I'm going vegan.
Hahahahahahahaha.
I'm going vegan ONE day a week. (Come on, I can only survive without yogurt for so long.)
Eating lower on the food chain is better for the environment. Just trust me on this, I don't feel like looking up the stats right now. (But I'm about to start reading In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan. And I'll try to pull some #s from that for you.) In helping to combat climate change, many groups are encouraging people to decrease their consumption of meat and try being vegetarian one day a week. While I'm not a vegetarian, I do have plenty of vegetarian days due to my own cooking inadequacies, financial constraints and just because I like tofu and other meat-free meals. So the "less meat" or "vegetarian once a week" isn't really a big change for me. Going totally vegetarian would be a big change. I was a vegetarian for quite a few years - and then added fish back in, then a few years later poultry, then there was the return to filet mignon that just opened the door back up for everything. While I'm pretty sure I'd do a better job with my nutrition today than I did during my high school and college vegetarian days, I'm still not convinced that vegetarian is the way for me to go to stay my healthiest. Once I added seafood back into my diet, I had more energy and healed faster from random cuts, scrapes and bruises. Anyway... back to today's plan...
So a once-a-week vegan thing. That's a change for me. Something I'll notice. And something that, if everyone did, would make a big impact. If we're not growing as many milk cows or egg chickens, that means that less resources are used for those animals - resources like land, water and food. (And cows fart methane, which is a really potent greenhouse gas. Eeewww!)
Interested in joining me? Or perhaps you'd like to go vegetarian once a week? I just started today :)
4 comments:
So I agree that, if you're using commerical agriculture as a model, animal products do take up more than their fair share of resources. However, if you look at more traditional uses of land, animals were often grazed/raised on otherwise marginal land that could not be used as cropland. A goat can live quite happily on the side of a hill, eating rosemary and weeds, but if you try to plants tomatoes there, you'll get nothing but a whole lot of erosion (and crappy tomatoes). Raising animals for food/food products can be a really good use of resources. It can also be good for the animals - there are several breeds of native hogs that are becoming very rare because factory farms all use the same breed of hog. There are a few small family farms that are dedicated to raising (and selling for meat, since nobody raises pigs just for the hell of it) heritage breeds of pig, so that they don't go extinct. These breeds are generally better mothers and more winter-hardy, which will help maintain the food supply once the factory-farm model collapses.
I'm planning (ok, trying to convince Erich) to get a dairy goat and about 5 chickens. That would mean that we would be raising food animals on land that is currently not used for anything (I'd put them in the dog run).
While I agree that going vegetarian/vegan is really useful in most months, if I'm going to stick to a local diet, it's going to have to include some meat - particularly January-March here in NY :-)
Good luck with the yogurt-free day! No fair substituting soy yogurt!
I do not disagree with you at all. Unfortunately, most of the animal products that *I* consume aren't produced in the manner that you're describing. :( I do try to select local (not tough around here - plenty of cows and chickens!), organic, etc -> but I think that a lot of these are actually factory organic. When I do a CSA box (when I have a job...), I'll probably select to add eggs and will hopefully be able to spend more for my yogurt. Or (because you know I'm not going to do it entirely by hand) get a yogurt maker and just be selective about where I purchase my milk.
And I totally hear you on the land-use model, again - I'm just not able to buy from farmers that are following that process right now. One of these days...
"While I'm not a vegetarian, I do have plenty of vegetarian days due to my own cooking inadequacies..."
That's totally me!
What works well for yogurt is to buy a wide-mouth thermos, like for taking food, not drinks, and pre-heat it. Then pre-heat your milk (to about 110F), add culture, dump it all in the thermos and wait 6 hours or so. I like the thermos because it's more versatile than a yogurt maker - I can take my lunch in it on non-yogurt-making days. Not that I go anywhere, but you know, I have the option (or Erich or Lily could take his/her lunch, I suppose). They're also cheaper than yogurt makers - I think mine was $15-20, and it's a decent stainless one.
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