CAIRO: When the Jordanian activist Amina Tariq took to the streets of Amman clad in lettuce leaves, she captured the attention of the Middle East's media. With a sign in Arabic that read “Let vegetarianism grow on you”, she was trying to spark interest in a diet without animal products. Jordan was the final stop on a tour of the region by the global animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), and the lettuce leaf demonstration was arguably its most successful attempt yet to get Arabs thinking about a vegetarian diet. The case for vegetarianism rarely gets a sympathetic hearing in the region. Many Arab intellectuals and even animal welfare campaigners believe it is not a readily accessible concept. One activist who is not vegetarian was angered at Peta's plans earlier this month to hold a demonstration promoting vegetarianism in Egypt. “Egypt is not ready for such a lifestyle and there are other aspects dealing with animals that should be looked at first,” he said. Although Jason Baker, Peta's Asia-Pacific director, pointed out that by removing meat from the diet “you are doing more for animals”, the idea didn't go down well. In conversations I had with activists here in Cairo, the sense was that vegetarianism is “too foreign” a concept to take hold in the near future – and they are probably right. With Ramadan on the horizon, followed by the Eid al-Adha holiday, including the sacrificial slaughter of sheep by millions of Muslims worldwide, it is important not to underestimate the importance meat has, and has had, in Arab/Islamic culture. The ancient Egyptians, for instance, kept cows in one of the first massive domestication efforts. Another aspect of meat culture in the Arab world is social class. Meat is eaten daily by upper-class families, and so the poor see this as something to aspire to. Carnivorous journalists and academics also argue that humans evolved to eat meat and need certain by-products from animals in order to survive. Certainly, humans evolved to eat meat and it has been a major staple in our diet historically, but have we not evolved to a position where we can choose a lifestyle that is sensible and that does not destroy our environment or force millions to go hungry? The question we should be asking, instead of looking at evolution and history, is how we want to live in the coming decades. Research shows that one of the easiest methods of combating climate change is through a plant-based diet. The UN has said that raising animals for food (whether on factory or traditional farms) “is one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global … [Animal agriculture] should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution and loss of biodiversity. Livestock's contribution to environmental problems is on a massive scale”. In other words, even if you are not convinced of the moral case for vegetarianism, if you care about the future of our planet it makes sense to stop eating animals – both in environmental and economic terms. In Egypt, for example, we see that hundreds of thousands of cattle are imported into the country for slaughter; lentils, wheat and other staples of the Egyptian diet are also imported. That all costs money. If Egypt were to promote and incorporate vegetarianism into its economic policy, the millions of Egyptians who struggle and complain about the rising costs of meat could be fed. It takes around 16kg of animal feed to produce one kilo of meat for consumption. That's a lot of money and food that could serve the hungry population. According to Hossam Gamal, a researcher at the Egyptian agriculture ministry, “the exact amount of money that could be saved by reducing meat production is unknown, but I have estimated it to be in the billions [of dollars]“. Elsewhere across the region, Gamal continues, “we could increase the health and living situation for millions of people if we didn't have to spend so much on maintaining the desire to eat meat”. He points to what other experts, such as John Vidal in the Observer, say about the reduction of land for planting as a result of animal farming. “Nearly 30% of the available ice-free surface area of the planet is now used by livestock, or for growing food for those animals,” Vidal writes. Gamal says that as Egyptians consume more and more meat, the need for factory farming is increasing. According to him, more than 50% of all animal products consumed in the Middle East come from factory farming. By reducing the need for meat, he argues, “we could, simultaneously, increase health of people, feed more and increase our local economies through the use of farmland for crops that we are currently importing, such as lentils and beans”. Gamal says he is one of only a handful of vegetarians at the ministry and this has left a stigma that is hard to overcome. “I get heckled because I don't eat meat,” he says, “but if these people, who are ardently against the idea, would look at the reality, economically and environmentally, they would see that it is something to think about.” ** This article was written for The Guardian's Comment is Free section and originally published on July 29. BM
