More than 130 shops and online shops across Malta will be offering products at discounted prices in a drive to cut down on meat consumption.

Hundreds of individuals will also start a meat-free week in an initiative targeted at increasing the growing community of vegans, vegetarians and flexitarians (people who consume very little meat) in Malta.

The challenge, which starts on Monday, is part of the Malta Meat Free Week challenge, organised by VeggyMalta.com.

The challenge is not to try to get people to quit meat forever but to increase awareness of how easy it is to reduce and eliminate meat products from our lives. 

"There are a number of reasons why you should consider taking the challenge and going 'one week zero meat'. Your health is the first, especially if you are concerned about the usage of antibiotics and hormones in animal feed. Animal welfare is another reason," a statement by the activists said.

Over 50 billion farmed animals are killed every year by humans, excluding fish.

There also are environmental reasons - livestock farming contributes to 18% of human produced greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. This is more than all emissions from ships, planes, trucks, cars and all other transport put together.

And finally, there is world hunger. If all the grain were fed to humans instead of animals, it would feed an extra 3.5 billion people. 

"The Malta Free Week is unique in that it brings together individuals taking the challenge, importers and retailers and restaurants in one common aim. Abroad, meat free challenges are primarily aimed at the participants. We wanted to involve retailers and restaurants to make it easy for people to try going one week zero meat," said Malta Meat Free Week organiser Darryl Grima.

Those who want to join the challenge can do so by going on www.maltameatfreeweek.com and be in with a chance to win €200 worth of products by Valsoia. 

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