How's it going eating less meat?

Dear friends, 

Over 530,000 of us have already pledged to eat less meat this year! It’s an amazing response but we’re only just getting started. For some of us, it might have been a piece of (vegan) cake so far, but many others could be struggling. So here are some tools to help everyone stay on track. :) 

First, take this quick survey so we can see how we’re all doing: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/YMVPN5T 

Then, join the Facebook Group to connect with other Avaazers for support and suggestions for how we can spread this further in every country around the world! If you don’t want to use Facebook, no worries - we’ll be sharing the best stuff via email soon! 

This month’s tips:

• Set the same day each week to go meatless, mark it in your calendar or set a reminder on your phone so you don’t forget.
• Plan your meals and stock up on the vegetarian ingredients you need ahead of your meatless day.
• Try going meatless for an entire week so that you can experiment with many new recipes. Going back to just one day a week later will be easier!
• Find vegan restaurants near you
• Check out the Meatless Mondays website for a range of ideas and resources. They also have national websites for most countries.
• Joanne Anand, an Avaaz member from Freemantle in Australia made an album of delicious ideas for meat-free home cooking and shared it on the Avaaz Facebook Page. Thank you Joanne!
• If you haven’t seen or shared it yet - here’s a video you can post to encourage family and friends to join us.

Together we can lower carbon emissions, reduce animal cruelty and be healthier in the process! 

With love, 
Lisa, Nataliya, Danny, Marigona, Ricken and the entire Avaaz team. 

P.S Don’t forget to take the survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/YMVPN5T 

And here's some meatless inspiration from Avaaz members: 

Deborah Polonsky: Feeling lighter and sleeping better since cutting out meat a few weeks ago... excited to keep going, and thrilled to see this movement gathering so much support! Well done Avaaz. 

Jade King: Two weeks of being vegan! My fiance and I have found it so much easier than we thought. No cravings and feeling great. 

Anne Spiers: Once you get into vegetarian cooking the thought of meat gets less appealing. There are so many great recipe books out there. Try Hugh Fearnley Wittingstall's River Cottage Veg Everyday and 'Much More Veg'. They are crammed full of delicious meals. Go on, try it out. You will be surprised how good they taste. 

Lin Carr: I eat meat very occasionally when I feel I lack iron. However I feel very guilty about it especially when I think of that particular animal. Sometimes it is difficult to stop eating meat when you have been eating it all your life. A habit very difficult to break. Nevertheless I eat a little less and less each time. 

Pier Heynike: What absolutely blows me away is that it supposedly takes 15 000 L of water to produce 1kg of beef. Here in Cape Town where we currently have a severe drought we are limited to 50L of water a day per person. So currently it takes almost a year's worth of my water ration to produce 1kg of beef! 

Mavis Lamont: Definitely mindful of this and my being committed to becoming more of a vegetarian, or at the very least, purchasing meat from farmers who raise or process their animals humanely & with integrity. 

Jyoti Morningstar: Yay this is awesome guys. Keep up the amazing work! Together we can raise the level of our humanity by living healthFULLy without cruelty and environmental destruction. 

Jane Crane: Let's try to help the environment as much as possible and if it means giving up meat or eating very little that's the least we can do. Anyway veggies are delicious, just need a bit longer to make a lovely meatless meal. 

Thomas Finnøy: Very good initiative! I have signed and challenge all my friends to take a little responsibility for themselves and their successors, all the suffering animals and effort to reduce climate change. 

Emilia Henderson: Great initiative and a well-needed kick in the butt for me to stop just thinking ‘I should really eat less meat’ and to actually making it an active choice!