Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.Albert Einstein
Recently I read Mark Bittman's Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating as part of my growing interest in cooking, nutrition, meal planning. It's a very short book - half of it is recipes- but very eye-opening in terming of shocking statistics regarding the American diet such as
The average American eats a half-pound of meat a day.
We raise 60 billion animals a year for consumption; that's 10 per person.
[In terms of energy consumption], if we ate three fewer cheeseburgers a week it
would be the equivalent of canceling the effects of all SUVs on the road.
8 ounces of meat a day? 60 billion animals? Who could eat that much meat? Incidentally yesterday I was reading an email from a year ago that I sent to Luke when I hired a personal trainer that answers this question:
Here is what I am supposed to eat, per nutrition guru/gym owner --> protein shake for breakfast (7 oz water, 8 frozen strawberries, 1 T flax seed oil, 1 scoop protein powder) I did this this morning... I am so FULL. I need to experiment with ways to make it colder (just add ice, I guess, and blend) because things always taste better cold. For lunch: 7 OUNCES of meat (pref chicken or fish) and unlimited veggies with negative energy balance (takes more to digest them than they contain- asparagus, cauliflower, broccoli, etc) + little bit of sauce/seasoning to make these things palatable. Snack: 20 cashews or 20 almonds or 2 pieces of string cheese. Dinner: same as lunch. After dinner snack: 1.5 T peanut butter or a yogurt.
On Wednesday night, to replace liver glycogen stores, have beef and broccoli with rice from some Chinese place. On Saturday night, eat whatever you want. ...
Getting hungry now. I am calling this regimen Meat Me in St Louis.
Of course I did not follow this regimen for more than 24 hours because I could not force myself to prepare or choke down 14 ounces of chicken a day. It makes me nauseated just thinking about it.
(For the record, bringing my lunch and avoiding the cafeteria did the trick.)
So this small book has heightened my awareness of the personal and global perils of ever-increasing meat consumption and I've begun to consider seriously a more plant-based diet, either week on/week off vegetarian, overall reduction, or some plan to fit into our lives easily. The challenge for me is not to simply omit meat and add more pasta and cheese but to branch out into grains and beans that I've never tasted or prepared before. And tofu! I've eaten it in little cubes but never cooked with it... Luke and I were just discussing how suspiciously protean soybeans are as apparently they can be made into spongy bricks, milk, eaten as edamame, made into fuel, fabrics...
A recent email to my vegetarian friend Jen:
Going vegetarian is easy!
Brownies and Diet Coke!
Fondue!
Cheese pizza and licorice!
So far I've checked out several cookbooks (Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, The Occasional Vegetarian, Southwestern Vegetarian) from the library to peruse before adding my shelf. Bittman's is especially good as a general cookbook because it also includes instructional sidebars on pasta-making, buying produce in season, etc. I also plan to read some of Michael Pollan's work (Omnivore's Dilemma)... am beginning to harbor some conspiracy-theorist tendencies when I contemplate the vast marketing schemes we live in (Bittman notes a 2007 study in which children 1) preferred food in McDonald's packaging and 2) preferred milk and carrots if they thought the items were from McDonald's) but moreover, striving to become a more conscientious, educated and pro-active consumer.
I recommend, readers! It's a book that won't take you much more than an evening to read (and most of the main highlights are reiterated in the accompanying cookbook, The Food Matters Cookbook, should you pick that up too.)
This hunt for information started when I saw this in Rachael Ray magazine- there was no citation but I got googling. I assume this calculation is for a family of four making dinner 5 nights a week or so... another cogent argument for going meatless at least some of the time.
good stuff julie! i lean toward vegetarian dishes majority of the time when we go out to eat....eggplant, salads, mushrooms, pasta with veggies....mmm....less or no meat is way easier on the digestive system too. i'm loving all your profound foodie input!
ReplyDeleteThanks- this little book is a must-read!
ReplyDeleteAl and I often plan weekly meatless dinner menus at home. We find veggie menus are less expensive, are easier to clean up and leave us feeling less tired. We don't think we'd ever be able to give up meat for good, but there is something to less meat. I'm just starting to eat seafood, which has been an interesting adventure for me so far.
ReplyDeleteA little over a year and a half ago, Jeff and I watched Food Inc. (in addition to reading a lot of Bittman and my normal diet of cooking blogs). We decided a few days later to try to purchase only local, "happy", meat for 30 days. We haven't stopped yet. We do throw out those rules when we are out eating, or on vacation, but we've been strict about it at home, where we cook a lot. This has also meant we omit meat much more than we used to. We've added a tofu stirfry to our weekly menu. Tonight, we had tofu, mushroom and green bean stir-fry. Super yummy. Deciding to eat locally sourced, organic, grass fed (what I like to call happy) meat may help. Regardless, being more aware of food sources is a great thing!
ReplyDeleteThat is awesome, Tracie! Do you only buy meat at a farmer's market, or Sappington farmer's market/grocery?
ReplyDelete