Introduction

My name is Evealyn O'Connor and one of my new year's resolutions is to abstain from eating meat for one month. I am going to do this during February 2010.

Like many over-educated soft urban dwellers, my personal health and the environment are two things that I think about quite a lot. I grant you it does seem like a strange combination, but certain things about my lifestyle make it not so unlikely. My job at a certain large government department involves sitting in front of a computer for approximately eight hours a day, five days a week. Hardly a natural state. Every day when I go to find lunch, or sort something out for my dinner, I have to think seriously about things like fat and cholesterol. How disappointing to have to prioritise these over exciting things like blue cheese or bacon.

At the same time, I have found myself considering the impact of my consumption on the environment. Originally this was mostly because, well, what university student doesn't feel compelled to save the world at some point? It's as much a rite of passage as lining up for dodgy bars and drinking flaming shots of liquor. Take my sister, a second year student at Victoria, who, when we buy a juice while out shopping, will take our empty glasses home with her to ensure that they are put out for recycling. God forbid they should end up in an ordinary rubbish bin! However, as I get older and hopefully wiser, I find it hard to deny the call to reduce and conserve. On a recent trip to China, I was shocked at the general dirtiness and rubbish that seemed to be everywhere. One hostel we stayed at in Shanghai shared an alleyway with a restaurant, whose bin (if you could call it that) would be literally overflowing with festering, rotting food scraps. I began to really miss trees and green spaces, which were very few and far between.

So, it seems that meat might be something of a culprit in terms of both of these evils. Meat is a convenient source of protein, but it often has a lot of fat, and in particular saturated fat. It's suggested that there is a link between red meat consumption and illnesses such as heart disease and cancer, although this probably hasn't been proved conclusively. The environmental impact is very serious. The production of meat accounts for 18% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, even more so than transport. I find that really shocking, given the amount of people in the world driving cars and boarding aeroplanes every day. Even the UN has suggested reducing meat consumption as a realistic way of combating global warming.

I have flirted with the idea of going vege on and off for some time. Every so often I will announce that I am definitely going to reduce my meat intake and get into beans in a big way. The problem is though, that I bloody love meat. I can't deny that it is delicious. Lots of other people like it too.

But even I'm not silly enough to pretend that my one month sabbatical is anything special. In fact, it is pretty ridiculous. And insignificant. But you know what? Its something that I can realistically do, and so I'm going to do it.

Over the next wee while I am going to post a variety of things. I have plans to put up recipes, interviews with actual (not pretend like me) meat abstainers, and essays on meat and environmental related issues. At the very least, it will reduce my own meat intake, and perhaps even distract me from watching documentaries about David Hasselhoff on Sunday afternoons.