Calling All Carnivores: 7 Painless Ways to Be an Almost-Vegetarian
Call it flexitarianism, conscious meat consumption, or low meat eating, lots of people are saving the flesh for special occasions and adopting a veg-centric diet. If you’ve been thinking about going vegetarian or vegan for the planet, but you really like meat and think you’ll miss it, or you’re worried that your nutrition will suffer, or you don’t want to subject your entire family to an extreme change, I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be black and white.
On a personal note, I’ve been eating about 85% veg for a few years now and it works for me…my body, my budget, and my beliefs.
Conventional livestock production uses tons of grain, water, and petroleum. It’s extremely inefficient, has huge environmental impacts, and is cruel to animals. For a detailed picture, read this now classic piece on The Meat Guzzler by Mark Bittman of the New York Times.
On the other hand, abolishing meat entirely is a bad idea because livestock can be an important part of ecological farming (not to mention a tough sell to a meat loving public). Pasture-raised meat is better for the environment, animals, and us by far, but requires more land. If we’re going to produce meat more sustainably, we’re going to have to eat a lot less of it. That’s the challenge.
Because drastic lifestyle changes can be overwhelming, humans have a tendency to do nothing until they feel ready to make a leap, but tiny steps can actually make a difference and lead to a complete change in the end, if that’s where you decide you’re headed.
The first step is to change your mindset from thinking of meat as the center of the plate and shift your shopping and cooking habits. It starts at that all-important moment when you’re thinking of what to make for dinner. Train your brain to build the meal around grains, beans, and vegetables, instead of a pork chop. There are many ways to do this and none of them are difficult.
Let’s get started!
1. Take a Class
This story about an eco-conscious, low meat cooking teacher in Portland, Oregon Made me think there must be others all over the country. Check Craig’s List and your community message boards.
2. Adopt a Mediterranean Diet
The Mediterranean Diet has been shown to be healthy for your body. It’s also low in meat, not to mention so delicious.
3. Participate in Meatless Mondays
Started by Johns Hopkin’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, Meatless Mondays have taken the blogosphere by storm. Why not make it Meatless Mondays, Wednesdays and Sundays?
4. Take EcoSalon’s 5 Day Eat Low on the Food Chain Meal Challenge.
On the 6th day, roast a pasture-raised chicken, make a broth, and make it last.
5. Surf the Web
The 10 in 10 Diet is all the way veg, focuses on budget cooking, real, fresh foods, and has great tips for switching your thinking and shopping habits in the form of a funny robot video.
Low Meat is a new site that promises lots of goodies for readers.
6. Buy a Cookbook
There are heaps of cookbooks that are all or mostly veg, yet friendly to meat eaters.
The Flexitarian Table by Peter Berley has adaptable recipes for people that have to feed both vegetarians and carnivores or those, like me, who only want to eat meat once in awhile.
The Flexitarian Diet focuses on health and weight loss with recipes.
The Adaptable Feast by Ivy Manning includes recipes from a variety of traditions that have a “fork in the road” allowing for the accommodation of different diets.
There’s the James Beard Award-winning Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by almost-vegetarian Deborah Madison.
The upcoming book Licking Your Chops by rock star blogger Kim O’Donnel, who was one of the original proponents of Meatless Mondays, promises to be delicious.
7. Do the bulk of your shopping at the farmers market or join a CSA.
The easiest way to lower your meat consumption is to start with the freshest seasonal vegetables. The flavors are so vibrant and they are such a pleasure to cook that it will be easy to make meat an after-thought.
Up next week in The Green Plate: tips and tricks for shopping the farmers’ market.
This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.
Images: Moe, K.I.T., Martin Kingsley, NatalieMaynor, nblumhardt, Mecookie, gamene and MR+G.
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21 Comments
February 8th, 2010 at 10:14 am
Thanks Vanessa for this great article, and for the moderate approach you propose. I think there are a lot of flexitarians like myself out there who are trying to eat a mostly plant-based diet, but still like to have meat once in awhile. No one should feel bad or guilty eating meat now and then, as long as there is an attempt to make sure it is organic and grass fed.
I also love the idea of taking a cooking class to save money, eat healthy and have some fun in the kitchen.
Susan
February 8th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
Vanessa, this is so timely as many of us are struggling to eliminate meat. This
shows it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing approach. But I have to admit, the more I do away with meat, the more repugnant it is to me, the smell, the taste, the idea. While we once needed it to survive, there are so many other options, and I look forward to following your advice. You grow girl!!
February 8th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
Interesting article. I don’t think I could ever be a vegetarian though, I love chicken too much.
February 9th, 2010 at 7:43 am
It’s so good that consumers are becoming more aware of where their food comes from and the impact that it has. I’m a vegetarian chef who cooks for meat eaters, but I make plant based food so appealing that they eat less meat. I’ve been writing and teaching bout this for many years, and I hope that people can just cut back and make a difference.
Robin Asbell
author of New Vegetarian (Chronicle Books)
February 9th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
Thanks, Vanessa, for mentioning my site! You’re making a great contribution here.
Lynn
February 10th, 2010 at 9:59 am
I’m just finishing the book, The Vegetarian Myth, by Lierre Keith.
I’ve been a mostly vegetarian eater for about 20 years, primarily for environmental protection reasons. Now I’m aware that the largely grain-based diet I’ve been eating isn’t any better for the environment, or for my health for that matter. Keith has some outrage that may be misplaced, but I can understand it and look past it to the information she provides and the logic it displays. I’ll be eating more meat and other animal foods in the future. Fortunately, more local, non-industrial sources are available now.
