Meatless Mondays

Which do you think has more of a detrimental impact to our environment: driving your car or eating a 4oz piece of meat? Your first inclination is probably the car...duh! But actually, eating meat (specifically red meat like beef and lamb) is worse for our environment. In fact, eating just one 4oz. piece of beef is the equivalent to driving your car close to 7 miles. Thought provoking?


As you may have noticed, based on the majority of my recipes, I eat a relatively meat-free diet. Am I telling you to cut out meat from your diet completely? No. You may not have any interest in eliminating meat from your diet or even care about your carbon footprint (slightly selfish of you not to think about these things, because your choices today affect generations to come; but whatever, no judgement...). Regardless of your concern for trying to make our planet a better place to live, there is one simple thing you can do: Meatless Mondays. 


That's it. One day a week, don't eat meat, cheese, or fish of any kind. Now you may be thinking, what sort of an impact can this possibly have on the environment (because it seems like such a small and simple change to make)? Well: if you personally don't eat meat one day a week it is the equivalent of taking your car off the road for 320 miles - or line drying your clothes half the time, instead of using a drying machine. And if every person in the USA were to not eat meat, cheese, or fish just one day a week: it would be equivalent to taking 7.6 million cars off the road. 


Also, in case you've been living under a rock, it is worth noting that our nation is currently experiencing a terrible drought. So in an attempt to conserve our limited water to be used in agriculture, the USDA is jumping on the bandwagon of "Meatless Mondays" by recommending that people in the USA not eat meat just one day a week. Why? You may ask. Well, “producing a pound of animal protein requires, on average, about 100 times more water than producing a pound of vegetable protein.” Surprising? Of course, there are opponents to this suggestion - mainly a specific strand of politicians who are endorsed by members of the meat industry. You can read more about the issue and speculate about my opinions of the matter...


I am not asking you to become a vegetarian. Nor am I asking you to stop driving your car. In fact, I'm not asking you to do anything. I am giving you knowledge and now you can do what you want. All I'm saying is that not eating meat, cheese, or fish on just one day a week is a pretty damn simple thing to do; and it has the potential to make some pretty significant changes to our planet in the future and for our country today...