Living Car Free - Living Meat-free?

I've been enjoying Mark Bittman's new diet and recipe book, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating (http://www.markbittman.com/books/food-matters). Here's an excerpt that I thought would be interesting to carfree and carlight folks:


To produce one calorie of corn takes 2.2 calories of fossil fuel. for beef the number is 40: it requires 40 calories to produce one calorie of beef protein...

[I]f you process that corn, and feed it to a steer, and take into account all the other needs that steer has through its lifetime--land use, chemical fertilizers (largely petroleum-based), pesticides, machinery, transport, drugs, water, and so on--you're responsible for 40 calories of energy to get that same calorie of protein. According to one estimate, a typical steer consumes the equivalent of 13.5 gallons of gasoline in his lifetime, enough for even some gas guzzlers to to drive more than halfway from New York to Los Angeles, or for an energy-efficient car to make the drive back and forth twice. Or try to imagine each cow on the planet consuming almost seven barrels of crude oil.

Another way to put it is that eating a typical family-of-four steak dinner is the rough equivalent, energy-wise, of driving around in an SUV for three hours while leaving all the lights on at home....

If we all ate the equivalent of three fewer cheeseburgers a week, we'd cancel out the effects of all the SUVs in the country. Not bad....

To make this case for changing your diet even more compelling, consider this: For a family that usually drives a car 12,000 miles a year, switching from eating red meat and dairy to chicken, fish and eggs just one day a week--in terms of greenhouse gas emissions--is the equivalent of driving 760 miles less a year. And if you switch to a vegetable-based diet for that one day a week, you reduce emissions even more, to the equivalent of driving 1,160 miles less.

And this impact is exponential:By moving totally away from red meat and dairy to a diet made up of chicken, fish and eggs you reduce your emissions by a further 5,340 miles a year. And if you switch to a completely vegetable-based diet? That same family reduces its emissions by more than 60 percent; the same as cutting their mileage down from 12,000 to just 3,900 miles a year.



http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41ht9HVa6iL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1416575642?tag=saloncom08-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=1416575642&adid=1H32M1FMRY7KGT8EPXCX&)

Nothing new, though always interesting to think about.

The thing about beef is that it tastes so freaking good!

Nothing new, though always interesting to think about.

The thing about beef is that it tastes so freaking good!

What was new (to me) was the direct comparison of meat consumption to driving. I thought this might mean something to carfree and carlight people. Maybe carfree/light isn't the only way (or even the best way) to lighten one's burden on the planet.

I love beef too. Mark Bittman is not a vegetarian, and some of the recipes in the book call for meat. He's more "meatlight."

I was greatly influenced many years ago by Francis Moor Lappé 's "Diet for a Small Plant". At the time the concept of a vegetable based diet being more sustainable was a powerful idea. Although I am not a vegetarian, I have always managed to eat meat no more than 2-3 times a week (and occasionally less...) and have a large number of meals that I prepare that are meatless. I would credit this book for many of the meat-free meals I have enjoyed over the years.

Roody's linking of meat-free and carfree is an interesting one... many here ride bikes because it is a great way to transport yourself if you live on a small planet.

As if my family weren't weird enough being car free, we're vegetarian too. Car light and meat light are probably more attainable goals for most people. But I swear that we are a happy, productive family despite being quirky.

I could give up my car way before I could give up meat, my opinion.

I never have been meat heavy in my diet. Red meat once a week, sometimes less often, chicken, poultry and fish. Meatless days 2-3 times a week. I am a huge pasta fan, so that is a good filler with a nice veggie based sauce.

Aaron:)

If you're going to eat meat, consider eating locally grown pastured / chemical free type meat. Much less environmental impact.

I normally don't eat meat, but the local chemical free meat in Haiti was pretty good, and then my friend gave me some meat that was new-in-package, taken from the grocery store dumpster one day before the sell-by date, and it was oh-so-good. :)

Back to pretty much being a vegetarian these days though.

I've been enjoying Mark Bittman's new diet and recipe book, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating (http://www.markbittman.com/books/food-matters). Here's an excerpt that I thought would be interesting to carfree and carlight folks:


Roody, we actually agree on a lot of things (e.g. something needs to happen to break Americas auto dependency and culture). However, I was reading the excerpt and, very simply, he makes the mistake of giving numbers that are easily checked.


a typical steer consumes the equivalent of 13.5 gallons of gasoline in his lifetime, enough for even some gas guzzlers to to drive more than halfway from New York to Los Angeles, or for an energy-efficient car to make the drive back and forth twice.It is about 2,780 miles from New York to Los Angeles. a Gasguzzler gets less than18 mpg (http://www.cars.gov/). So, 13.5 * 18 = 243. this is a bit shy of the 1,380 that one would need to drive, "more than halfway from New York to Los Angeles." Further, the best rater energy efficient car, the Toyota Prius (http://www.toyota.com/prius-hybrid/) gets 51city, 48hwy. I will give the author credit for having a very light foot and say that he can eek 55mpg out of it. So, 55 * 13.5 = 742.5. still a bit short of the 1,380 that one would need to drive, "more than halfway from New York to Los Angeles," and no where near the 11,120 distance that would have covered making, "the drive back and forth twice."

