In the wake of COVID-19 virus outbreak across the world, I believe here are few ideas that can potentially kill this menace at an unimaginable pace if undertaken by world over at the same time; or at least it can help reduce occurrence of such havoc causing outbreaks in the long run. Though I certainly believe that mother nature has its own way of dealing with grave situations and has found one antidote in the form of Corona virus to deal with human induced exploitation, but at the end, Mother is mother and a mother’s very nature is to give life and nurture it.

This may sound insanely illogical, unreasonable and irrational, but then hey who knows this is probably what She’s been looking for!!!

Stop Meat Consumption

Yes, you heard it right. As per PETA UK, If you eat meat, you’re responsible, on an average, for the consumption of 15,000 litres of water a day. It takes about 1,790 litres of water to grow 1 kilogram of wheat. You’d need to use more than five times more water for 1 kilogram of beef.

In case if you are still wondering what has meat got to do with Corona virus, please note this very carefully:

The United Nations has labelled the livestock industry “a key player in increasing water use” and “probably the largest sectoral source of water pollution “. As per WHO, Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that are common in animals. Occasionally, people get infected with these viruses which may then spread to other people. For example, SARS-CoV was associated with civet cats and MERS-CoV is transmitted by dromedary camels. Possible animal sources of COVID-19 have not yet been confirmed.  To protect yourself, such as when visiting live animal markets, avoid direct contact with animals and surfaces in contact with animals. Ensure good food safety practices at all times. Handle raw meat, milk or animal organs with care to avoid contamination of uncooked foods and avoid consuming raw or undercooked animal products.

While WHO do not prohibit you from consuming cooked animal products, but, in my opinion, considering the level of water consumed, the burdening waste these animals produce for human consumption, the brutality showered upon them, it is time we realise the famous quote from Paul McCarney (please see the video given below),

“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be Vegetarian.”

While in every country, there are large populations of consumers/customers of Non-veg. food and it may not be practically possible to completely eliminate such food production/consumption with huge workforce industry; I do certainly believe that baby steps in the right direction are the need of the hour. Else, its high time we realise, nature has its own draconian ways to balance itself and when it does, swarms of lives go under the pump. Think of Tsunami (I link it to fishing industry), Ebola (virus was transmitted to people from wild animals and it used to spread in the human population through human-to-human transmission), Swine flu etc.

If one may simply put it, one blow of iron-smith (Nature) is more lethal than a hundred blows of goldsmith (People) !!!

For your information, see the road ahead in form of numbers below:

Ticker!!!

The least we can all do it to consider one week or two every month when we decide no meat consumption in any form. This will certainly reduce the animal footprint and assist mother nature to take care of human civilizations tenderly.

Keep watching this space for more such ideas!!!

Take care and be safe and practice self-isolation!!!!