Tuesday, September 11th, 2007...11:49 pm
A bite to tide you over…
Of course, I launch my blog and then go on vacation. But rest assured, the fruits of vacation and post vacation labor mean a few posts in the works. While I get the pictures all ready to go though, here is one of those non-recipe non-picture posts I will occasionally be making.
If you have looked at my Blogroll (that would be the list down the left) you would have found a lot of food related sites. I read all of those sites (and a few others, some that I might add soon) on a regular basis. There are two in there that are related to food but not in the strict cooking/ recipe/ look at the pretty picture sense. Instead, they focus more on food politics (for lack of a better succinct summary). They are The Ethicurean which focuses on “sustainable, organic, local, and/or ethical” food, food issues, and food politics and What to Eat a blog by Marion Nestle, a Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at NYU.
As a vegetarian, I think a lot about what I eat. I am not perfect and I could probably still make better choices. I also won’t preach to anyone about the decisions they make about what they eat so I won’t go into my reasons for being vegetarian here. Since I consider myself a “foodie” and I do travel a fair bit, I do think about incorporating meat into my diet again. If I ever do, it would be in a very limited and very particular way because of my feelings about meat (I am more than happy to share my reasons if asked. If you are really that interested, leave a comment.). The reason I mention it at all (and have before) is it will 1. influence all the food you see me write about (unless Fantôme Chocolat decides to guest post) and 2. it is a major factor in my decision to keep up on those two blogs.
Topics that have appeared on those blogs include items about children and diet and community gardens. One thing that has caught my interest is a microtrend in school gardens. Alice Water’s Edible Schoolyard project is probably the most influential and well known program. The idea is to integrate food growing into a school program so children learn more about nutrition. By investing their time and seeing the payoff of their efforts by growing and eating their own food, they learn about “the transformative values of nourishment, community, and stewardship of the land”.
I didn’t realize how wide spread this concept was. The Mayor of Washington, D.C., where I now live, has just created the first D.C. School Garden Week which will happen October 15-20, 2007.
I am really excited to see this happening in my city and hope there are some schools with gardens already so I can participate in the planned volunteer day.
And that is the bite to tide you over. Well that, and this preview of what else I am working on pictures of to post about this week (ok, I can’t make a picture-less post… so sue me!)….
5 Comments
September 24th, 2007 at 4:30 am
I’d love to hear your reasons for going/being vegetarian, out of curiosity. My husband and I have been discussing it, a few of our close friends are vegetarians out of various reasons. Cheers - Gina/nilasae
October 2nd, 2007 at 2:22 pm
The biggest reason is how the available meat is produced in the US. Rolling Stone’s article on Smithfield is probably the best example of what is going on in the industry. And this New York Times article is the best example of how I would like my meat to be produced if I was going to eat it.
I do like meat and I do miss eating it on occasion, but when I think of the miserable existences the majority of the animals are subjected to, as well as the conditions the workers are subjected to, I just can’t bring myself to have any. John Robbin’s book Diet For a New America is also pretty enlightening on this topic.
There are also a lot of statistics out there on environmental impact and food usage that tend to bother me. For example, in order to raise one head of cattle for food, you need to feed it more food than you get out of it. And if you were to use the same amount of land needed to raise it to raise vegetables and grains instead you could feed more people. The amount of water used is unreal as well. Right now, I think the process is mismanaged… it’s not that I think people should not be able to chose to eat meat I just think that with the way people are eating meat that there is a large environmental impact that is being ignored due to mismanagement of the process in favor of profit. I have also found information that subsidies to the industry in the US keep meat prices artificially low so people can continue to afford to eat meat (the link is below, but research suggests without subsidies to the industry ground beef would really be closer to $35/ lb). So not only do we have an industry depleting and destroying our resources, our government is paying to them to do it at the same time without any accountability for their practices. In a world were we have such stark contrasts between the haves and have-nots, I always wonder if there aren’t better choices we could be making to balance everything out.
I don’t think as a vegetarian I am exempt from thinking about the environmental impact of my choices either. Paying more for organic vegetables that were flown in from 3000 miles away does not make sense either. That is why I participate in a CSA so a large percentage of my food 5-6 months out of the year comes from a local organic sources. I just have to work out what makes sense the rest of the year.
Granted, as a vegetarian in a developed nation my choices aren’t going to help feed starving people in developing nations and not all land can be used the same way. However, discussion of my choices in a thoughtful way with people that are truly interested gets people thinking about these things and may have some impact down the road. If I didn’t know other vegetarians I am not sure I would have stuck with it as long as I have and I think at least one of my other veg friends was influenced by someone else he knew, etc.
Ultimately I stick with it because I do find I feel healthier for it. And I do struggle with the decision about whether I will ultimately incorporate some meat back in my diet. If I do decide to, I am going to be very careful about where the meat comes from. My cats eat a 100% raw meat diet and I buy from a source that represents her sources are smaller family farms. I recently found that one of my “in a pinch” sources gets their rabbits (a favorite meal of the cats) from China so I won’t be using them any more.
Here are a couple of links:
The Mad Cowboy Factoids regarding the Cattle industry in the US
Eating More Veggies Can Help Save Energy
October 2nd, 2007 at 5:24 pm
[...] A bite to tide you over… [...]
October 2nd, 2007 at 11:39 pm
How do you deal with being vegetarian while traveling? I do pretty well at home, but on the road the paucity of options and the huge number of them that are unavailable to me for other reasons just kills me. I do the best I can, but in the Midwest, I’m lucky if I can have one veggie meal a day. I bring my own food already for snacks and the like, but that doesn’t cover business lunches or dinners. (Not being able to eat soy or mushrooms, and needing to eat due to blood sugar issues, I often find myself with the choice of “salad, fries, or something with meat”.)
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:19 am
I do eat differently on the road than I do at home. For example, I end up eating more omelettes and pasta which are things I don’t typically cook and do try to avoid. I also eat more veggie burgers and portobello sandwiches- neither of which help you. For lunch a lot of times I end up with a Subway Veggie Delight sub. There are foods I really try to avoid, but not because I absolutely cannot eat them I just don’t want to eat them (i.e. a lot of carbs, dairy, eggs, and fried foods).
I spend a lot of time on Google looking at all the available restaurant options too. Most towns will have a Japanese place so I eat a lot of vegetable Sushi rolls, edamame, and seaweed salads. Indian restaurants are also not a bad bet a lot of times. Happy Cow is useful… more and more places these days have at least one veggie restaurant within reasonable driving distance (if you search “veg guide” there are some other similar sites). Other sites with user restaurant reviews are some times helpful at figuring out the veg friendliness and healthfulness of a place so I usually start out with “veg restaurant $city” on Google.
A lot of times, especially if I am with other people, I just ask the restaurant what they can do to accommodate me and I end up with a plate of vegetables. Steak houses are actually fairly decent places to do this. Their vegetable quality is usually better than your average restaurant. I have gotten used to being looked at like I have two heads when I ask for a plate of veggies and add “please don’t add butter or some kind of sauce”.
I was going to make a list of what I ate while out of town last week, but I was in CA so that really isn’t representative of a lot of the country. Next time I travel some place more “typical” I will keep a list and see if that helps. I do always keeps some snacks handy just in case though and have had those fruit salad/ granola bar meals more than once.
I think so far I have just been lucky. Most of my Midwest travel has been Chicago. I ended up in Missouri once which was a salad/ pizza/ fries kind of trip and I hated it. Luckily it was very short.
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