When I see such huge errors in a book about the things I do know, I am left wondering about the authors accuracy in the areas where they are telling me something I do not know.

As if my family weren't weird enough being car free, we're vegetarian too. Car light and meat light are probably more attainable goals for most people. But I swear that we are a happy, productive family despite being quirky.

That's definitely cool ;)

My mom has quite the opposite mentality. She is very anti-conservation. She gets upset with me if I turn off lights and/or space heaters in unoccupied rooms. Oh well...

If I ever said I were becoming a vegetarian, all hell would break loose.

Of course some people make a living by raising cattle. Rowan and I live on 1200 acres, some of which is an orchard, and some of which is devoted to pasture for a herd of cattle raised for meat (Black Angus). Rowan is employed by the people who own the orchard to work with the apples and plums. One of his co-workers works with the ornamental trees ... and the cattle. He might not have a full-time job if it weren't for the cattle.

I've been on farms and have cycled past numerous farms, but I've never lived right in the midst of a herd of cattle before. It's interesting watching them all in action, and what really goes on out there.

Yes, a vehicle is used to feed them once or twice a day ... a small tractor takes a large round bail of hay out to them (hay, not corn). Did you know that cattle are just like cats when they hear the can opener in the kitchen? They hear that little tractor, and they all come running. :) Other than that, on a daily basis, they're just left to fend for themselves in a huge pasture. And the water they drink is rain water collected in dams in various places around the property.

As far as land use goes, I'd much, much rather look at a green pasture dotted with black cows than city buildings. The pasture is producing oxygen because of all the grass and clover, etc. The cows are producing fertilizer to aid in the production of grass and clover, etc. It's a cyclic process.

As far as chemical fertilizers and pesticides go ... I suppose some might be used in the process of growing the hay, but you don't want the cows consuming much in the way of chemicals.

And does this Mark person actually believe that there is no machinery used, no transportion involved, no feed/fertilizer and water consumed, etc., etc., for chicken, fish ... and fruit, vegetables, grains, etc.? Has he never set foot on a farm or orchard before? He sounds like he thinks chicken, fish, eggs, fruit, veggies, bread, etc. just magically appear in the grocery store. He should pop by for a visit ... he'd be re-writing that book! :lol:


I've got several shots of our neighbors, the Black Angus, in this set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/14302884@N04/sets/72157619719051119/ :)

Machaka,
I come from a farming family. There are many different ways of raising cattle. How do they "finish" the ones you have prior to slaughter? In the US it is in a feed lot where they are fed antibiotic laced feed, usually corn based. Corn in the US is a heavily genetically modified, fertilized and mechanically grown and harvested crop.

I do agree with Robert C that the numbers on mileage are way off whiche makes other things in the book suspect. There is no doubt that there are more cost effective ways of getting your protein other than beef, and a healthy diet does not need red meat 3 times a day 7 days a week.;)

Aaron:)

Machaka,
I come from a farming family. There are many different ways of raising cattle. How do they "finish" the ones you have prior to slaughter? In the US it is in a feed lot where they are fed antibiotic laced feed, usually corn based. Corn in the US is a heavily genetically modified, fertilized and mechanically grown and harvested crop.

I do agree with Robert C that the numbers on mileage are way off whiche makes other things in the book suspect. There is no doubt that there are more cost effective ways of getting your protein other than beef, and a healthy diet does not need red meat 3 times a day 7 days a week.;)

Aaron:)

I'm not sure how they "finish" them, but there is very little corn grown here, if any.

Personally I'm not a huge fan of meat of any sort (beef, pork, chicken, fish, etc.) ... I prefer a more vegetarian diet. But if the author of that book is going to come down hard on the beef industry, he also has to look at what's involved in the poultry and fishing industries. Frozen chickens and canned tuna don't just show up on grocery store shelves by magic with no vehicular involvement.

And he's also got to look at the "vegetarian". Our cows are fed once a day with a small tractor ... so we use whatever fuel that requires. But a farmer growing a crop of wheat is out there in a much larger machine for fertilizing, planting, watering (if irrigation is used), and harvesting. And then similar to the cows, the wheat is transported, and transported, and transported, until it finally shows up on the shelf of the local grocery store in the form of bread.

Or take apples for example. They don't just plant apple trees by hand and then several months later go out and pick by hand. The land gets cleared (chain saws & bulldozers), the trees get planted, they use machines to move the pruners up and down the rows of trees, and they use similar machines to move pickers up and down the rows of trees too. And then the apples get transported off to a sorting centre, and they get packaged up and distributed. The apples here go all over Australia, as well as Japan and the UK. Lots of transportation involved.

So when someone in the UK selects an apple in the shop ... using Mark Bittman's method of calculation, how cost effective is that apple? How much fuel went into getting that apple there?

You can go after beef, like it sounds Mark has done ... but you can go after just about everything you find in the grocery store the same way. Pick an item.

