The Red, White, and Green

A rare treat: American beef consumption is down 20 percent since 1985. Photo via Flickr: thebittenword.com

Nearly one-third of Americans are now aware of the Meatless Monday movement. That’s remarkable news, considering that just two years ago, national awareness was half that. A number of less-meatatarian approaches have sprung up in that same time as well, including weekday vegetarian, The Flexitarian Diet, daytime vegan, and the “meat as treat” Mark Bittman approach.

The question is: Is the less-meat-for-the-planet message seeping into the consciousness of the American public, or is this just another hyped fad, like low-carb dieting? (Which, if it comes back, certainly won’t help the plant-eating progress.) Are we really swapping our steaks for soybeans?

Maybe. Overall, we are eating less meat. According to USDA projections, annual consumption of red meat and poultry will fall from over 221 pounds per person in 2004-2007 to less than 206 pounds in 2012. Beef consumption, in particular, is on the down-and-out: It’s declined nearly 20 percent since 1985. That’s good news for our arteries, since we’re now eating 20 pounds less of the saturated stuff a year. But our preference for poultry is growing: Chicken consumption increased by nearly 30 pounds a year over the same time period.

This may, of course, be more about the economy, less about the environment: When times are tough, people simply can’t afford to eat as much meat. No bones about it.

–Jennifer Grayson

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Photo via Flickr: Edyta Materka

I’m sorry to come back from the holiday weekend with sobering news, but when I read this yesterday it took my breath away: One billion people (a billion people!) may lose their homes by the end of this century because of climate change. This, from a new report by Oxford University scientists to be released today at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico. (Would you like a daiquiri with your doom and gloom?)

From The Observer:

Researchers such as Richard Betts, head of climate impacts at the Met Office, calculate that a 4C rise could occur in less than 50 years, with melting of ice sheets and rising sea levels.

According to François Gemenne, of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations in Paris, this could lead to the creation of “ghost states” whose governments-in-exile would rule over scattered citizens and land lost to rising seas.

The Cancun conundrum? The report points out that even if consensus is reached on curbing carbon emissions, it won’t be enough to stop global temperatures by rising at least 2 degrees Celsius — the “magic number” for avoiding catastrophic climate change.

And, according to the research, blue may be the new green: Up to 3 billion people — a third of all people on our future earth (according to population projections) — could lose access to clean water supplies.

In the face of the news that we may soon become climate refugees, it’s easy to become paralyzed into inaction. Don’t. One-fifth of all global greenhouses gases are caused by livestock production. That means you can change the world right now by going meatless this Monday.

–Jennifer Grayson

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Now that I’ve surpassed Meatless Monday and am giving weekday veg an honest shot, I’ve found myself relying more on grains to get the calories I need. That’s not so easy though, since I try to eat gluten-free most of the time. I’ve never actually been diagnosed with celiac disease, but I just don’t feel great when I eat wheat.

Obviously, I’m not alone: Judging by the number of gluten-free foods flooding the marketplace, you’d never know that only 1 percent of Americans are actually suffering from the disease.

While there are plenty of gluten-free substitutes for foods that normally contain wheat (pizza crust, pasta, bread), I’m not much of a fan; I’ve always thought it’s much tastier to embrace the foods of cultures that are naturally GF (e.g., risotto rather than pasta; biryani instead of naan).

That is, until I discovered Ancient Harvest Quinoa pasta. Made from a blend of organic corn flour and organic quinoa flour, this isn’t some mushy gluten-free excuse for a pasta — this is the real deal. And believe me, I’ve tried a lot of GF pastas. They all suck. Ancient Harvest tastes like real pasta, the texture is like real pasta, plus it’s high in fiber so it really stays with you. I find mine at Whole Foods, but you can order it online here. Buon appetito!

–Jennifer Grayson

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Domino's Pizza was one of the 'restaurants' that received money from USDA to push cheese sales. Photo via Flickr: The Pizza Review

Last month, I discovered that dairy may have a higher carbon footprint than chicken. Now, another reason to go milk-less on Mondays: It turns out the US Department of Agriculture — through an agency called Dairy Management — is spending millions of dollars to help fast-food chains like Domino’s Pizza force saturated-fat-laden cheese down our throats. This, despite an effort by that same agency to lead the fight against obesity, which now afflicts 1 in 3 Americans.

From The New York Times:

Urged on by government warnings about saturated fat, Americans have been moving toward low-fat milk for decades, leaving a surplus of whole milk and milk fat. Yet the government, through Dairy Management, is engaged in an effort to find ways to get dairy back into Americans’ diets, primarily through cheese.

