When I was a teenager I couldn’t understand the way people were treating animals and the planet. This is why I decided to become an activist. I dropped out of high school to dedicate all my time to fighting for what I believe in and leading the regional section of an international animal rights organization.
I realized that the whole food system is broken. But instead of pointing to the problem, I needed to bring solutions.
We achieved some small victories: we changed laws and forced the closure of farms that were operating illegally. But this wasn’t enough to make the problem disappear. At this point in my life, I realized that the whole food system is broken. But instead of pointing to the problem, I needed to bring solutions. So I transformed my anger to create Heura and improve the food system.
I understood that the current food system is failing us. There are 800 million people experiencing chronic hunger worldwide and at the same time, 2 billion suffer from obesity and are overweight. If we consider that ⅓ of food produced is wasted, that food emissions account for 35% of CO2 emissions, and that 57% of food emissions come from animal agriculture, saying that change is necessary is an understatement.
“I co-founded Heura with the purpose of bringing tangible solutions to the table”
I co-founded Heura with the purpose of bringing tangible solutions to the table that would empower people to vote for a better food system 3 times a day. Animal agriculture pollutes more than every means of transportation combined: more than every plane, car, or boat. We are farming 10x the human population. In addition, there are 1.5B cows in the world, the same population living in Europe and the US combined. This means that livestock and humans combined represent 96% of all mammals in the world, while wild animals are only 4%.
Animal meat is obsolete
Using animals to get meat is obsolete. It takes 9 calories of animal feed to get just one calorie of meat from a chicken, 15 calories of feed to get one calorie of pork, and 25 calories of feed to get 1 calorie of beef; very inefficient use of land, water, and resources. We know that the current food system is broken, and one of the root causes is the fact that we are using animals as middlemen to get food, while we could go directly to the primary source of food and nutrients: plants. We are growing food, to feed animals to make meat that is damaging our planet in the process.
The magnitude of this issue can seem overwhelming. But there are great circumstances where inertia has been broken. And the results were epic. This is what inspires and drives my personal pursuit. Positive change has happened. The world has stood against the status quo and voted for the greater good. And the plant-based meat industry will do it again.