Machka,
The transportation of food across too many miles is one of the reasons I attempt to adhere to the 100 mile diet. (http://100milediet.org/) Wheat is less resource intensive to grow than beef, ditto chickens and fish. Yes we have fish farms in NC;) as well as having a fishing industry along the coast. Anything can be abused, misused and overused.

The average meal in the US travels almost 1500 miles before you eat it. This has been brought on because of the huge factory farms that have all but run the small local farms out of business. It has also brought additional problems to the local level in the form of food poisoning that has to be tracked back across the entire continent. IMHO if people purchased food from local farms and processors, we would have more people employed and it would be limit food poisoning out breaks to a regional area.

I honestly don't believe that there is any one size fits all answer. But if it makes someone think about how wasteful a certain process can be and opens the door to an alternative method it certainly wouldn't hurt.

Aaron:)

I like Michael Pollan's philosophy: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants (http://www.michaelpollan.com/indefense.php).

Machka,
The transportation of food across too many miles is one of the reasons I attempt to adhere to the 100 mile diet. (http://100milediet.org/)

Brian Dunning of Skeptoid.com does a great job of explaining why "buying local" isn't always better.

Read all about it @: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4162

Whether you agree with him or not, it certainly offers some things to think about.

[off topic] The Skeptoid podcast covers all sorts of interesting topics and is one of my favorites, I highly recommend it! [/off topic]

Roody, we actually agree on a lot of things (e.g. something needs to happen to break Americas auto dependency and culture). However, I was reading the excerpt and, very simply, he makes the mistake of giving numbers that are easily checked.

It is about 2,780 miles from New York to Los Angeles. a Gasguzzler gets less than18 mpg (http://www.cars.gov/). So, 13.5 * 18 = 243. this is a bit shy of the 1,380 that one would need to drive, "more than halfway from New York to Los Angeles." Further, the best rater energy efficient car, the Toyota Prius (http://www.toyota.com/prius-hybrid/) gets 51city, 48hwy. I will give the author credit for having a very light foot and say that he can eek 55mpg out of it. So, 55 * 13.5 = 742.5. still a bit short of the 1,380 that one would need to drive, "more than halfway from New York to Los Angeles," and no where near the 11,120 distance that would have covered making, "the drive back and forth twice."

When I see such huge errors in a book about the things I do know, I am left wondering about the authors accuracy in the areas where they are telling me something I do not know.


RobertC, I have not read Bittman's book. But I did read an article in Scientific American that compared different foods to equivalent miles driven. Here is the graphic that accompanied the article:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/media/gallery/B8850198-F130-62EC-F2A7324DE64FECCA_2.jpg

Here (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-greenhouse-hamburger) is the article. I took the image from the slide show to the left of the article.

Brian Dunning of Skeptoid.com does a great job of explaining why "buying local" isn't always better.

Read all about it @: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4162

Whether you agree with him or not, it certainly offers some things to think about.

[off topic] The Skeptoid podcast covers all sorts of interesting topics and is one of my favorites, I highly recommend it! [/off topic]

He has some valid points, but you will have a hard time convincing me that shipping any product that can be produced effectively, efficiently and locally, across the country is a reasonable use of resources. There are extremes on both sides of the argument. Like flying fresh Maine Lobster to the UK or Tiger Shrimp from the Orient to the Eastern Seaboard of the US.

Aaron:)

You guys are writing like the animal feed is fungible, that it is what humans eat. In so far as the animals are eating stuff we could be eating, or eating food grown on land that could be cultivated for human food there is some problem. If the meat were produced differently, it would be more expensive and we'd naturally eat less. The antibiotic issues are a more immediate danger than the fuel issues. Our factory farms seem to be perfect environments for evolving antibiotic resistant bacteria. My sister used to eat only wild meat but recently has taken to raising her own beef. It would be difficult for me to do that living in the city but maybe some rabbits or hens would work.

You guys are writing like the animal feed is fungible, that it is what humans eat.

No, I would not be too happy to sit down to a meal of grass hay and alfalfa. That being said. I am slowly getting out of the live stock business.

My wife wanted to raise sheep with no "stuff" added, other than state mandated shots. What we found was that there is no market. I can no longer afford to subsidize the farm through outside income and it has never come close to breaking even. That is factoring out farm improvements and just considering the cost of feed (and no, there is no market for raw wool either, I have a quarter of a shipping container filled with the stuff).

A friend of mine tried the same with cattle. People speak through the market and there is no demand for any meat other than what you see on the market.


How do they "finish" the ones you have prior to slaughter? In the US it is in a feed lot where they are fed antibiotic laced feed, usually corn based. Corn in the US is a heavily genetically modified, fertilized and mechanically grown and harvested crop.


Where we are (Northern CA, think north of Mt. Shasta) there is no corn used. And yes, the grain and grass crops are harvested mechanically. To do otherwise would require a very different (and less comfortable) society. I have lived in countries where farm labor is manual. If the population of the US switched to these practices it would be an economic and environmental disaster.