Americans now eat an average of 33 pounds of cheese a year, nearly triple the 1970 rate. Cheese has become the largest source of saturated fat; an ounce of many cheeses contains as much saturated fat as a glass of whole milk.

When Michelle Obama implored restaurateurs in September to help fight obesity, she cited the proliferation of cheeseburgers and macaroni and cheese. “I want to challenge every restaurant to offer healthy menu options,” she told the National Restaurant Association’s annual meeting.

But in a series of confidential agreements approved by agriculture secretaries in both the Bush and Obama administrations, Dairy Management has worked with restaurants to expand their menus with cheese-laden products.

Why is no one talking about why the market is saturated with all this saturated fat to begin with? Our current factory farming system — which includes the use of genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH or rBST) to increase milk production in cows — has driven down the price of dairy products, but it’s also made it so that more and more needs to be sold so that our nation’s dairy farmers can earn a living. It’s as simple as supply and demand.

–Jennifer Grayson

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Photo via Flickr: Stevendepolo

Looking to detox from your Halloween-induced sugar coma? Take note: Adopting a plant-based diet — à la Meatless Monday — may reduce the risk of Type 2 diabetes. That may sound surprising, since we’ve heard a lot in recent years about high-protein diets for controlling blood sugar, but the latest research vindicates the veggies.

From Reuters:

In a study of 418 older Spanish adults, researchers found that those instructed to follow a Mediterranean diet were less likely to develop diabetes over four years than those instructed to follow a low-fat diet — about 10 percent developed the disease, versus 18 percent in the low-fat group. And weight loss did not appear necessary to gain the benefit.

The findings, reported in the journal Diabetes Care, may sound too good to be true.

But they back up previous work by the same researchers showing that the Mediterranean diet, even without weight loss, appeared to curb the risk of metabolic syndrome — a collection of risk factors for diabetes that includes abdominal obesity, high blood pressure and elevated blood sugar and triglycerides.

…When the researchers accounted for a number of other factors — such as participants’ weight, smoking history and reported exercise levels — the Mediterranean diet itself was linked to 52 percent reduction in diabetes risk compared with the low-fat diet.

I’ve written before about adopting a Mediterranean diet, but here are a few points to remember: Real people in Mediterranean countries do not eat whole-roasted sea bass every night, nor do they frequent dining establishments that offer a Never Ending Pasta Bowl. They eat whole grains, legumes, lots of vegetables and fruit, small amounts of cheese, and of course, red wine and olive oil in moderation. Fish is eaten occasionally, and meat even less often than that.

Most of us could gain by grazing like a Greek; if the United States continues on its current course, 1 in 3 Americans will develop diabetes in their lifetime.

–Jennifer Grayson

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Photo via Flickr: www.bluewaikiki.com

Like a lot of vegetarians/flexitarians (I’m the latter), I rely on dairy for a big chunk of my calories. When I was pregnant, my calcium cravings were particularly intense: I could easily clear a four-pound tub of yogurt a week. But all that’s over since I discovered my little lady is sensitive to milk; as long as I’m breastfeeding, it’s good-bye gelato.

After giving up milk products for a month now, I started wondering: What impact does going dairy-free have on the planet? Factory farms aren’t just for meat, after all; there are 9 million dairy cows in the US, and the methods used to produce conventional milk (organic is only 1 percent of the market) take their toll on the environment. (Not to mention human health — see last week’s Eco Etiquette.)

And that’s when I discovered a very inconvenient truth: According to a recent study, chicken has a lower carbon footprint than dairy. Should Meatless Monday now also be Milk-less Monday?

–Jennifer Grayson

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[Watch video on TED.com]

If, like me, you’ve been participating in Meatless Mondays for some time now, you might be looking to push the envelope a bit further, since of all the things you can personally do to help the environment, reducing your meat consumption is perhaps the most effective: Eighteen percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the livestock industry. That’s more than cars, trains, and planes combined, by the way.

So what about becoming a ‘weekday vegetarian,’ a la TreeHugger‘s Graham Hill? His conscientious compromise was profiled last week in Time magazine, and I have to admit that before reading the article, the thought had never occurred to me. (Though Hill had discussed his recent lifestyle change at the TED Conference in February; see video, above.)

The only potential problem I could foresee is the same one that happens to weekday dieters: You spend all week feeling so deprived that Saturday marks the commencement of a 48-hour cheesesteak and rib-eye binge. (Although I will say that a) a well-planned vegetarian diet doesn’t have to be synonymous with starvation; and b) the times that I’ve gone long stretches with eating very little meat, I usually feel so “clean” and healthy that I either stop craving meat altogether or only need a little taste to satiate my appetite.)

