Earth Day
Happy Earth Month! The planet needs you! Shutterstuck/ Sunny studio

By Eddie Garza: On April 22, people across the country will celebrate Earth Day. Americans will attend fairs, partake in community clean ups and rally for solving the world’s environmental problems and shifting our attitudes toward building a more sustainable future.

Latinos are high stakeholders in the movement to protect our planet and are becoming increasingly concerned about environmental issues. A 2015 poll by Earthjustice and GreenLatinos shows that “Latino voters have a strong commitment to conservation, the environment and a genuine interest in how climate change impacts their families and communities.” That makes sense, as Latino neighborhoods are often at a much higher risk of suffering the consequences of natural disasters caused by climate change than non-Latino neighborhoods.

The poll found that 84 percent of Latinos think the US should mandate more clean energy sources like wind and solar energy and nearly 80 percent think it’s important to protect wildlife, public lands, and endangered species. While all of those measures are positive steps forward for the planet, there’s one thing all Latinos can do that would have an even greater impact on the world: take a holiday from our daily routine of meat overconsumption.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, animal agriculture is “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” Factory farms, where nearly all of our meat comes from, are major culprits in climate change. These animal factories create huge amounts of manure that pollute the soil, water and air.

Raising animals for food is also extremely resource intensive. Oxfam International, a relief organization that works to secure food for our exploding global population, encourages its members to reduce meat consumption, saying, “it takes massive amounts of land, water, fertilizer, oil, and other resources to produce meat, significantly more that it requires to grow other nutritious and delicious kinds of food.”

Reducing our meat consumption is both good for the planet and for Latinos’ health. Meat-free diets have proven to reverse chronic, preventable diseases that are prevalent in Latino communities like heart disease, type 2 diabetes and certain cancers. In fact, Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation’s largest healthcare and insurance providers wrote in its “Plant-Based Diet” guide, “Any movement toward more plants and fewer animal products can improve your health.”

And, of course, reducing the amount of meat we eat is good for animals, too. The fewer animals we raise for food means less pressure on animal agriculture to raise them in cruel and intensive ways., Currently, chickens are genetically manipulated to grow so obese, so fast that many can’t even walk more than a few steps before collapsing. As a way to help animals suffering on factory farms, The Humane Society of the United States advocates the Three Rs: “reducing” or “replacing” consumption of animal products and “refining” our diets by switching to products from sources that adhere to higher animal welfare standards.

Thankfully, it’s never been easier to take a positive step toward safeguarding our health and protecting our communities. It’s as simple as swapping out chorizo tortas with black bean pesto tortas piled high with avocado. Or stuff tamales with butternut squash and top with red tomato salsa instead of beef once a week make a big difference. Eating out is easy, too. Some of the nation’s largest restaurant chains, including Taco Bell, Chipotle and Del Taco offer several delicious vegetarian meals. And there’s a host of scrumptious and completely plant-based Latin restaurants across the country like V-Spot in New York City, Choices Café in Miami, Vegeria in San Antonio and Gracias Madre in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Perhaps the best tools we have to protect the planet and improve our people’s health are our forks and knives. Together we can stand up for the earth every time we sit down for dinner.

Eddie Garza is senior manager of food & nutrition for The Humane Society of the United States. He has collaborated with some of the nation’s most influential school districts and higher ed institutions to develop and implement innovative plant-based meal programs, and has conducted culinary trainings and ideations for major hospitals, restaurant groups, culinary schools, and public school systems in regions with high Hispanic populations. He tweets at @theeddiegarza.

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