Allergies first: our meals are cooked in one kitchen where peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, soy and sesame are all used, and every label lists the ingredients and allergens.
We make frozen, plant-based meals in London, Ontario, so you'd expect us to say more plants are a good idea. Here's the case, with a source for every number. No guilt, and no need to go all the way.
1. You don't have to go all the way
Swapping a few dinners a week counts. You don't need a new identity, just a few more meals built on lentils, beans and vegetables.
Even the diet scientists drew up for feeding the planet well, the EAT-Lancet "planetary health diet", still has a little meat in it. It just fills most of the plate with plants.
2. Even the Food Guide says so
Canada's Food Guide says: "Choose protein foods that come from plants more often." That's Health Canada, in the 2019 Food Guide. The plate it draws is half vegetables and fruit, a quarter whole grains and a quarter protein.
3. Most of us get about half the fibre we need
The average Canadian eats about 14 g of fibre a day, and an adult needs 25 to 38 g, according to Heart & Stroke. Lentils, beans and chickpeas are an easy way to close the gap. Heart & Stroke also says plant protein can come with more fibre and less saturated fat.
4. Peas versus beef
Producing 1 kg of beef gives off about 60 kg of greenhouse gases. Producing 1 kg of peas gives off about 1 kg (Our World in Data, from Poore and Nemecek's 2018 study). Livestock uses about three-quarters of the world's farmland and gives the world just 18% of its calories.
5. Lentils go easy on the land and water
Beef takes about 4 times the water of the same weight of lentils, beans and peas (Water Footprint Network). Pulses (lentils, peas, beans and chickpeas) also pull nitrogen out of the air and into the soil, so they need less fertilizer than most crops. Farmers often grow them to leave the field better for whatever comes next.
6. Canada is a lentil country
Canada is one of the world's biggest growers and exporters of lentils, peas, chickpeas and beans, most of them from the Prairies.
One more, for fun: in the American Gut Project, people who ate more than 30 different plants a week had more varied gut bacteria than those who ate 10 or fewer. Beans, grains, nuts and herbs all count.
If you'd like a head start
Every one of our frozen meals is plant-based, and plenty are built on lentils, beans and vegetables. See the menu, and check each label for allergens.
Sources
- Canada's Food Guide, Health Canada, 2019.
- Heart & Stroke Foundation, "Fibre and whole grains" and "Protein".
- Poore & Nemecek, Science, 2018, via Our World in Data, "Environmental impacts of food production".
- Mekonnen & Hoekstra, Water Footprint Network, 2012.
- FAO, International Year of Pulses, 2016.
- Pulse Canada.
- EAT-Lancet Commission, 2019.
- McDonald et al., American Gut, mSystems, 2018.