Have you tried the weekday veg approach? If so, do you notice a difference in the way you feel during the week versus the weekends?

–Jennifer Grayson

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I’ve noticed that I have an easier time whipping up vegetarian recipes (for Meatless Monday and the rest of the week) when I have time to visit my beloved farmers market and stock up on fresh, local fruits and veggies. Part of the reason is that I tend to overbuy a bit when I’m there, since everything is so mouthwateringly beautiful (and reasonable!); and once my fridge is packed with produce, I feel compelled to not let any of it go to waste. (After, all I’ve met the farmers face-to-face who’ve worked so hard to feed me!)

Turns out I’m not the only American with a fondness for the farmers market: There are now 6,132 farmers markets nationwide — a 16 percent increase since last year, and an incredible 114 percent increase over the past 10 years. This, according to the Department of Agriculture‘s newly updated National Farmers Market Directory.

The region with the most growth? The Midwest, which saw states like Missouri, Indiana, and Ohio increase offerings by up to 77 percent.

Not surprisingly, the Golden State still leads the pack, with 580 farmers markets; rounding out the top 10 are New York (461), Illinois (286), Michigan (271), Iowa (229), Massachusetts (227), Ohio (213), Wisconsin (204), Pennsylvania (203), and North Carolina (182).

It may seem surprising to see a surge of farmers markets in a bad economy, but I say these results blast the bias that shopping for local (and even organic) food is somehow a privilege reserved for those with a big enough paycheck for Whole Foods.

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: Click here to find a farmers market near you.

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Meatless Monday sounds like a pretty simple lifestyle change: One day a week, swap out the meat in your diet for healthier, plant-based foods. But what if you live in an area without any access to plants (i.e., fruits and vegetables)?

It seems inconceivable in a land of plenty like the US, where 40 percent of all food is thrown out, but an estimated 23 million Americans live in areas known as food deserts — that is, places with little or no access to food beyond what can be purchased on a Dollar Menu. Forget the farmers market; these neighborhoods don’t even have a supermarket.

So how can people in these places (who are usually lacking a Whole Foods budget) start eating more fresh produce?

Have them grow their own, says New York City–based organization Adopt-A-Farmbox, which builds and donates planter boxes made from 100 percent recycled materials — complete with organic soil and seeds — to local schools and community institutions so they can start their own urban farming projects.

The inspiring initiative is already collaborating with several schools in Manhattan and the boroughs (including Children’s Workshop School, Brooklyn Brownstone School, and the Garden School in Queens), but needs your help to break the cycle of diabetes and obesity for the approximately 3 million New Yorkers living in food deserts. Click here to donate.

–Jennifer Grayson

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Photo via Flickr: Ayogist

I know, I know — it’s a bit odd to be posting about burgers on Meatless Monday. But let’s be realistic: The whole reason you’ve likely embraced the MM movement is because you are, in fact, a meat eater on the other days of the week. So let’s talk about something that doesn’t get addressed often enough in the whole vegetarians vs. meat-eaters debate, and that is what kind of meat you should be eating when you’re not sucking down sprouts and tofu.

And that, my friends, is grass-fed. As in the grass-fed sliders served at Los Angeles’ food truck sensation the Patty Wagon. Why grass-fed?

• No fossil fuels, pesticides, or chemical fertilizers. Grazing cows eat grass; factory-farm fed livestock are fed corn that comes at a cost of about 1.2 gallons of oil per bushel.
• It’s good for the land. Managed grazing returns vital nutrients (via the cows’ natural fertilizer) to the soil, helping to reduce erosion and fight water pollution.
• It’s healthier. Grass-fed beef has significantly less saturated fat than the factory-farmed version, not to mention higher amounts of the heart-healthy stuff like beta carotene, vitamin E, and omega-3 fatty acids.

And let’s not forget about taste. While Americans have become accustomed to the heavily marbled taste of corn-fed beef, a lot of carnivorous connoisseurs actually prefer the leaner taste of grass-fed. Do these Patty Wagon sliders look any less scrumptious than a fast-food burger?

Photo via Flickr: Nomsnotbombs

Not all of you have access to the Patty Wagon (sucks to be you!), so to find out where to get your grass-fed beef and other meatless animal products (eggs and dairy also come in grass-fed varieties), check out Eatwild.com. And remember: Grass-fed food costs more than factory farmed, but by splurging only on the good stuff, you won’t be able to eat meat every day — which is the way it should be.

–Jennifer Grayson

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