Anyone catch the Winnie the Pooh reference? Winnie aka A.A. Milne is one of the best philosophers out there. The childhood story shed light on a scary dichotomy between youthful imagination and adulthood “a fish in the sea”, or efficiency. Pooh preferred the former.

But when it comes to food systems, and especially meat, we need both. We need creative AND efficient ways of getting food to people’s plates without destroying the planet in the process through wasteful practices and high emissions. There are, after all, a lot of people to feed, and our meat consumption is incredibly inefficient.

To be very clear, we’re not suggesting a switch to fish as a panacea. Seafood has its own complex network with a laundry list of problems. But Winnie says “eating meat is inefficient” in a better way.

With the meat industry, there isn’t a quick fix. But there is a pretty simple reality and solution that we, as individuals, can begin to wrap our heads around—reduce.

Here are the facts:

The U.N. reports that meat, eggs, and milk account for 14.5% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Cattle ﹣that’s beef and milk﹣is 65% of that.

Animals are also an inefficient use of space and resources. We use about ⅓ of the world’s cropland to grow food to feed animals. Think about that for a second. It takes a third of all of our farmland to just feed the animals we eat. Cattle is such a huge part of the footprint because we eat a ton of them, and they are really big. The bigger the animal, the bigger the footprint.

In the United States, corn is our biggest crop and substantially more of it goes to animal feed than our plates. We eat only a tiny fraction of the corn we grow.

Put simply, the number of animals we eat is unsustainable.

What can you do?

A simple solution to this problem is to eat less meat, especially beef. (A funny aside: why do we call beef, beef? Think about it.) Eat less animal protein and compensate with more plant protein. In other words, cut the chicken breast in half and add some peas and lentils to the mix.

Circular Moment: By reducing the amount of meat you eat (even by just a little), you will immediately become a much lighter footprint on the planet.

This is not a push for complete vegetarianism, although that would lead to much more “a fish in the sea”. Rather, try to just start with making meat a side dish at a few meals per week.

We know that the above statistics could make even the thickest of skins among us crumble into despair. But that is not why we are here. We tell you these gut-wrenchers to help you build your own perspective.

To sign off on a positive note, here’s a picture of Winnie and Christopher Robin walking into a perpetual sunset of childhood bliss.