My hypothesis model in part one is an efficient means to control food wastage while supplementing diets with vegan and vegetarian options. 

Think about this:

When one isn’t eating meat, meat isn’t going to waste—unless its being preserved or not being produced at all. But unless what isn’t being purchased in the meantime (meat products for example) is being preserved, it is actually going to waste despite good intentions and positive effort. The other solution is having zero meat production and livestock growth to combat GHG emissions from livestock production (to me this also seems difficult to accept on a widescale basis, it would mean the world, a city, or a country would become vegetarian or Vegan)

My hope is that by not eating meat, nothing in the grocery store has gone to waste because all meat in the grocery store is like Beretta’s model--it is frozen, and provided in smaller amounts.

With my hypothesis, one can eat Vegan on Monday, eat Vegetarian Tuesday to Friday, and have a Beretta Farms Turkey kebab on Saturday from the freezer. They consume less meat, and thus demand for meat lowers. Because demand for meat is lower, less animals who life purpose is for consumption need not exist. Meats are preserved rather than wasted. Livestock GHG footprint decreases. 

                                                *Mother Earth smiles at results*

The biggest hurdle for this is obviously multiple-party compliance. Not only is compliance from me, it is from my neighbour three doors down, it is also from my grocery store who will supply less meat, and it is from the farmers who will grow less livestock for smaller demand.

Vegetarianism was important to protecting the environment for me essentially. Earlier, I experimented with eating less and less meat for health reasons (staying away from added hormones and high levels of stress in the meat I was consuming or supporting unethical animal handling processes, for example) My vegetarianism never touched on the desire not to consume sentient creatures through consumption. However, like vegetarians, what did bother me was knowing an animal suffered for the duration of its life so it could be my food. Ideas of treating meat fairly were naturally prefaced by typical encounters: watching the ever-scaring videos of mass produced meat and PETA ‘behind the scenes’ footage…these well-acquainted scarring experiences did convince me that treating a sentient being in this way wasn’t right. It also convinced me that I should stay away from meat. My main problem was staying away from something I enjoyed.

I had a conversation during a carpool to Québec City later on. The girl in the car said something along the lines of: ‘I only buy meat from farmers who I know, that way I know their practices and I know the lifestyles that these animals lead. They live good happy lives, they are slaughtered in a way that is not humiliating or torturous. I support that type of farming’. When in a situation where she didn’t know the status of the animal’s life and death, the decision was easy, she just wouldn’t eat meat.

I knew that she was onto something, however I couldn’t see myself living that lifestyle. What seemed like a great idea to me deflated when I realized that living in Calgary, Alberta probably made it much easier to ‘know your cattle farmer,’ especially when she explained how easy it was to meet a cattle farmer just down the road in her town. Now, I don’t know about most people living in the GTA, but I know no cattle farmers, and there definitely aren’t any ‘just down the road’ from me, even living in the suburbs. The next best option seemed to be cold vegetarianism.

My shift was unsuccessful because pure vegetarianism just didn’t fit with my view of food-consumption: I didn’t have a problem consuming animals—naturally, I often found myself slipping into an omnivorous state, neither here nor there, and it did upset me because I lacked true commitment to VEGETARIANISM.

And then one day I had a fruitful conversation with a couchsurfer I hosted from Germany. We realized that you need not boycott meat to make a difference in the environment, your life, or an animal’s life either. What would it be like to support the farmers who treat their animals well and not support the commercial superpowers who are irresponsible with animal well-being? Why isn’t it a widely supported perspective and celebrated as a reasonable lifestyle choice at large? What would it be like to support one way of eating meat over abandoning the whole meat industry ship and letting it work itself out on its own terms?

Vegetarianism was important to protecting the environment for me essentially. Earlier, I experimented with eating less and less meat for health reasons (staying away from added hormones and high levels of stress in the meat I was consuming, and supporting unethical animal handling processes, for example) My vegetarianism never touched not wanting to harm a sentient being in eating it. However, like many vegetarians alike, what did bother me was knowing an animal suffered for the duration of its life so it could be my food. Ideas of treating meat fairly were naturally prefaced by typical encounters: watching the ever-scaring videos of mass produced meat and Peta ‘behind the scenes’ footage...these well-acquainted scarring experiences did convince me that treating a sentient being in this was wasn’t right. It also convinced me that I should stay away from meat. My main problem was staying away from something I enjoyed.

I had a conversation during a carpool to Québec City later on. The girl in the car said something along the lines of: ‘I only buy meat from farmers who I know, that way I know their practices and I know the lifestyles that these animals lead. They live good happy lives, they are slaughtered in a way that is not humiliating or torturous, and I support that type of farming’. When in a situation where she didn’t know the status of the animal’s life and death, the decision was easy, she just wouldn’t eat meat.

I knew that she was onto something, and that she was right. However, I couldn't see myself living that lifestyle. What seemed like a great idea to me deflated when I realized that living in Calgary, Alberta makes it much easier to ‘know your cattle farmer,’ especially when she explained how easy it was to meet a cattle farmer just down the road in her town. Now, I don’t know about most people living in the GTA, but I know no cattle farmers, and there definitely aren’t any ‘just down the road’ from me, even living in the suburbs. The next best option seemed to be cold vegetarianism.

My shift was unsuccessful because pure vegetarianism just didn't fit with my view of food-consumption: I didn't have a problem consuming animals—naturally, I often found myself slipping into an omnivorous state, neither here nor there, and it did upset me because I lacked true commitment to VEGETARIANISM.

And then one day I had a fruitful conversation with a couchsurfer I hosted from Germany. We realized that you need not boycott meat to make a difference in the environment, your life or an animal’s life either. What would it be like to support the farmers who treat their animals well and not support the commercial superpowers who are irresponsible with animal well-being? Why isn’t it a widely supported perspective amongst vegetarians and celebrated as a reasonable lifestyle choice? What would it be like to support one way of eating meat over abandoning the whole meat industry ship and letting it work itself out on its own terms?