Agriculture is destroying our planet just as surely as the burning of fossil fuels (in large part to fuel agriculture.) We’ve mined the soil and the groundwater as well. Eating animals requires allowing them to live and grow first. During that time they help build the soil. When we eat them, they aren’t wiped out, because they reproduced a new generation in the meantime to carry on the cycle. This is true whether they’re domesticated or wild. Eating animals didn’t decrease their wild populations, practicing agriculture did it by eliminating their habitat.
So perhaps the more important message than how to eat less meat is how to transition to raising it more locally. Whether you eat the same amount that you have been, less, or even more, you can do it with the intention of supporting people (it might even be you) who are not raising their animals on unnatural grain diets. Buy a share of a pig or a steer or a lamb or some chickens. I now understand that it’s at least as important as buying a CSA share of vegetables.
Please examine your thinking about food and ask questions about your assumptions. I’m still in that process and it continues to move me toward a demonstrably more sustainable existence.
February 10th, 2010 at 10:52 am
Steve, Michael Pollan does a great job of presenting both sides to this issue. My mission in promoting a vegetarian diet is to help people who would like to make a significant difference to the environment. There is no danger any time soon of too many people going off meat. The vegetarians might eventually balance off the damage industrial agriculture does in feeding the carnivores. Myself, I eat meat when I’m with my aging mother and I use a bit of dairy and some eggs. This means some participation in those varied types of land use Keith points to.
Lynn
February 10th, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Vanessa, thank you so very much for mentioning the forthcoming publication of “Licking Your Chops,” which will be out right around Labor Day. Please get in touch directly so we can make sure you get an advance copy. All best.
February 10th, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Thanks everyone for stopping in and commenting. Robin, nice to hear from a fellow Chronicle author. Thanks for the heads-up on your book. I’m sorry I didn’t know about it. Though I do know about your excellent grain book.
Steve, I have heard Lierre Keith on the radio and I look forward to reading her book. She has some provocative ideas, many of which I agree with, including moving toward more locally raised meats.
Nice to see some dialogue going around this important issue.
February 11th, 2010 at 11:32 pm
I have had a difficult time with vegan diets in the past due to how incredibly weak and eventually depleted I feel when I eliminate animal protein, though my diet is still mostly raw fruits and vegetables. Not being able to eat dairy, eggs, soy, legumes most starches and high GI fruits makes it even harder. My daily goal is to eat mostly vegetables and some fruit and this post gave me some new ideas.
February 12th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
Great post! I really like the idea of Meatless Mondays etc
And I always make a stock with my roast chicken carcass (you can toss it into the freezer if you don’t have the time to make it right away) and then use the delicious home-made stock for a risotto or such.
The only thing is, I am married to a guy who needs meat. He works really hard and the (lovingly prepared) evening meal has to satisfy him. Legumes and all-veg just don’t do the trick…
One meal I do is a stuffed portobello mushroom, but even that has tuna in it……
February 13th, 2010 at 10:29 am
I don’t know. I just don’t understand vegetarian diets. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore raw fruits and vegetables. However, I can’t live without meat. Personally, I don’t believe going vegetarian is the answer. I think a better solution would be to encourage local farming as Steve suggested. I’m an omnivore after all. I just crave it with a passion sometimes. :/
February 13th, 2010 at 10:34 am
Sam, that is exactly why it’s important that some of us try. Local meat is something a few wealthier rural people can aspire to.
February 13th, 2010 at 4:40 pm
Love this article! Wanted to add that, as a lover if Southern cooking, I am particularly thrilled to have discovered Bryant Terry’s “Vegan Soul Kitchen”. If you think a vegan diet is inherently bland or boring, think again!
I’ve been a vegetarian for many years and am also allergic to milk protein (casein), which means I often end up looking for vegan option though I do still occassionally consume eggs. We need a lot less protein than we think, and a better variety of proteins to vary those branch amino acids in our diets.
If you can’t imagine going without chicken, I suggest you adopt a chicken as a pet, name it, get to know its quirky little ways… You might find your empathy overrides your appetite at least a couple days a week. You don’t need meat everyday. You don’t really need it at all. Love that chicken with your heart, not your stomach! Give it a try!
February 15th, 2010 at 2:02 am
Good article. I’m a vegetarian, and I agree that it really takes a while to get out of the mindset that meat has to be the main dish in every meal.
February 16th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
Very good read. I’ve been ‘flexitarian’ for the past two years. We have one local farm here where I live, which I’ve visited, where I know for sure the animals are treated humanely. Though it’s a bit more expensive, we’ll usually buy meat from them for special occasions, and that meat I’m willing to eat.
Steve actually brings up a very good point, and one I hadn’t really considered yet. Excessive farming will deplete the soil of nutrients, and I don’t believe most major farms practice rotating their crops. =/
I’d love to eventually own just enough land to grow/raise all my own food. Keeping chickens/goats has been a longtime dream of mine. :3
February 21st, 2010 at 12:16 am
I like Bittman’s term, “Lessmeatarian.”
See:
http://www.markbittman.com/los.....smeatarian
March 1st, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Thanks for commenting everyone. I heard a new term yesterday at the farmers market: “Meat Reductionist”. I like it!
March 5th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
great tips! I could use all the help I can get!
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