I eat a hamburger every day. My body works better on beef. Chicken doesn't work as well, even organically raised free range chicken doesn't work as well as beef.

I avoid wheat products because they cause inflammation in me. Wheat and type O blood don't work well together. Since quitting wheat my back and other joints hurt much less. Read "Eat Right 4 Your Type" to understand how different foods affect different blood types.

Buying locally can save energy usage if the purchaser uses a bicycle to retrieve the food. In the Scepticblog the rancher who only let people come to his farm to purchase the meat was causing more energy use than sending his meat to a distribution center. Since people used cars to get to his ranch there was more energy wasted.

Surely people burn calories to operate bicycles but cycling has many benefits beyond the calorie cost.

Roody, we actually agree on a lot of things (e.g. something needs to happen to break Americas auto dependency and culture). However, I was reading the excerpt and, very simply, he makes the mistake of giving numbers that are easily checked.

It is about 2,780 miles from New York to Los Angeles. a Gasguzzler gets less than18 mpg (http://www.cars.gov/). So, 13.5 * 18 = 243. this is a bit shy of the 1,380 that one would need to drive, "more than halfway from New York to Los Angeles." Further, the best rater energy efficient car, the Toyota Prius (http://www.toyota.com/prius-hybrid/) gets 51city, 48hwy. I will give the author credit for having a very light foot and say that he can eek 55mpg out of it. So, 55 * 13.5 = 742.5. still a bit short of the 1,380 that one would need to drive, "more than halfway from New York to Los Angeles," and no where near the 11,120 distance that would have covered making, "the drive back and forth twice."

When I see such huge errors in a book about the things I do know, I am left wondering about the authors accuracy in the areas where they are telling me something I do not know.

That's a good catch. I had wondered about the gasoline figures as I typed them into the post, but I didn't take the time to figure them out. However, I think the figures about the energy for meat production are probably accurate--at least they're in line with figures I've read from many other sources.


I'm not sure how they "finish" them, but there is very little corn grown here, if any.

Personally I'm not a huge fan of meat of any sort (beef, pork, chicken, fish, etc.) ... I prefer a more vegetarian diet. But if the author of that book is going to come down hard on the beef industry, he also has to look at what's involved in the poultry and fishing industries. Frozen chickens and canned tuna don't just show up on grocery store shelves by magic with no vehicular involvement.

And he's also got to look at the "vegetarian". Our cows are fed once a day with a small tractor ... so we use whatever fuel that requires. But a farmer growing a crop of wheat is out there in a much larger machine for fertilizing, planting, watering (if irrigation is used), and harvesting. And then similar to the cows, the wheat is transported, and transported, and transported, until it finally shows up on the shelf of the local grocery store in the form of bread.

Or take apples for example. They don't just plant apple trees by hand and then several months later go out and pick by hand. The land gets cleared (chain saws & bulldozers), the trees get planted, they use machines to move the pruners up and down the rows of trees, and they use similar machines to move pickers up and down the rows of trees too. And then the apples get transported off to a sorting centre, and they get packaged up and distributed. The apples here go all over Australia, as well as Japan and the UK. Lots of transportation involved.

So when someone in the UK selects an apple in the shop ... using Mark Bittman's method of calculation, how cost effective is that apple? How much fuel went into getting that apple there?

You can go after beef, like it sounds Mark has done ... but you can go after just about everything you find in the grocery store the same way. Pick an item.

As Aaron mentioned, the corn is fed to cattle in the last 30 to 90 days of their lives. Since cattle cannot survive on corn, large amounts of antibiotics and other drugs are fed to them also. While still on the farm, cattle eat grass and hay (dried grass), but they're also fed varying amounts of other food, including animal meal, dried manure, food waste, drugs, hormones and other delectable goodies.

Mark Bittman doesn't just pick on beef and dairy. He also mentions the environmental problems involved in the production of food animals like poultry, swine and fish.

Remember, this is just one short excerpt from a long book. The main emphasis is on a healthier and more delicious diet, and there are lots of great recipes.

Brian Dunning of Skeptoid.com does a great job of explaining why "buying local" isn't always better.

Read all about it @: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4162

Whether you agree with him or not, it certainly offers some things to think about.

[off topic] The Skeptoid podcast covers all sorts of interesting topics and is one of my favorites, I highly recommend it! [/off topic]

Mark Bittman makes this same point in Food Matters. There are a number of foods that are "greener" when produced in the industrial food model. There are also economies of scale that can make mass-produced food cheaper than local or organic food. And he points out that we might not at this point be able to feed the world exclusively with small-scale farming (although a lot of other writers disagree with this last point).

However, there do seem to be ecological advantages to mostly using local food. And of course there are tremendous advantages to local food in personal health and especially deliciousness.

I like Michael Pollan's philosophy: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants (http://www.michaelpollan.com/indefense.php).


I was greatly influenced many years ago by Francis Moor Lappé 's "Diet for a Small Plant" (http://www.amazon.com/Diet-Small-Planet-20th-Anniversary/dp/0345321200). .

