I wrote about how and why the production of different types of meat, for example, beef, pork and chicken, impact on the environment. I highlighted that beef is the most environmentally harmful meat to produce. My dissertation was made more convincing as I was able to illustrate how the production of meat differs for different animals. This made it more successful as I was being specific about each animal's environmental impacts, allowing the reader to better understand how meat production, especially beef, has such an impact on the environment. Next I will start working on producing my survey.

College has finished and I am going away on holiday for a week. I will continue working on my extended project when I have returned.

I watched a TED clip on youtube delivered by Graham Hill titled ‘Why I’m a weekday vegetarian’. This resource gave an alternative solution to consuming meat other than having a vegetarian diet. This was very suited to my dissertation topic as he highlighted the environmental importance of having a vegetarian population but also spoke about the challenges in completely eliminating meat from one’s diet. This is the problem faced by many people. His enticing solution was to be a weekday vegetarian which entails adopting a vegetarian diet from Monday to Friday but allows consuming meat at weekends. I thought this would be very suitable for in my dissertation in helping me to persuade people to limit their environmental impact without completely changing their lifestyle. It would also be a more attractive option for people who are both meat-lovers and conscious of protecting the environment. I wrote a paragraph about this TED clip in my dissertation, as I knew it was a reliable source due to TED clips being so well known and established. After watching this clip I thought it would be very relevant to conduct a survey (primary research), to find out if people were aware of the damaging impacts of meat production on the environment and whether they would be prepared to reduce their intake of meat to help preserve our surroundings. Whilst initially researching into my dissertation topic it seemed apparent that this was a huge problem but I felt that generally people were not informed about the environmental impact of meat production and if they were, whether they were prepared to do anything about it. So I decided to devise a survey using survey monkey, a form of primary research. This was a strength of my project as I came to realise what other information I required that was necessary to complete my project and thus took my own initiative to collect the information that I needed first hand.

After reading Timothy B. Rutherford's article, the Vegetarian Society's page for saving water and John Robbins' 'The Food Revolution' book, I wrote a paragraph explaining how meat production exacerbates the global water shortage. This was a successful paragraph as I was able to combine the information from three different resources, making it a very informative and reliable paragraph. Next I will look for a video clip linking meat production with the environment in order to broaden the variety of resources in my bibliography.

I read the book 'The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice and Sustainability' written by Lierre Keith. I didn't read the entire book but instead I only read the argument put forward that was relevant to my dissertation title. This was a political argument challenging the idea that you can only feed everyone if we are all vegetarians. This was a good resource as it conflicted with my dissertation title: Keith was suggesting that adopting a vegetarian diet does not have beneficial implications for the environment. By using a source that was not biased towards my topic, I was able to write a more powerful and persuasive dissertation. Moreover I myself was able to refute or think of solutions to the problems she had put forward, thus it formed a successful part of my dissertation. It improved my ability to use and apply my own knowledge that I had gained from my resources. I wrote approximately 500 words using this resource. To help me do this, I made notes from the book. These are shown below. I will continue to collect sources and hopefully will come across some other resources that suggest vegetarianism does not benefit the environment.

Notes on 'The Vegetarian Myth':

• Cattle fed grain  as so cheap + subsidised as such a surplus. If grain production were not such a lucrative process, cattle would not be fed grain
• Cattle should npot be fed grain: it turns the normally neutral rumen (first stomach) acidic - cow becomes sick +bloated
• Grain causes cattle fatten quicker - heavier quicker so more lucrative in the process
• Agriculture destroys topsoil
• Manure + animals living +dying on land is natural way to fertilise + replenish the topsoil - otherwise would have use artificial fertilisers that require fossil fuels to produce
• The surplus of grain being produced has allowed population numbers to increase far beyond their natural size