Veganuary – the simple commitment to eat a plant-based diet for the month of January – has exploded in popularity in recent years. According to an official survey, over 582,000 people around the world took part in the challenge last year and that number is expected to have increase in 2022. This reflects the huge uptake in the vegan diet on the whole over the past decade: in 2014 only 150,000 people were registered as vegan. This number jumped to a whopping 600,000 by 2019. Reasons behind choosing the lifestyle vary but largely centre around two main points: animal welfare and environmental benefits.
A sustainable food system has to involve eating local, seasonal foods that have been responsibly sourced as much as possible. January is one of the least bountiful months when it comes to seasonal fruit and vegetables in the UK: in order to boost the vegan diet in this month particularly, a huge amount of additional food is imported. Increased air miles dramatically escalate the carbon footprint of the foods you consume. A 2019 study found that air-freighted vegetables have five times the environmental impact than UK-grown produce.