I think Michael Pollan is the godfather of this small-scale/local-food movement. Francis Moore Lappe is one of the godmothers, and so is Marion Nestle.

It seems clear to me that industrial scale production of meat (as currently practiced) is no more sustainable than wide scale use of motor cars. Another similarity is that consumers of both meat and gasoline are not paying the full costs of the products. It's time that we grow up and realize that we just can't have everything we want at a cheap price.

Or try to imagine each cow on the planet consuming almost seven barrels of crude oil.

Another way to put it is that eating a typical family-of-four steak dinner is the rough equivalent, energy-wise, of driving around in an SUV for three hours while leaving all the lights on at home....

If we all ate the equivalent of three fewer cheeseburgers a week, we'd cancel out the effects of all the SUVs in the country.

Before I get run out of town on a rail, I should first say that I support the concepts of car free (or light) and meat free (or light). I try to do these things myself. There are lots of good personal and societal reasons for doing so. I like Bittman (his "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" is terrific).

That said, the analysis above is just nonsense. None of us will cancel out the effects of an SUV by not eating a cheeseburger. It just doesn't work that way. If (no sure bet) you could lower the amount of petroleum used by agriculture by eating less meat, what would happen? All other things being equal, it would lower the price of petroleum, making utilization of petroleum for other reasons more attractive. In other words, people would use the same oil elsewhere. This other use might have a more negative environmental impact and provide less societal good than production of food.

Eat less meat for animal welfare, or for personal health, or karma, or any of a number of other good reasons. But don't think that you're reducing world petroleum consumption, because you're not. You're just shifting demand somewhere else.

Second that, pastured, grass fed beef is excellent for you and really not bad for the environment.

Before I get run out of town on a rail, I should first say that I support the concepts of car free (or light) and meat free (or light). I try to do these things myself. There are lots of good personal and societal reasons for doing so. I like Bittman (his "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" is terrific).

That said, the analysis above is just nonsense. None of us will cancel out the effects of an SUV by not eating a cheeseburger. It just doesn't work that way. If (no sure bet) you could lower the amount of petroleum used by agriculture by eating less meat, what would happen? All other things being equal, it would lower the price of petroleum, making utilization of petroleum for other reasons more attractive. In other words, people would use the same oil elsewhere. This other use might have a more negative environmental impact and provide less societal good than production of food.

Eat less meat for animal welfare, or for personal health, or karma, or any of a number of other good reasons. But don't think that you're reducing world petroleum consumption, because you're not. You're just shifting demand somewhere else.

This is a good argument, but it points to the fact that eating less meat is part of an overarching solution that would reduce world consumption of petroleum. But to face facts: it might not lead to a great reduction in petroleum consumption, but it would impact our lives a little less as petroleum supplies tighten.

Machka,
The transportation of food across too many miles is one of the reasons I attempt to adhere to the 100 mile diet. (http://100milediet.org/)


There are two issues I have with the idea of adhering to the 100 mile diet:

1) It limits the diet. Some areas of the world are fortunate enough to be able to raise a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, etc., but many are not. I lived in northern Canada for many years, and we could grow some veggies up there, but not much in the way of fruit. And if we think about the banana ... the food of choice for cyclists ... not too many of us live within 100 miles of a banana plantation.

2) It can have a limiting effect on jobs and the global economy. The area where I currently live is full of apple orchards and grape orchards (wineries). These orchards, and all the related industries, employ thousands of people. If everyone stuck with the 100 mile diet, the quantity of apple orchards and wineries wouldn't be viable. Some would have to close, and jobs would be lost. But because the orchards can ship throughout Australia, to parts of Australia that don't grow apples and grapes, and because they can ship overseas, the orchards remain viable and thousands of people remain employed.

Same with the grain in southern Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Way too much is grown for the people who live in those areas to consume, and if the growing were going to be limited to local people, many of the farms would have to shut down or limit their operations. But it is shipped to parts of the world that don't have much or any and they can make use of it.

I live a car free and meat light lifestyle and the majority of my meals are vegetarian and when they include meat that is usually sourced locally or is wild caught fish and red meat like elk, moose, and deer.

Like Machka says... if you live in Canada things like fresh fruit are only locally available in certain regions and we do not produce things like oranges and bananas which need a much warmer climate.

When I do buy fruit and vegetable I also buy Canadian when I can.

As a diabetic, I find that a vegetarian diet causes my blood sugar to rise too much. I've tried it. I do know some vegetarian diabetics, but everyone's body is different and mine needs protein.

As a diabetic, I find that a vegetarian diet causes my blood sugar to rise too much. I've tried it. I do know some vegetarian diabetics, but everyone's body is different and mine needs protein.

Actually, meat is a poor source of protein. Per calorie, most vegetables like lettuce and spinach have as much protein as beef. Of course you must eat a much larger quantity of salad to get your protein--but you will at the same time be consuming fewer calories.

Also, have you ever wondered where the beef cattle get their protein from? (apologies to HDT)

Second that, pastured, grass fed beef is excellent for you and really not bad for the environment.

