Happy new year to all of our BOLievers. We hope you had a wonderful festive break. Here at BOL, we are feeling re-energised and ready to throw ourselves into 2021 with our biggest campaign yet – 2021. Time For a Fresh Start.

Since 2015, we’ve been working hard to make delicious plant powered food easy for you to enjoy at any time of day. Just tasty food that will make you feel great on every level and won’t cost the earth - planet or penny wise.

Just over a week into January and Veganuary hit record-breaking participation with over 500,000 people having already signed-up for the 31-day vegan challenge. Veganuary is a non-profit organisation that encourages people worldwide to try a vegan diet for January and beyond. Throughout the year, Veganuary "encourages and supports people and businesses alike to move to a plant based diet as a way of protecting the environment, preventing animal suffering, and improving the health of millions of people".

British supermarkets have jumped on the plant based bandwagon by promoting Veganuary and advocating the reasons to give a plant powered diet a go. Check out Tesco’s Veganuary webpage for recipe inspiration and its huge range of plant based products (make sure to check out the ready meals page to find your favourite BOL products 😉).

With Veganuary being the month when so many more people delve into a plant based diet and get ready for a fresh start, we wanted to take this opportunity to reiterate the positive impact eating more plants and reducing your meat and animal by-products intake can have.

3 reasons to eat more plants

1) Being Greener

We hope this isn’t new news but the animal agriculture industry is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gases raise the temperature in the atmosphere and drive climate change. This is one of the biggest threats that has ever faced humanity and something we all need to contribute to solving.

Another important issue linked to animal agriculture is the need for vast areas of forest which are cut down to make space for animals reared for meat, and to grow their food. According to the WWF, areas the size of 48 football fields are chopped down every single minute mainly for this purpose. Trees are essential in fighting climate change and today, almost a third of the planet’s land mass is used for agriculture and most of it is related to meat production. Less demand for meat means more trees, and therefore better chances to fight climate change.

Finally, meat production requires extremely large amounts of fresh water, which is becoming increasingly scarce around the world. It takes 660 gallons of water to produce a single hamburger. This is the equivalent of showering for 2 months.

2) Staying healthy

It conveniently turns out that food which is good for the planet is also good for our health. Study after study prove that more vegetables and less meat and dairy is what promotes longevity and vitality.

Fruits, vegetables and wholefoods all contain many of the essential nutrients that help fight disease and support long-term health. Research shows that vegans suffer less from heart disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.

3) It’s delicious

The plant based revolution means there are more vegan options available than ever before and an array of amazing recipes out there to help you out. No need to miss out on your favourite foods, just head to the plant based aisles instead.

Don't believe us? Make sure to give our best plant based brownie recipe a go, or better yet try our range of products (find your nearest stockist).

For reasons including these, almost all environmental scientists around the world today agree that a sustainable diet is a plant focused one. Eating less meat and animal products is one of the most effective individual choices we can make to help fight climate change.

But making a change doesn’t start or stop there. Every little helps, whether you decide to eat plant based once a day, once a week or a few times a month. Source locally where possible to support local businesses but also reduce C02 emissions and reduce your food waste. With the UK alone seeing 18 million tonnes of food end up in landfill, we can all do our bit 🌱