Vegetarians in China

　　来中国一年，我们的Lucia老师就发现中国有太多的"吃货"，他们大都喜欢大鱼大肉。而Lucia也经常在自己的生物课堂上与同学们探讨有关"素食"的话题。如今越来越多的人提倡健康饮食、低碳环保、爱护环境 ……是什么原因让大家转变观念，加入吃素行列？身为生物老师的Lucia对素食又有怎样的认识及建议？来读一读Lucia的这篇"Vegetarians in China"吧。

　　Since I arrived in Chengdu last year I have noticed that Chinese people love food. It is a big part of the culture. You can also see that people here love eating meat. Many times during biology lessons I ask students why someone would have the desire to become vegetarian; not many people can give me a straight answer.

　　Certainly vegetable are less expensive than meat and some of the shift is probably due to simple economic reasons. In addition to this some people have become eco conscious with the environment.

　　All that meat eating comes at an environmental cost. In most of western countries, the same as China, people are experiencing all the same impacts of intensive meat production. Livestock production releases greenhouse gases into the air and pollutants into the water, animals suffer horrifically in industrialized factory farms and chemicals are added to meat to boost production.

　　Some other reason that has helped people to make the decision of converting into vegetarians is the fact that meat scandals are less rare nowadays. The mad cows' syndrome scandal had a massive impact on people eating habits in the UK a few decades ago.

　　As many reports suggest, the world cannot sustain its current level of agricultural production aimed at feeding livestock to produce meat. Nowhere is this truer than in China, where diminishing available land is making it difficult to produce enough pork to meet demand.

　　So even if the percentage of vegetarians in China is much lower than in most of western countries I believe this will change in the future. People are becoming more aware of what they eat and how it might affect their health and the environment. I am not implying that one has to become a vegetarian but it will be good if next time that you are having chicken feet snack to ask yourself where it came from.