HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD

If you could save the world just by going vegetarian, would you do it?

I'm not a veggie, but neither am I one of those people who can't cope without meat. It's become a bit of a blokey thing, I've noticed, to go a little bit caveman in front of a steak. What's more, in Christian circles, the whole topic of nutrition, of eating healthily and exercising well, is weirdly taboo.

Yep. Instead (at least, in my experience) we joke about fast food being bad for us and then think nothing of meeting up in McDonalds for our little catchups. We organise socials around Indian and Chinese takeaways and tables of sugary cakes and snacks, next to mountains of triangular white-bread sandwiches. Then we wash it all down with 'proper coffee'. We seem far more concerned with preaching about what we take in through our eyes sometimes than the food we're shovelling into our stomachs.

I read an article today about chicken farming. You can read it on the BBC website here. Farming seems to be a loose term for what's essentially a production line for millions of living, breathing animals. In a cavernous factory (barn) a sea of chicks, no older than 40 days, shuffle about in a perfectly efficient climate with carefully controlled food and water, and not a great deal of space. They never go outside. Within six weeks of hatching, they're slaughtered, stripped, butchered and vacuum-wrapped on a polystyrene tray with a supermarket label emblazoned with misleading words like 'farm fresh' or 'premium quality'.

90% of the chickens we eat in the UK are prepared this way, apparently.

Now, is this right? I mean, is this OK? I understand that it has to be this way for meat to be affordable. I get that chicken is popular too, and very very tasty. I love it. But should we be treating animals this way?

I don't know the answer to that. I just feel a bit sad about it, like the day I first heard prawns squealing in a pan. I don't move in lobster-eating circles, but I'd expect the sound of an animal being boiled alive would be equally unappealing. I wondered back then, as I peeled the skins and cracked off the tails, whether I was on the long slow march to vegetarianism. I haven't eaten them since.

But then, If I am on that march, I haven't done a lot of other marching. I still crack open a can of tuna and sizzle up the odd rasher of bacon. I love lamb chops, roast chicken and a classic lump of beef, not to mention gammon, turkey, fish pies and pork sausages. I am statistically carnivorous, yet just a little bit uncomfortable about it.

Then there's that niggling little Orwellian thought that we're a bit like those chickens ourselves, locked up in the Matrix, feeding and clucking and drinking the carefully regulated water provided by our financial masters. We have no idea what it's like outside. I'd better not mention this thought to Carlos The Liberator - I have a feeling he'd be organising a sort of 'Animal Farm' type revolution before sundown.

The truth is that we could probably save the world by going vegetarian. Colossal amounts of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases are emitted in the raising and transporting of livestock. Giving up meat lowers your carbon footprint much more than giving up driving ever would. Perhaps we should, you know, give it a go? What have we got to lose?

We could start by just cutting out meat, say once a week. If we all did it, it would make a huge difference, wouldn't it? If you want to join the long slow march and make a difference, that is. You might not. I'll give it a go though - as difficult as I'll find it. I'll even throw it open to the steak-munching, barbecue-loving, captain cavemen and risk being ostracised from their meaty membership and carnivore club - if only to help prove that I'm on the side of the chickens.