Are You Getting Your Fair Share of Animal?

Most everybody I know thinks factory farming is horrible. And most everybody I know likes to eat at fast food restaurants. Is this just the cumulative effect of little white lies? Or did we not understand the unit on cause and effect in middle school science class?

I’ve been reading a great book called, Food Matters by Mark Bittman. He writes about the fact that we are an unhealthy people on an unhealthy planet and we are headed for disaster (or at least the really poor people are) if nothing is done to change our ways. He says it much nicer and with a lot more graphs and charts, but his point is true. Here’s a few of his facts that stood out for me:

60 billion animals are raised each year for food – 10 animals for every human on earth. Now I’m fairly certain that there are a lot of people out there who aren’t getting their share of animals. And I’m guessing it’s not because they don’t want them. It’s most likely because somebody else is eating them.

  

1 billion people in the world are chronically hungry; 1 billion people are overweight. Hmmm….

 When you take in to account the fuels needed to feed a cow (including planting, applying pesticides and fertilizing, and then harvesting and transporting the feed) and then you take in to account the life in the feedlot, butchering, packaging, and transporting; the average steer raised in the US consumes about 135 gallons of gasoline in its lifetime. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if we eat less meat, we’re going to have significantly less impact. As Bittman puts it, “If we each ate the equivalent of three fewer cheeseburgers a week, we’d cancel out the effects of all the SUVs in the country.”

 Eating less meat isn’t only a good idea from an environmental and global perspective; it’s also a good idea for your health. A National Cancer Institute study of 550,000 people found that those who ate 4 ounces of red meat daily (and how many ounces would there be in a quarter pounder? C’mon dust off those math skills), were 30% more likely to die of any cause (any cause) over ten years than those who consumed less. Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you can start shooting darts in my data, but this was 550,000 people so that birdie won’t fly. The average person in a developing country eats a ½ pound of meat daily – that’s twice what a body needs. And we wonder why we’re obese?

 According to the Mayo Clinic, eating less meat (red meat and processed meats) not only lowers your fat and calorie intake, it also generally lowers your cholesterol. And eating less meat saves you money. Beans, cheese, eggs, and veggies are much cheaper than meat. 

 Bittman does not propose that we all become vegetarians. Heck no, he even has some nice meat recipes in his book. What he does propose is that we eat less meat. In my reading I came across the term “flexitarian” several times. It’s a term referring to people who eat mostly plant-based foods, with occasional helpings of meat, poultry, and fish.

  

Eating less meat is a goal I have for my family. And the meat we do it should be meat that was raised humanely, without unnecessary antibiotics, hormones, and junk food. So eat less meat, but eat better meat. Figuring out what to eat when there isn’t meat involved isn’t really as hard as you think. Here are a few ideas: 

• pasta of any kind – tortellini, ravioli, spaghetti, fettuccini, veggie lasagna, stuff shells, mac & cheese,
•  soups (having a soup night each week is good for you- body and soul)
•  Mexican food (substituting beans for meat) – burritos, quesadillas, enchiladas, nachos
•  Vegetable egg rolls and veggie fried rice (Trader Joes has excellent egg rolls and veggie fried rice is way easy to make)
• Pizza (establish a pizza night and nix the pepperoni)
• Eggs – scrambled, quiche, fried, hard-boiled (so much you can do with an egg! And if you need some fresh, free range eggs, give me a call. We’re overloaded right now- $3/dozen)
• Salad bar (my kids love this one. We include leftovers on the side. Be sure to offer nuts, craisins, hard-boiled eggs, and cheese to get some protein in there)
• Breakfast for dinner (always a winner)
• Meatless Chili (crock pot time)
• Seafood (who doesn't need an excuse to eat more seafood?)

 Together corn and soy account for 50% of the harvest in the US. And most of that harvest is used to feed animals that we plan to eat. Maybe if demand for those animals wasn’t so high, that food could be used for people. There is more than enough food to feed this planet. It’s just not being evenly distributed. If we reduce the demand for meat, factory farms wouldn’t be necessary and food manufacturers might need to find something else to do with all that soy and corn. Little changes in every household will add up.

But here’s the crux of it, according to Bittman, if we currently raise 60 billion animals for meat, ten animals for each person; we will need to raise 120 billion animals by 2050 to sustain that level. We don’t have the space, energy, atmosphere, or water supply to meet that demand. Can’t happen. So something has to give. Our ancestors lived on much less meat, but somewhere along the line we began to believe that we needed more. We don’t.

I Hate Diets!

