The "Whys"

About five months ago I ran across an interesting article by Paul Watson. Noted to most as an environmental activist (at best) and an "ecoterrorist" by others, the piece spoke on how the sea was being over-farmed and how Watson ran his sea vessels as vegan boats. More interestingly for me at the time, he spoke of the ecological impact of meat, outside of any discussion of cruelty or nutrition. His simple assertion was, "A vegan driving a Hummer around is more ecologically friendly than a meat eater who gets around solely by bicycle." This was due to the "hidden cost" of meat, the incredible amount of food and water required to sustain just one cow, and how much waste is put into the rivers, not to mention pesticides concentrated into the meat by eating so much treated grain.

I had never really considered that aspect of the meat industry and it put me a little off kilter. I had just started to take the bus regularly to be a "good steward" of the planet, and felt very self-righteous in doing so. Yet here was a larger waste of resources that I was happily buying into.

At about that time I also started to research the nutritional choices I had been making. Long hours at work, no fresh food for lunch and eating out regularly had been my diet for years. As I learned more, I knew that needed to change.

I realized that the easiest way for me to force myself to carefully consider my diet was to restrict it in such a way that I had no choice but to eat more healthy foods. I decided to become a "soft vegetarian". I didn't yet tell people, but I stopped eating meat. Making a broad, sweeping restriction meant I had a much harder time allowing myself the small temptations. If I couldn't eat meat I couldn't cut corners and go through the drive-thru at Wendy's. In fact, most fast food was off limits as well as a lot of restaurants. An inconvenience, but I felt an important one to bear.

I knew that becoming a vegetarian meant that I now had new nutritional challenges to overcome, and I needed to really understand what I was eating and what I needed to eat to stay healthy. I was sure that I would now become terribly deficient without meat. I would need to eat beans with rice at every meal or face a lack of protein, a lack of iron, a lack of energy. I began by reading "Becoming Vegetarian" by Vesanto Melina and Brenda Davis. While there were considerations, I found that protein wasn't going to be a major concern and that my biggest challenge was to eat a variety of things during my day.

From there, I began to read "Food Politics" by Marion Nestle. She detailed how the meat and dairy industry, bolstered by previous subsidies and now rising popularity, muddy the waters about nutrition and what their products have to offer. I learned that meat was not only not crucial for health, in many cases it was detrimental. I also read "Diet For a Small Planet" by Frances Moore Lappe which went into greater detail about the true cost of meat.

Without becoming self-righteous, for myself I felt that my decision was now not just simply about nutrition, but had grown into a choice about ecology and economy.

The casualty from this all was my interest in cooking. Without meat, my options were limited, as was my interest. But as I also learned more about the cost of prepared food, both nutritionally and economically, I decided that I wanted to prepare my own foods again.

This blog details that process of rekindling a desire to cook great food without meat - a desire to eat lower on the food chain.