Lent 2021
Healing Our Planet, Our Health, and Our Community
with a Simple Resolution

By Corey Becker, Bill Stigliani and Madeleine Becker

Lent is a time of contemplation and preparation for the coming of Easter, a time of making sacrifices and personal changes. The Psalmist tells us that “the Earth is the Lord’s” (Psalm 24); it is a gift meant for all of us to share and protect. Perhaps this year, our Lenten fasts can help us make progress toward one of the goals Pope Francis laid out in his encyclical letter on the care of our common home, Laudato Si. Francis reminds us of our ‘responsibility within creation, and duty towards nature and the Creator’ is an essential part of our faith (Laudato Si 64).

Often, we think of our personal health as an issue distinct from our planet’s health, but when it comes to diet, healthy food often helps make a healthier world. Much of this comes down to resources; a diet heavy in meats (particularly beef), fats, and sugars requires a production system that treads heavily on our planet. In contrast, a healthy plant-based diet puts much less strain on the Earth and its resources..

A simple calculation illustrates the stark difference between these diets. Compare the environmental footprint of a bowl of rice and beans versus a plate of beef, assuming they have equivalent amounts of protein: The serving of beef uses twenty-three times more land, consumes six times as much water, and emits twenty-one times as much greenhouse gas than a serving of rice and beans.

People may wonder, what they can do to help heal the planet? At the same time, they may feel a sense of despair that their individual actions are inconsequential in light of the enormity of the climate crisis. In fact, the good news is that one of the most consequential things anyone can do is personal wellbeing through a sustainable diet. Nothing is closer to us than the food we put into our bodies. The food that treads most lightly on our bodies also treads most lightly on the planet.

We cannot separate human health from the health of our communities, our resources and our world. As a community, it is important to think about and advocate for policies and practices that promote health and well-being at the individual, community and planetary levels.

The food we grow and eat has consequences on our health and nutrition, but also on greenhouse gas emissions, water and air quality, and the Earth’s wellbeing.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, meat production alone is responsible for 18% of the global greenhouse gas emissions, more than global transportation (14%), including all cars, busses, aircraft, and more. Livestock production releases 65% of global nitrous oxide emissions and 64% of ammonia emissions, polluting our air, soil, and water, while damaging the ozone layer and exacerbating acid rain.

A fully vegetarian diet would be the most environmentally friendly, but even moderate dietary shifts offer dramatic benefits. Consider the greenhouse gas footprints of a variety of different meats. Beef is the worst emitter, releasing nearly a hundred pounds of greenhouse gasses per pound of meat. This is more than eight times worse than pork, ten times worse than poultry, and thirty times more environmentally damaging than tofu. Cutting this one protein out of your diet, or at least limiting your consumption of beef, can lower your carbon footprint significantly. Look at this chart, and ask yourself, in what ways am I willing to change my diet to best care for our planet?

In addition to taking better care of our planet, changing our diets has also been associated with tremendous health benefits. Compared with omnivore diets, vegetarian diets have lower risks of obesity, diabetes and high cholesterol. There has been a positive association between consumption of red meat and certain cancers. Processed meats (sausages, bacon, ham, beef jerky, corned beef, and other smoked, salted, fermented, or cured meats) have been classified as carcinogens. (WHO 2021) What we eat affects our long-term health.

Meatless Mondays is a global movement of individuals, hospitals, schools, worksites and restaurants to eliminate meat from menus on Mondays. The goal of Meatless Mondays is to minimize the ecological footprint of meat production. This Lent, consider adding Meatless Mondays to your observance of abstaining from meat on Fridays.

This Lenten season is the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s 46th annual Catholic Relief Services’ (CRS) Rice Bowl initiative, the nationwide program that offers parishioners a way to put their faith into action through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.  Money raised from Rice Bowl goes to feed the hungry in the U.S. as well as our sisters and brothers across the globe. One Rice Bowl activity is Meatless Meals from Around the World. Families are encouraged to cook a meatless meal following a recipe from one of the indigent regions supported by Rice Bowl. In this way, families can enjoy the health benefits and lower impact on the environment of meatless meals; they can also help raise money for the hungry and enter into solidarity with their suffering.

Resources

The Rice Bowl website offers recipes common to the countries around the world where Catholic Relief Services is active.

Learn about Catholic Relief Services on their website. You can also learn about the connection between agriculture and nutrition and the promotion of regenerative agriculture on the Catholic Relief Services’ website.

The resources page of the Catholic Climate Covenant includes resources for Lent. 

For more information on the impact of livestock production on climate change, visit http://www.fao.org/animal-production/en/.

References

Grant, JD. Time for change: Benefits of a plant-based diet.Can Fam Physician. 2017; 63(10) 744-746.

Chen Z et al. Plant versus animal based diets and insulin resistance, prediabetes and type 2 diabetes: the Rotterdam Study. Eur J Epidemiol. 2018 Sep; 33(9) 883-893

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987

https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/cancer-carcinogenicity-of-the-consumption-of-red-meat-and-processed-meat

OSJ parishioners Corey Becker, Madeleine Becker and Bill Stigliani are part of the environmental concerns group of OSJ’s social justice committee.