Meat traders on strike: Ban in Uttar Pradesh is cruel demonetisation

India is a secular nation and the culture of eating food differs across communities and religions

Recently at the release of our book First Food: Culture of Taste, which discusses the link between biodiversity, nutrition and livelihoods, I was asked a question. “Why do you not, as an environmentalist espousing the cause of traditional and local diets that are sustainable, condemn meat eating?” After all, meat production is bad for climate — agriculture contributes roughly 15 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions and half of this comes from meat production. It also has a huge footprint in terms of land and water consumption since an estimated 30 per cent of the world’s land not covered