About a year ago, I asked myself a question: "Knowing what I know, why am I not a vegetarian?" After all, I'm one of the green guys: I grew up with hippie parents in a log cabin. I started a site called TreeHugger -- I care about this stuff. I knew that eating a mere hamburger a day can increase my risk of dying by a third. Cruelty: I knew that the 10 billion animals we raise each year for meat are raised in factory farm conditions that we, hypocritically, wouldn't even consider for our own cats, dogs and other pets. Environmentally, meat, amazingly, causes more emissions than all of transportation combined: cars, trains, planes, buses, boats, all of it. And beef production uses 100 times the water that most vegetables do.
Pre godinu dana, upitao sam se: "Znajući to što znam, zašto nisam vegetarijanac?" Nakon svega, ja sam jedan od "zelenih" momaka. Odrastao sam sa hipi roditeljima u brvnari. Pokrenuo sam sajt nazvan Treehugger (onaj ko grli drveće). Stalo mi je do ovih stvari. Znao sam da jedan hamburger dnevno može da poveća šanse za moju smrt za trećinu. Okrutnost: znao sam da 10 milijardi životinja koje se godišnje odgajaju za meso, odrastaju u fabričkim uslovima koje mi, licemerno, ne bismo ni razmotrili za naše mačke, pse i ostale ljubimce. Ekološki, meso, začuđujuće, izaziva više emisija nego svi transporti zajedno: automobili, vozovi, avioni, autobusi, brodovi, sve to. A proizvodnja govedine koristi 100 puta više vode nego većina biljaka.
I also knew that I'm not alone. We as a society are eating twice as much meat as we did in the 50s. So what was once the special little side treat now is the main, much more regular. So really, any of these angles should have been enough to convince me to go vegetarian. Yet, there I was -- chk, chk, chk -- tucking into a big old steak.
Takođe sam znao sa nisam usamljen. Mi kao društvo jedemo dva puta više mesa nego u '50. godinama. Dakle što je nekad bio poseban dodatak, mala poslastica, sada je glavno, više redovno. I zaista, bilo koji od ovih uglova trebalo je da bude dovoljan da postanetem vegetarijanac. Ipak, eto mene, čk, čk, čk, ubadam u veliki, dobro poznati odrezak.
So why was I stalling? I realized that what I was being pitched was a binary solution. It was either you're a meat eater or you're a vegetarian, and I guess I just wasn't quite ready. Imagine your last hamburger. (Laughter) So my common sense, my good intentions, were in conflict with my taste buds. And I'd commit to doing it later, and not surprisingly, later never came. Sound familiar?
Zašto sam odugovlačio? Shvatio sam da sam bio razapet između dvostrukog izbora. A to je, ili si mesožder ili si vegetarijanac. I pretpostavljam da nisam bio potpuno spreman. Zamislite svoj poslednji hamburger. (smeh) I tako su moj zdrav razum, moje dobre namere, bili u sukobu sa mojim receptorima ukusa. I obavezao bih se da ću to uraditi kasnije. I ne iznenađuje, kasnije nikada nije došlo. Zvuči poznato?
So I wondered, might there be a third solution? And I thought about it, and I came up with one. I've been doing it for the last year, and it's great. It's called weekday veg. The name says it all: Nothing with a face Monday through Friday. On the weekend, your choice. Simple. If you want to take it to the next level, remember, the major culprits in terms of environmental damage and health are red and processed meats. So you want to swap those out with some good, sustainably harvested fish. It's structured, so it ends up being simple to remember, and it's okay to break it here and there. After all, cutting five days a week is cutting 70 percent of your meat intake.
Pitao sam se, da li postoji treća mogućnost? Razmišljao sam o tome. I došao sam do jedne. Primenjujem je poslednjih godinu dana i sjajno je. Zove se vegetarijanac radnim danom. Ime kaže sve. Ništa sa licem, od ponedeljka do petka. Vikendom, vaš izbor. Jednostavno. Ako hoćete da pređete na sledeći nivo, zapamtite, glavni krivci, u smislu štete po životnu sredinu i zdravlje, jesu crvena i prerađena mesa. Dakle želite to da zamenite nekom dobrom, održivo uzgajanom ribom. Struktuirano je, tako da je lako za zapamtiti. I u redu je prekršiti je tu i tamo. Uostalom, suzdržavanje pet dana nedeljno je smanjenje 70 procenata ličnog udela u mesu.
The program has been great, weekday veg. My footprint's smaller, I'm lessening pollution, I feel better about the animals, I'm even saving money. Best of all, I'm healthier, I know that I'm going to live longer, and I've even lost a little weight.
Vegetarijanac radnim danom je sjajan program. Moj otisak je manji, smanjujem zagađenje. Osećam se bolje u vezi sa životinjama, čak štedim novac. Najbolje od svega, zdraviji sam, znam da ću živeti duže i čak sam izgubio koji kilogram.
So, please ask yourselves, for your health, for your pocketbook, for the environment, for the animals: What's stopping you from giving weekday veg a shot? After all, if all of us ate half as much meat, it would be like half of us were vegetarians.
Molim vas, zapitajte se, za svoje zdravlje, za vaš budžet, za okolinu, za životinje, šta vas sprečava da date šansu vegetarijanstvu radnim danima? Uostalom, ako bismo svi mi jeli upola manje mesa, bilo bi kao da smo polovina nas vegetarijanci.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(aplauz)