Hold the Meat
Like it or not, food has become very political. Our food choices are tied directly to what sort of citizens we want to be, and what sort of society we choose to live in. It shouldn't have taken a rocket scientist to figure out the price of oil halfway around the world impacts directly on food staples such as corn and rice.
A few weeks ago I heard someone say that if you drive a Prius and eat meat, your carbon footprint is bigger than if you are a Hummer-driving vegan.
Of course the point was how much gas it takes to grow corn and other grains to feed cows and pigs and chickens, and how much gas it takes to transport the animals to slaughterhouses and then to "market," i.e. distribution centers that ship the processed product thousands of miles to commercial grocery stores.
Every food item-a ham sandwich, a cupcake, a bean burrito-lays down its own little carbon footprint, a trail of carbon used up in its creation. Seen this way, a single meal can look like the tracks of dozens of critters running around on a mud flat, and the creatures with the biggest tracks are the meat items. As we consume, the footprints of all we eat become our own footprint.
I went straight home and told Betsy. It made an impact. She proposed that we stop eating meat two meals a day-breakfast and lunch-and we did.
Breakfast was easy. All we eat is granola and bananas or berries when they are locally available. Lunch is a little trickier. At home, peanut butter and organic jam is an attractive option, or grilled cheese sandwiches, or hummus and a pita.
Out in the cruel world of lunch-time cuisine, it's a different story. There are fewer places than you'd think with any variety in their non-meat alternatives, especially if you attend catered meetings that don't ask about meat or non-meat preferences beforehand. Three or four times since I started my experiment I've strip-mined a ham sandwich for lettuce, bread, and a slice of yellow cheese and lingered over my potato salad. Once I used my little mound of left-over ham to trade up for an extra pickle.
In my lifetime I've seen the way I eat change dramatically, so this shift to two-thirds time vegetarian isn't such a shock. When I was a kid we lived in the suburbs and we always had a garden. My mother grew tomatoes, okra, potatoes, yellow squash, and collard greens. She made cornbread out of corn meal she'd buy ground at a local mill. In the summer there were always peaches and watermelons grown in the county. In the fall apples came in from nearby Hendersonville. She never missed a visit to the old Farmer's Market on Kennedy Street.
Eating out was a rare treat back then-mostly Pizza Inn or Wade's. It never occurred to my mother that someday in the future most of my meals would be outside the home.
After college when I ran away to the West Coast I shared a house with a long-time, serious vegetarian. About three hours of his day was taken up with food preparation. The lavish meals he cooked were balanced with protein complements. He baked his own bread full of sunflower seeds, other nuts, and organic grains.
That was 1978 and the place was Port Townsend, Washington. The Summer of Love was just down the coast and only 10 years in the past. He became one of my best friends (still is), but it took me years to confess to him that I would sneak off some evening to head down to the A&W Root Beer for a cheeseburger. A greasy burger and fries platter was the only way I felt close to my piedmont roots.
I still eat the occasional cheeseburger, but my choice not to eat meat two meals a day reminds me of my days in Port Townsend, or even further back when my mama sent me out to the garden.
I'm intentional with my food again. I'm a regular at the Hub City Farmers' Market, and we're growing a little food on our deck. The lunch-time joints with the black bean burgers get more of my business, as do the "meat and three" places. I just do a little adjustment of my carbon footprint. I leave off the meat and eat an extra corn muffin.