Cowspiracy is without a doubt the documentary that has had the greatest impact on my consumer behaviour. Before watching this documentary, I always said I could never become vegetarian; I am a meat lover.
My wife and I watched this documentary in January 2017, and since then we removed meat and fish from our grocery list.
I’m not a full vegetarian, and I do not know if one day I will be, but once I became aware of the real impact of animal agriculture on the environment, it was for me nothing but logical to drastically reduce my meat consumption. With absolutely no effort and no cravings, from one week to the next, we passed from consuming meat or fish 4 to 5 times a week, to consume it only when hosted by family or invited to friends. We do not want to impose our choice on others, and we still appreciate a good quality product and the savoir-faire of a good cook.
I strongly recommend watching this entertaining and thought-provoking documentary.
I would be glad if you share your thoughts after watching it.
Diego Horcajada
In this link you can access the full documentary.
Value Based Jumping 
I saw this last weekend actually. Nice insightful doc that really opens the lid on the environmental impact side of animal husbandry. From his POV it looks like NGO´s are not ready to tackle the gargantuan task as asking people to stop eating meat. Whether its due to big industry secret funding (as suggested by the documentarian) or that these NGO´s feel that it would be a lost cause (ie not one that would energize its broad supporter base) I don´t know, but its clear that Animal Husbandry has a large and unaddressed impact on the environment. I´m actually not surprised its not talked about more because while we can probably all agree that industrial and transportation pollutants compromise our future on this planet, its much harder to convince everyone that their diet (ie primary source of protein) needs a radical makeover. To me it is akin to the Global Warming controversy – but on steroids; in that those who feel threatened by actions meant to address climate simply choose to not believe it is real. Likewise, convincing people that eating animal protein is wrong (ie bad for the planet) will be met with even greater skepticism given how ingrained a ritual it is in the human diet. I won´t be a hypocrite and tell you that I am no longer eating meat, because I am not. But watching this documentary did give me a greater understanding of the environmental footprint and costs behind this choice most of us on the planet make every day. And while I don´t see myself abandoning meat anytime soon I am surprised at myself for now being open to and interested in trying protein substitutes like the ones presented by Beyond Meat. In the end I am hopeful that “moderate” animal protein becomes sustainable via lower global consumption but I guess that will require massive behavior change + adequate substitutes. Food R&D never sounded so sexy!
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Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I just learn that WWF UK has come forward with a report call “appetite for destruction” that confirm many of the statements of the documentary.
I strongly believe that we should not be debating between just the two extremes, current consumption model in one side and veganism in the other. We should indeed protect the right to decided what and how we do consume, but we should have the right and obligation to know the true impact of our decisions, only then we might be able to reach “moderation”.
I totally agree with you we need to leverage other sources of proteins, and nature provide a large variety of plants with high content of them.
R&D will play a fundamental role if we want to feed the world without starving on the way, but I hope we do not give that role to processed food industry but to the agricultural and farming industry to reach an environmental and human friendly production.
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