Loew-impact living: Europeans eat an average of 89kg of meat each a year - nearly 60 per cent more than 40 years ago. We're more prosperous, meat is cheaper, and we're having a feast. But for every kilogram of meat that makes it to our plate, there are a lot of other bits and pieces that are inedible. With chicken, for instance, only about a third of the bird is eaten.
Let's put it another way: if the only meat I were to consume was poultry, then I'd be getting through four-and-half-times my own weight in hens. But is there anything wrong with eating four-and-a-half woman-sized chickens a year? Or cows, or lambs, or pigs?
Well, actually - much as I hate to spoil the party - yes. You see, for every kilogram of meat that you or I eat, that animal has to eat between two and 10 kilograms of feed, depending on its species. It's a costly way to get our calories.
If we eat farther down the food chain, and confine ourselves to plant produce, we get our nutrition directly, and cut out the animal in the food-to-calorie conversion process. And even though 75 per cent of agricultural land in the EU is used for livestock, or for animal feed, we still don't have enough land to service our meat-eating. Some of our livestock's food is grown in developing nations, where hunger is a problem.
There's water in the equation, too: for quenching the animals' thirst, raising the crops that feed them, and for use in the slaughterhouses and processing plants. A Cornell University study estimates that it takes 100,000 litres of water to produce a kilogram of beefsteak. Potatoes consume 500 litres per kilo. There's gas also: 10 per cent of all greenhouse gases (and 25 per cent of methane) come from the livestock industry.
So, when you think about it, this business of eating more and more other animals is taking an increasingly heavy toll on the environment and on the planet's resources. And we haven't even touched on human health (obesity, heart disease) and the welfare of the animals - which are often raised in inhumane, factory conditions.
The World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations suggest that the environment, our health and global food security would be better served were we to eat less meat. Compassion in World Farming proposes a 15 per cent reduction by 2020.
So you don't even have to become a vegetarian to help save the world. All you need to do is not eat meat one day a week.