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One Man’s Quest For A Billion Vegetarians & Vegans – Interview with Vikas Garg, Founder of ABillionVeg

Conceived by a man’s quest to grow the population of vegetarians and vegans to 1 billion, abillionVeg was born. Being a life-long vegetarian and recent vegan, Vikas Garg the founder of abillionVeg, made it his mission to help vegetarians and vegans, present and future.

 

abillionVeg is like TripAdvisor meets Instagram but for vegans and vegetarians. Vikas spent his last 15 years in finance, building businesses. He came to a realisation in 2016 that the world does not need another fund manager or banker, but needed people to solve interesting problems of the world.

abillionVeg aims to change the way people ate and consume whether it be food or fashion or material objects in their lives. Their app not only helps people find plant-based food but also make a real difference in the availability of that food. This business is about advocacy and changing the equation to also get restaurants, hotels to become more plant-based.

When you put all these issues about animal agriculture industry together, there is no other industry in the world that touches on so many aspect of our lives, sustainability and threatening our society.  – Vikas Garg

In this interview, we speak to Vikas about:
> The mission and vision of abillionVeg
> How can we help people understand the impact of their food choices
> The issue of animal agriculture globally

 

Here are a few of our favourite wedges of wisdom from Vikas.

 

The issue of animal agriculture globally in stats
In the United States, 45% of arable land in America goes to meat and dairy agriculture. Globally that’s between 40-60%. Land resource consumption is one issue, another is water pollution and the third is the environment and climate change. Human population is roughly at 7.3 billion people, and it is estimated that by 2030, this will grow to 8.5 billion people. Where are they going to live? What are they going to eat? We start to think about solving for more food, and the amount of food needed to feed the cattle is extremely inefficient. Every gram of animal protein harvested requires 6 grams of plant protein. There are 800 million people around the world that are starving and hungry – but it is avoidable. If you look at the amount of food needed to feed cows and how that trickles down the system is highly inefficient.

How can we help people understand the impact of their food choices?
“You are what you eat” – there’s never a truer statement. Businesses and the movement go hand in hand, and this awakening has the potential to build products that are good for people and good for the environment where businesses can still make money is a real tidal transformation in terms of thinking from the corporate community.

Vikas’ #LittleGreenSteps about mindful food choices

  • There are a lot of traditions surrounding food in society, it is a personal thing. You don’t have to abstain from meat straight away.
  • Begin with eating vegetarian or vegan for a day or week. Once you start to see a positive difference, then you’ll do it more often.
  • Do it part-time before making it full-time, you’re helping this movement!

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