As Congress considers the latest Farm Bill, which will surely contain gobs of money for the row crops that support livestock, but perhaps more than before to prop up fruit and vegetable farmers, this is a 2010 graphic that brings it all into perspective:
Tags: · corn, Food/Drink, healthy food, meat, Produce, soybeans, Trees/Plants/Yard
Our friends in vegan-land issue a call every year about this time asking people to consider celebrating the holidays without eating animals.
(For those of you already looking for turkey substitutes and other veggie friendly recipes, you can jump off right now to Gentle Thanksgiving, where they’ve got a recipe for juicy, tofu-based stuffed Not-A-Turkey.)
We recognize that some people might find this call to action needless, strange, even an affront to their position atop the food chain. That is certainly understandable considering that the Thanksgiving turkey and the Christmas ham (or brisket or pork loin roast) are a big part of the American holidays. Other events that fall around this time, like Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, also have their meat components, kosher or otherwise. Having meat is usually part of the repast.
Tags: · BarbaraKesslerBlog, carbon impact of meat, environmental impact of meat, Field Roast, food scarcity, Gardein, global warming, greenrightnow.com, livestock, meat, Thanksgiving, tofu, Tofurky, turkey, vegetarian Thanksgiving, Western diet, winter holidays
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
Veggie advocates want American omnivores to adopt a day without meat. Well, some of them want us to just give up meat totally, but I’m talking about the Meatless Monday campaign here, which argues that if we’d cut out the steaks and pork chops on just this one day, we’d reduce the saturated fat that we consume and make a big dent in the greenhouse gas emissions produced by the livestock industry.
Tags: · BarbaraKesslerBlog, beef, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Carbon footprint, Johns Hopkins, meat, Meatless Mondays, obesity, pork, poultry, Public Health, vegetarian
“Food from the root is better for you than food from the hoof.” — Dr. Jay Adlersberg, Health and Medical reporter at WABC-TV
Even a cattle rancher probably wouldn’t deny that if people cut out even some meat from their diet they’d not only be healthier but they’d also be saving money as well as helping save the planet.
Tags: · Food/Drink, Good Tastes Kitchen, meat, meatlessmonday.com, Sarah Pike, steaks
By Christopher Peake
Green Right Now
It’s already mid-March and that means the snows will melt and if the ground’s not too saturated farmers will soon be planting seeds for the food that will feed us this year.
Since time immemorial farmer’s markets have been with us: farmers harvest, bakers bake, dairy farmers milk their cows and they all meet at a central location where there’s lots of foot traffic … and they sell. The common theme: the food is fresh.
Tags: · California, Dairy, farmer's markets, food miles, gardening, gourmet food, Local Food, meat, New Hampshire, Oregon, Organic Food, plants, Produce, sustainable agriculture, Texas, Wisconsin
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
There are lots of reasons to cut your meat consumption. Producing beef is the more resource intensive and energy costly than almost any other type of food production (save maybe extracting gourmet delicacies like caviar) and has a big carbon imprint, contributing to greenhouse gases at many stages.
There are also health reasons to trim the volume of animal products from your diet because meats contribute to high cholesterol, hardening of the arteries and so on.
Tags: · beef, CAFOs, grass-fed beef, meat, organic meat, Sustainable Table
Barbara Kessler
Andrew Winston
Danielle Nierenberg
Anthony Swift