Category Archives: Food

Vegetarian II

In the 4.5 years since I stopped eating meat, my reasons for being vegetarian have evolved from my initial focus on health and preventing chronic disease.  That is still important, but now I have other compelling reasons, environmental impact and social justice being at the top of the list.

Most people will not choose as I have and give up meat entirely, and that is fine.  Rather, think about ways to eat less meat: reduce portion sizes, incorporate meatless meals every week, and encourage others to do the same.

Recent reading, including the book I mention here, provides evidence that animals (and meat) can be raised and consumed in ways that sustain the environment.  If you do eat meat, try to find a local source.   Take the time to talk to the cow/chicken/pig farmer and find out about his/her practices.  Go visit the farm and see the animals.  What do they feed the animals?  How do they handle the manure?

For now, I am happy and healthy as a vegetarian.  My diet includes eggs and a moderate amount of dairy.  The eggs are from local free-range or pasture-raised hens.  The milk and some of the cheese comes from an in-state dairy.  Other cheese comes from smaller, local farmers.

Will I ever eat meat again?  Maybe.  But I will do so with some pretty high standards.

No time to cook?

Could it be because you just spent an hour in front of the television?

Michael Pollan in The Times Magazine:

“. . . a great many Americans are spending considerably more time watching images of cooking on television than they are cooking themselves — [cooking is] an increasingly archaic activity they will tell you they no longer have the time for.  What is wrong with this picture?”

Oh, the irony.

That said, cooking does take time, but it is a worthwhile investment.  The food tastes better and is healthier than any ready-to-eat or prepared options.  Food, and cooking, should be enjoyable and social.  Involve all members of your household, and it becomes a family activity rather than a chore.

Vegetarian I

For the first 21 years of my life, I was an unquestioning omnivore.  Well, not completely unquestioning.

Me: Did you wash that spoon?
Mom: I’m still using it.
Me: But you used the same spoon to stir the ground beef when it was raw, and now it will contaminate the cooked ground beef.

Me: Did you just touch the sink after handling raw chicken?
Mom: [Rolls her eyes as I proceed to thoroughly disinfect the sink.]

Sure, I ate meat, but I also had issues with it.  I handled raw meat like it was a hazardous substance.  The only thing missing was a HAZMAT suit.  Turns out, I was right to be worried, although at the time I didn’t understand WHY the meat was so hazardous.  Sure, I knew about e. coli and salmonella, but I did not know that those things were directly connected to our agriculture and food production system, a broken system.

I started cooking for myself regularly when I moved off campus for my senior year of college.  Except for an occasional chicken breast or a can of tuna, I did not prepare meat for myself.  It was just too much of a chore, what with the washing my hands every 4 seconds, sterilizing the sink, and using 10 different spoons to prepare one dish (a spoon for every stage in the cooking process, from raw to fully cooked).  Combine that with my growing interest in nutrition, including some convincing arguments that frequent meat consumption is NOT healthy, and you have the perfect vegetarian storm.

I did some reading about, and started experimenting with, alternate protein sources (legumes, nuts, soy).  I was eating well, saving money, and not missing the hazardous material handling.  Before I went home for Christmas break that year, I ate my last frozen chicken breast, and said goodbye to meat and hello to vegetarianism.

Confessional, or “Chocolate, avocados, and olive oil”

I wrote here about bananas’ large carbon footprint.  For better (it is not eternal summer here) and for worse (long distance from all the good food that grows there), I do not live in a tropical climate.  Despite eliminating bananas, there are other foods that I like to eat that just do not grow here.  In thinking about the foods I consume regularly or somewhat regularly, three main items come to mind: avocados, chocolate, and olive oil.

There was a time when I couldn’t imagine living without chocolate.  Are you kidding me?  I couldn’t even imagine getting through an entire day without eating chocolate.  Not lots of chocolate at one time, I was generally pretty moderate, but there was SOME chocolate every day.  While I will not be growing cacao seeds in my yard anytime soon, and don’t plan to completely abstain, there are some ways to make chocolate friendlier.  1) Buy fair trade organic chocolate made from sustainably grown cacao.  This means that instead of destroying rain forest to grow the chocolate, it was grown in the shade of other trees, by farmers who were paid a living wage and encouraged to farm sustainably.  2) Consume less chocolate.

Unless you have lots of money to burn, number one will naturally lead to number two, because fair trade organic chocolate is significantly more expensive than the alternative.  On the upside, it is also a higher quality chocolate, so you are more likely to be satisfied with a small amount.  The planet and your waistline will thank you.

We have not made this switch completely; it is a work in progress.  Most of the chocolate bars we purchase fit the fair trade, organic bill.  We also have a source for chocolate chips, but first we need to finish the stockpile of regular (not-so-earth-friendly) chocolate chips that I purchased during a good sale last year.

Signature sandwich

“Are you going to take a picture of that for your blog?”

“Um, I wasn’t going to, I was just going to eat it.”

“Oh, it just looks like it’s ready for a photo.”

Tomato, basil, mozarella sandwich with a side of corn
Tomato, basil, mozzarella sandwich with a side of corn