Just bear in mind that there's no legal definition for "pastured" or "grass fed." The beef might still be "finished" on grain. The solution is to buy meat from local farmers whom you can trust.

I've been eating venison lately. We "harvest" about 5 million deer a year in Michigan. It's illegal to sell the meat, so a lot goes to waste. I buy it from friends who hunt--sorta black market, I guess. :o

I'm all for eating local, but there are quite a few things you can't get within 100 miles of this city. If I ride the bike seven miles to Costco and back in the middle of an Alaska winter with the BOB and backpack heavy laden, I'm going to be bringing back some fricking stew beef. Those who don't like that don't get any stew.

http://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v2733/173/122/1477701250/n1477701250_296384_184981.jpg

Plus, I'm not giving up raw oysters!

Actually, meat is a poor source of protein. Per calorie, most vegetables like lettuce and spinach have as much protein as beef. Of course you must eat a much larger quantity of salad to get your protein--but you will at the same time be consuming fewer calories.

Also, have you ever wondered where the beef cattle get their protein from? (apologies to HDT)

Perhaps I was speaking too loosely, but I find that my blood glucose control goes out the window when I try to be vegetarian. I have consulted nutritionists and we have yet to find a dietary formula that allows me to be vegetarian and maintain my control. As I like my eyes, I like my kidneys, and I like my fingers and toes, I will be sticking with a nonvegetarian diet.

Actually, meat is a poor source of protein. Per calorie, most vegetables like lettuce and spinach have as much protein as beef. Of course you must eat a much larger quantity of salad to get your protein--but you will at the same time be consuming fewer calories.

Also, have you ever wondered where the beef cattle get their protein from? (apologies to HDT)

Vegetable protein is an incomplete protein. The only vegetable protein that is complete is soy. Now you can complete vegetable proteins by combining vegetables ... I'd have to look it up and I don't have my texts with me, but I believe a combination of corn and a certain type of bean makes up a complete protein.

Meat, however, and eggs, cheese, and certain nuts are complete proteins.

So yes, your spinach might have protein in it, but you'd have to know what to combine it with in order to get all you need.

Vegetable protein is an incomplete protein. The only vegetable protein that is complete is soy. Now you can complete vegetable proteins by combining vegetables ... I'd have to look it up and I don't have my texts with me, but I believe a combination of corn and a certain type of bean makes up a complete protein.

As for soy. (http://www.mercola.com/article/soy/index.htm)

And corn is full of starch and sugar, as are many beans. Not good for diabetics.

Vegetable protein is an incomplete protein. The only vegetable protein that is complete is soy. Now you can complete vegetable proteins by combining vegetables ... I'd have to look it up and I don't have my texts with me, but I believe a combination of corn and a certain type of bean makes up a complete protein.

Meat, however, and eggs, cheese, and certain nuts are complete proteins.

So yes, your spinach might have protein in it, but you'd have to know what to combine it with in order to get all you need.
For those of you who know how to build relational databases:

http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=17478

You can get a good idea of how to combine your vegetarian foods to get a balanced protein.
You need to have certain percentages of the various amino acids. I wrote a linear program to
combine foods to get the right percentages. I forgot where I stashed it I think in the class notes
for a biochem class I took a few years ago. What I recall was that I was surprised at the relative
proportions needed for things like peas and rice- few peas and a lot of rice or vice versa.

The version of this data that I downloaded a few years ago was interesting in the things included like
whale eyes. The data obviously came from disparate sources like anthropological studies as well as
from the industrial food industry.

As Aaron mentioned, the corn is fed to cattle in the last 30 to 90 days of their lives. Since cattle cannot survive on corn, large amounts of antibiotics and other drugs are fed to them also..

There was an interesting study made of American fast-food. This reminded me of their results. First, here's the LINK (http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/11/10/corn-food.html) to an article about the study.

At a molecular level, the types of carbon and nitrogen isotopes are a foolproof indicator of what foods were consumed by the meat. The researchers tested about 500 fast-food items from 3 chains in 6 cities. All of the chicken and 93% of the beef had been fed NOTHING except corn.

An animal raised outside (field or an outdoor pen) will eat some naturally growing plants. That means these animals are factory farmed indoors.

Interesting to know!

I am meat light and my husband is meat heavy. I prefer less meat and chicken over beef whenever possible. We are trying to source more local meat since we're in Cattle Country but trying to find meat that taste good to someone mostly used to store meat is challenging. I would love to source elk if possible as its really the only red meat that doesn't give me digestive issues.

I was vegan for six months but I think I was doing it wrong and it made me really cranky.

I would love to eat more locally too but honestly think I would miss a lot of produce so we do locally as much as we can but don't sweat to much what we cant. I also try and focus on organic for certain things too.

Up here in Canada on foodtv.ca there was a 6 or 8 episode special about the 100 mile diets and how the authors of the 100-mile diet challenged a town in BC to go 100mile for 100 days. It was very interesting to watch.