My favorite jeans are feeling a little snug this week. I think, no, I know, the holidays were too much fun. I reveled in the homemade truffles, infused oils, my weakness for good wine, cooking with my hubby, and so many meals out, I think I overdid it. How about you? Are you as grateful as I am for the big sweaters of January?


I hate diets. They make me grumpy and resentful. Besides, I like food too much. So I’ve got a plan. It’s my own diet created in the wee hours of the morning as I ran on freezing cold, dark roads this past week. A few miles in and my mind really gets cranking. I become pretty much invincible. That’s when this plan was hatched. So you’ll need to keep your perspective as you read this. But mostly you have to open your mind to the distinct possibility that it can be done.

I’m calling it the 2-ingredient diet. The original diet was 1 ingredient, but then the sun came up and it dawned on me (so to speak) that cheese and butter have two ingredients, and while I know I could make both cheese and butter, I don’t want to. And then there’s wine – grape juice and yeast. Some things we can’t do without.

So he are the 2 rules for 2 Ingredient Diet:

1. Eat only things that have 2 ingredients or less. Orange – fine. Pop Tart – nope. Cheese – good (as long as it isn’t processed) Macaroni & Cheese – nope (unless you make it yourself – including the pasta!).

2. No processed food unless you process it yourself. Ahh! Here’s the brilliance of this plan! You can eat ice cream, bread, cookies, and anything else you can make yourself using ingredients with no more than 2 ingredients. I’m already pouring over recipes for crackers and I ordered a tortilla maker so I can make tortillas, chips, and burrito shells.

Simple, huh? I figure even if I can’t stick to it exclusively, it will slow me down, make me think about what I’m eating and more importantly, what goes in to what I’m eating.

After my second child, I had some serious weight to lose, so I signed up for Weight Watchers. Great program and it worked for me because it was flexible. You could save up points (I stock piled mine for the Orioles games each weekend). This made nothing off limits. I want the 2 Ingredient Diet to have an element of this. Plus, I know there are certain foods I can’t make myself, and I just might not be able to function without them. So I created the exclusion clause. Gone are my idealistic days of youth, nowadays I’m all about reality. And no one will join me on this diet if I don’t provide a little slack.

You can exclude 2 foods from the rules. Now, if you really want this to work I wouldn’t recommend you exclude Reese’s Cups and cheesecake, but there are probably foods that could be diet-busters for you. One of my exceptions is going to be Trader Joes Tomato and Red Pepper soup. I love this soup and this time of year, it’s unreasonable and unaffordable for me to make it. That will be next summer’s project, but for now it’s one of my exceptions.

I haven’t decided on the other exception yet. I’m thinking maybe pasta, but then I remember that my mom gave me her old pasta maker last year and I have yet to try it out. I’m only one day in to this diet, so I’m saving my other exception for emergencies.

The other problem with the 2 Ingredient Diet is eating out. How can you eat out? Very few options. Could be tough, so I’m allowing one meal eaten out each week.

The diet started off great yesterday until I fixed a salad for lunch and opened the fridge for a dressing. I counted not one, but five store-bought dressings that only I will eat. (the kids stick to that gnarly Hidden Valley Farms Ranch Dressing and NOTHING else) Now my Scot-Irish heritage (or my depression era raised mother) have instilled in me that you don’t throw out useful things. So…here’s another clause in my 2 Ingredient Diet. (I’m all about flexibility). If it’s already opened and/or it will expire soon, you can finish it off. So once those dressings are gone, I will stick with the ones I make (which I usually like better anyway). Same with the trail mix and black licorice. No one else will touch those.

Yeah, I know my diet isn’t very strict. And yeah, I know I won’t lose ten pounds this month. But my goal is to feel better, eat better, and fit better in to my jeans. I’m not going to judge my success by the scale. That’s a dangerous way to live.

In case you’re curious how the 2 Ingredient Diet works out, I’m going to add a box to my blogsite with regular updates, including recipes for processed food you’d be surprised you can make yourself. Santa brought me a book filled with recipes for things like pop-tarts and ritz crackers. That could be a fun challenge – can there be a way to make pop-tarts “healthy”? I’ll share my successes and failures and observations periodically on the side bar of my blog.

So, are any of you game for the 2 Ingredient Diet?? I’d love to hear from you and you don’t have to “go public,” you can e-mail me directly if you want. Tell me what you think, what works, and even if it all sounds crazy. Maybe it is. But I’m sure we’ll learn something about who we are and the food we eat. And hopefully, we’ll find ourselves feeling better and looking better by spring!