A JCC GREEN TIP: EAT LESS MEAT
Reduce your carbon footprint and improve your health at the same time by eating less meat. Keep it simple: have a "meatless day" each week, eat meat only one meal a day most days. Or, use meat more to flavor a dish and/or use less meat in one.
Livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world's greenhouse gases, more than transportation. Approximately one-third of the earth's ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production. Also, livestock raised in industrial operations produce many times their weight in manure. In the US with five percent of the world's population, we grow and process nearly 10 billion animals a year, more than 15 percent the world's total.
Americans eat about eight ounces of meat, poultry, and fish a day, nearly twice the global average, and 25 percent more than 50 years ago. On average we consume 110 grams of protein a day, about twice the recommended daily requirement, and most of this protein comes from animal sources. (Dairy products are separate here, being barely significant in statistical terms.)
Want more info? Take a look at Michael Pollan's book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, about how to change what we eat one meal at a time. Also, Food Rules, An Eater's Manual, now in a new edition illustrated by Maira Kalman; they were both at Quail Ridge this past week. (The Smiths have a copy of the latter you can borrow.) But, you can just get the very small original paperback edition; he makes it easy to think about food differently. His website is: http://michaelpollan.com/
Check a New York Times article by Mark Bittman "Re-Thinking the Meat Guzzler". Mark Bittman has also written two related books since then: Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating and The Food Matters Cookbook. He writes frequently about this and related issues in his blog and on his website, http://markbittman.com/.
Go to: 'Livestock's Long Shadow,' a report by the Food & Agricultural Organization of the UN.
Reduce your carbon footprint and improve your health at the same time by eating less meat. Keep it simple: have a "meatless day" each week, eat meat only one meal a day most days. Or, use meat more to flavor a dish and/or use less meat in one.
Livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world's greenhouse gases, more than transportation. Approximately one-third of the earth's ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production. Also, livestock raised in industrial operations produce many times their weight in manure. In the US with five percent of the world's population, we grow and process nearly 10 billion animals a year, more than 15 percent the world's total.
Americans eat about eight ounces of meat, poultry, and fish a day, nearly twice the global average, and 25 percent more than 50 years ago. On average we consume 110 grams of protein a day, about twice the recommended daily requirement, and most of this protein comes from animal sources. (Dairy products are separate here, being barely significant in statistical terms.)
Want more info? Take a look at Michael Pollan's book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, about how to change what we eat one meal at a time. Also, Food Rules, An Eater's Manual, now in a new edition illustrated by Maira Kalman; they were both at Quail Ridge this past week. (The Smiths have a copy of the latter you can borrow.) But, you can just get the very small original paperback edition; he makes it easy to think about food differently. His website is: http://michaelpollan.com/
Check a New York Times article by Mark Bittman "Re-Thinking the Meat Guzzler". Mark Bittman has also written two related books since then: Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating and The Food Matters Cookbook. He writes frequently about this and related issues in his blog and on his website, http://markbittman.com/.
Go to: 'Livestock's Long Shadow,' a report by the Food & Agricultural Organization of the UN.