Curious about how many animals you save by choosing plant-based foods? Even with people leaving meat and dairy off their plates more frequently – in fact, one-third of Americans now identifying as flexitarian – it’s sometimes difficult to see how our choices are making an impact. That’s where the “Meat Calculator” comes in!

Using the online calculator, you can select the “I eat meat” option and plug in how much you consume per week. Then, the calculator will instantly tell you how many animals you eat on average every 10 years, as well as the resources, such as water and antibiotics, used. The calculator also shares how many animals could be saved by simply shifting half of your meat to vegetarian food.

On the flip side, you can select “I am a vegetarian,” where the calculator will instead ask you how many years you have been meat-free to see how many animals, gallons of water, antibiotics, and carbon emissions you have saved!

Our current global food system, which is dominated by industrial meat and dairy, is pushing the planet to its absolute limit and as it stands, we are running out of land and water to provide for the massive livestock system. To give you a bit of context about the damage being done to produce meat and dairy, consider this: 2,000 trees are chopped down in the Amazon rainforest every 60 seconds to make room for agriculture – of those, 1,600 trees are chopped down every minute just to make room for cattle to graze and to grow livestock feed. If these rates of deforestation continue, there likely won’t be any rainforests left in the next 100 years. With the animal agriculture industry being responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transportation sector combined, we need to act now to save the planet.

Ready to leave meat off of your plate? You can start eating for the planet by doing nothing more than choosing a delicious plant-based meal over one laden with animal products. If you look at it from a personal perspective, you can cut your own carbon footprint in half just by leaving meat off your plate for one year. (Plus save a lot of water, redirect grain for people to eat, and help protect endangered species…)

To learn more, check out One Green Planet’s #EatForThePlanet campaign. To calculate how many animals you’ve saved simply by not eating them, check out the “Meat Calculator” and be sure to share it with your friends!

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