the poor piece of cow. The problem is the cow takes A LOT of plant to grow.

It all comes down to energy transfer: plants go into livestock, livestock goes into man. Remove livestock from this picture, and it takes less plants to go into man. Next to this, by skipping the livestock step, you save on amounts of fertilizer, pesticides, land and water which is needed to grow the plants and raise the livestock. Basically the entire cycle is a piece of inefficient energy conversion.

Now I know this is a touchy subject to a lot of folks, and I know I'm no vegetarian - nor planning to become one. But I do believe it's important to understand that a small change can make a big difference. That's what I like about the PB&J Campaign: it's a compact, to the point and practical way to create awareness of the implications and consequences of our own consumption. Fight global warming by eating peanutbutter & jelly sandwiches - power to the people!

For more information and figures, I urge you to take a look at the 'How' page of the PB&J Campaign website!