Here is the website if anyone is interested

http://100mile.foodtv.ca/

I'm all for eating local, but there are quite a few things you can't get within 100 miles of this city. If I ride the bike seven miles to Costco and back in the middle of an Alaska winter with the BOB and backpack heavy laden, I'm going to be bringing back some fricking stew beef. Those who don't like that don't get any stew.

http://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v2733/173/122/1477701250/n1477701250_296384_184981.jpg

Plus, I'm not giving up raw oysters!

It didn't happen without a recipe!

That looks like stew with little dumplings on top. M-mmmmm. I must be vegetarian. I just love dumplings.

I had tofu for supper tonight. :)

Rowan has been trying to track down something called TVP (Texturized Vegetable Protein). It's available here in Australia, and he has ordered it now, and when it arrives, much of our meat needs will be met. However, he has also tried to find it in Canada and the US, and has been met with a blank stare.

We don't have a fridge so keeping meat fresh is a bit challenging. We do buy some on our weekly shopping expedition, but by the end of the week, we move on to vegetarian meals.

Now apparently I need to be eating more red meat. After rarely touching it for many, many years, my iron levels have dropped in the toilet. And I'm not a fan of vitamin and mineral supplements ... I prefer to get my vitamins and minerals from food. So early in the week, we have been eating a lot more red meat. Hopefully it is making a difference.

I live in the U.S. and buy TVP so it definitely exists here. :)

He has some valid points, but you will have a hard time convincing me that shipping any product that can be produced effectively, efficiently and locally, across the country is a reasonable use of resources. There are extremes on both sides of the argument. Like flying fresh Maine Lobster to the UK or Tiger Shrimp from the Orient to the Eastern Seaboard of the US.

Aaron:)It really depends on the situation. A farmer in a 15mpg pickup can only get ~5-15 ton miles/gallon, compared to a semi at ~80-250 ton miles/gallon or a train at ~150-450 ton miles/gallon, and they also tend not to optimize for empty miles AFAIK, so a farmer traveling 40 miles RT would probably be using the equivalent of ~600-1200 semi/rail miles. If someone can buy directly from a farm so the food doesn't have to go someplace, then it's no sweat, but the efficiency of small vehicles for transport pales compared to the efficiency of large ones. The potatoes I get from Nevada here in California probably don't take much if any more fuel than locally grown ones, barring a supermarket that's a lot farther than a farmer's market. Otoh, if I can fit in a stop for Avacados on a weekly drive, then I can see the cost savings of buying something direct, so it isn't w/o it's merits, but as always it depends on the situation. YF'sMMV.

I live in the U.S. and buy TVP so it definitely exists here. :)

Yeah, I get TVP at my corner natural foods market. I use it for my awesome vegetarian chili. Some vegetarian friends think I used meat when they first taste it.

How many calories of corn, or corn plus various other vegetarian amendments, would one have to eat to match, say, the nutritional (proteins, amino acids, vitamins, minerals) content of a 4oz serving of beef? The anti-meat crowd usually wants to compare equal weights to foster their arguments without considering the additional mass that has to be consumed to equal a nutritionally equivalent portion of meat. Sheer calories, which the author uses as his yardstick in this particular article, is only part of the equation.

Keep in mind that industrial plant farming has its own downsides. GMOs, wildlife-killing pesticides, stream-killing fertilizers. Lots of petrochemical input in industrial produce farming. In 2008, when demand for soy was high because of the whole ethanol debacle, Amazonian rainforest was being clear-cut using slash and burn techniques to raise soy. If everyone went veggie tomorrow, the same kind of demand would result in the same kind of destruction usually attributed to SA beef farming. That TVP you had the other night was probably made of soy product sourced from Cargill, ADM, and others who buy irresponsibly grown soy. Do you know where your soy comes from...?

Food production--meat and produce--is now wholly petrochemical dependent. Without oil, current population levels are unsustainable. So for those who think the world should feed itself on organic, non-industrialized farming, which portion of the population should die first?

Industrial meat farming is pretty heinous, however. Check out The Food Revolution by John Robbins.

We are meat free and car lite. Before going meat free, all beef consumed in our house was local farm raised stuff that did not get pumped full of anti-biotics and corn in the last month of their lives. Our beef consumption was one side of beef per year, about 250lbs on avg. for a family of three... beef that we saw walking around the meadows by our house, beef that we slaughtered, cut, and wrapped ourselves.

I find that most of the anti-meat screeds out there are written from a very narrow POV--Western, (sub)urban, educated, and relatively wealthy.

It didn't happen without a recipe!

That looks like stew with little dumplings on top. M-mmmmm. I must be vegetarian. I just love dumplings.

I had tofu for supper tonight. :)

It's just a traditional beef and onion base with hothouse hussies, Alaska spuds and green onions plus some other stuff added. A little bit of spanish paprika too. And no bay leaves. The dumplings are matzo balls from some sale Kosher stuff I got. I do them before adding the chopped spuds and other veges, then take them off the broth and add the other stuff, then put them on top for the final ten minute simmer.

Great stew, but I can't imagine how it could be done without at least some beef. It doesn't take all that much, but that flavor informs the rest of the stew and makes it wunderbar.

I don't really see a problem with eating meat as long as you're using it in your own cooking. The processed stuff has lord knows what in it. But if you buy it bloody and raw you can smell it, inspect it, and get a good idea of its quality. You also know the cut, as opposed to mystery meat that may have come from the really bad parts of the beast or contain CNS tissue.

Industrial meat farming is pretty heinous, however. Check out The Food Revolution by John Robbins.

Once I drove up through California's Central Valley. At one point, the smell was awful, and I remember passing an agricultural complex and seeing a cow standing on what appeared to be a mountain of fecal matter. P.U. It gives you pause.

Rowan has been trying to track down something called TVP (Texturized Vegetable Protein). It's available here in Australia, and he has ordered it now, and when it arrives, much of our meat needs will be met. However, he has also tried to find it in Canada and the US, and has been met with a blank stare.


You can get TVP here. Tempeh is a soy product that's almost identical to TVP, at least in flavor (or rather, lack of flavor). Personally, I'd rather eat meat than some of these highly processed "food products."

How many calories of corn, or corn plus various other vegetarian amendments, would one have to eat to match, say, the nutritional (proteins, amino acids, vitamins, minerals) content of a 4oz serving of beef? The anti-meat crowd usually wants to compare equal weights to foster their arguments without considering the additional mass that has to be consumed to equal a nutritionally equivalent portion of meat. Sheer calories, which the author uses as his yardstick in this particular article, is only part of the equation.

First, I don't think anybody is advocating corn as the basis of a vegetarian diet. It's a pretty lackluster source of protein. AFAIK, the best vegan sources of protein are legumes, whole grains, and the hearty green vegetables.

By "additional mass" I assume that you really mean additional volume. True, a much greater volume of lettuce, for example, would be required to equal the protein in a given volume of meat. So what? Do you not have any large bowls to serve salad in?


Keep in mind that industrial plant farming has its own downsides. GMOs, wildlife-killing pesticides, stream-killing fertilizers. Lots of petrochemical input in industrial produce farming. In 2008, when demand for soy was high because of the whole ethanol debacle, Amazonian rainforest was being clear-cut using slash and burn techniques to raise soy. If everyone went veggie tomorrow, the same kind of demand would result in the same kind of destruction usually attributed to SA beef farming. That TVP you had the other night was probably made of soy product sourced from Cargill, ADM, and others who buy irresponsibly grown soy. Do you know where your soy comes from...?

Food production--meat and produce--is now wholly petrochemical dependent. Without oil, current population levels are unsustainable. So for those who think the world should feed itself on organic, non-industrialized farming, which portion of the population should die first?

Industrial meat farming is pretty heinous, however. Check out The Food Revolution by John Robbins.Good points, but the fact remains that, by any measure, meat production does require much larger inputs of petroleum, water and other resources.

Your facts on Brazilian production of ethanol (versus US ethanol production) are wrong. Sugar cane for Brazil's ethanol is grown in a region that is not rain forest, but grassland similar to our Great Plains. The rain forests were cut mainly for beef production, not soy production. Also, it's absurd to suggest that additional farm land is required to raise plant crops instead of meat. Reducing meat in the world's diet would result in a decrease of farmland needed for agriculture, not an increase, as you suggest.

Your point about the poor quality of non-meat food is well taken. But I take issue with your statement that organic (or more to the point, sustainable) agriculture would result in mass starvation. Many analysts point out that per acre yields of industrially grown foods and sustainably grown foods are similar. The sustainable foods are more expensive mainly because of increased labor inputs. In poor countries, where labor is cheaper, this would presumably be less of an issue. However, I'm not sure we'll know all the answers in this area until a lot more study is done. Compared to industrial agriculture, the science of sustainable agriculture is still in its infancy. So far, the funds are not there for research and development of large scale organic or sustainable farming methods.


We are meat free and car lite. Before going meat free, all beef consumed in our house was local farm raised stuff that did not get pumped full of anti-biotics and corn in the last month of their lives. Our beef consumption was one side of beef per year, about 250lbs on avg. for a family of three... beef that we saw walking around the meadows by our house, beef that we slaughtered, cut, and wrapped ourselves.

I find that most of the anti-meat screeds out there are written from a very narrow POV--Western, (sub)urban, educated, and relatively wealthy.

I think this is an ideal situation. Those of us who live in cities can try to reproduce this by buying from local farmers, whom we trust to raise meat humanely and ethically, from an environmental perspective. I applaud your decision to be meatfree. As for me, I'm going meatlight, and more so every year.

True, a much greater volume of lettuce, for example, would be required to equal the protein in a given volume of meat. So what? Do you not have any large bowls to serve salad in?

Comparing lettuce with meat is nonsense. Vegetarians and nonvegetarians alike are taking a serious risk to their health if they don't eat leaves in some form, but leaves are also never going to give you the protein you need.

It makes much more sense to compare meat with nuts and legumes, which are the vegan alternative.