Everyday Systems

From today's New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/dinin ... ref=dining

Very good article. I was vegetarian for 6yrs and my daughter still is. It really is quite easy to implement some of those suggestions in that article.

Thank you, Wosnes, that was interesting.

The American "national average of a half-pound of meat a day" seems like an awful lot of meat.

V interesting - and timely. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I've already started to cut back on meat - we eat it at dinner, but alternate with fish, chicken and vegetarian meals. But our meals mostly revolve around some kind of 'flesh'. I'd like to go largely vego. My daughter hasn't been a big meat eater but she is starting to be now - it may be peer influences. She hates beans, unfortunately, and isn't keen on much dairy, but she does love vegetables and salads and eats a lot of them. She also loves rice and pasta, so if I put some thought into this I should be able to follow some of his tips. Thansk - very handy.

Thanks for the link.

I've been sort of trying to do this for the last few months, but it's been tricky -- my daughters are ferocious little carnivores. And I have to admit to having a strong meet tooth myself...

But hey, it's a start. I'd say we're eating at least 10% less nowadays.

Reinhard

I received the following a few weeks ago. It's from Mary Hunt's Everyday Cheapskate e-newsletter:

Load Up on Potatoes for Nutrition and Thrift
Whether you’re a news junkie or grocery price hound, you are keenly aware that the cost of food is rising. And not only in America, but around the world. As wheat and rice prices surge, there’s one commodity that is getting a lot of attention: potatoes. In fact there are some who predict potatoes will emerge as the solution to world hunger.

As a way to focus on this situation, the United Nations named 2008 the International Year of the Potato, calling the vegetable a “hidden treasure.â€

Potatoes will grow almost anywhere, require very little water and mature in just 50 days. They are nutritious, have only 5 percent of the fat content of wheat (provided they’re not loaded up with butter and sour cream) and come in a rainbow of colors, from alabaster-white to bright yellow and deep purple.

They also have one-fourth of the calories of bread and, when boiled, have more protein than corn and nearly twice the calcium, according to the Potato Center. They contain vitamin C, iron, potassium and zinc.

If you’re interested in keeping a lid on soaring grocery prices without giving up nutrition, start buying more potatoes. Of course you’ll need to find new and exciting ways to prepare them.

A few days later, I received this: http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2008nl/may/potato.htm

I'm using more spuds in or as main dishes. Potatoes and meat rather than meat and potatoes.

Interesting article. This is what Clarence Bass has done for decades and he looks fantastic at ~70 years old. His site has very good eating (I hate the word dietary) information that really conforms with much of what Reinhard has written.

http://cbass.com/


Ray

I always root (!) for pro-vegetarian or less meat information.

It helps a GREAT deal if you have a strong reason for doing it, either health and/or moral reasons.

Everybody should view http://www.meetyourmeat.com/ before making a decision.

Even if I weren't a Buddhist, every time I look at my lab values I realize I made the right decision to go first vegetarian and finally vegan with the help of No S principles.

f

wosnes,

great article! although I am vegan/vegetarian I completely understand that this lifestyle is not appropriate for everyone. That being said, I think it makes a lot of sense to eat LESS meat as the writer of the article said for WHATEVER reasons.

There is this new pizza place that opened up in our neighborhood - Z Pizza. I love it! WHY? because they have something for everyone!

They have your "normal" cheesy pepperoni white bread pizzas ...etc... but they ALSO offer whole wheat crusts, a vegan pizza, and toppings include soy cheese and soy crumbles .... they also have SENSATIONAL and FRESH salads ... what this means is ANYONE can eat there,

we also have a mexican restaurant Rancho's and they serve meat dishes, cheese dishes and vegan dishes, they offer black beans and refried beans, white rice and brown rice,

there is one more cafe india that has vegan to meat-eating alternatives. I have told my husband this is my dream... to see more of these kinds of restaurants that serve the gamut ... so people can eat what they truly want and then people can also make the delightful discovery that eating less meat can be just as tasty, satisfying, nutritious as eating .... well, quite a bit of meat

thanks again for the article wosnes

also Ray E. thanks for the Clarence Bass link. I am checking it out. Since my new goal is "LEAN" this is a great link!

Blueskighs

That's the good thing BrightAngel about No s....people can eat whatever they want/like or have a preference for. There are a lot of 'weird' things out there to try, and no one has to try any of them if they don't want to. I like to try new foods and sometimes unusual combinations. I once had strawberry shortcake with duck meat....lol....don't knock it until you try it! It was yummy!
Thank goodness for No S and it's sensible approach to eating.... whatever your preference might be.

I ate mostly (probably 90%) vegetarian last summer. When cold weather came, I had a hard time, but it was pretty easy in the summer and it feels like a natural fit in the hot weather. Plan to do it again this summer. I figure even the three months or so I act like a vegetarian minimizes my impact...

Though I've followed vegetarian or vegan diets in the past, I'm an omnivore now. I prefer to eat less meat rather than more. Not only does it make sense healthwise, I think that as food prices rise, we're going to have to make some choices about what we eat. Meat is probably going to be one of the first things to be reduced in our diets.

I've just spent some time reading the comments to the article. I'm always surprised about how much misinformation exists about how much protein we need (not much, really), how to get it or what to substitute for it.

I was a "flexitarian" before there was a word for it. That's a person who does eat meat, but less than the norm - a mix of vegetarian and "light meat" meals is how it works for us. (Though we probably eat too much cheese... but that's another topic.)

I liked the part in the article where they briefly acknowledged that there are a lot of reasons to cut down on meat, but moved on without spending time on the "why." That kept the focus on the practical "how to if you want to," which I though was good.

Nice article, Wosnes. Thanks for sharing.

This part puzzled me:

...when we have meat nights, there’s often a big piece of meat (or poultry) on the plate...

So um...what, is chicken not meat?

This article gives very good advice. All the traditional Chinese dishes my mom would cook had meat, but in tiny tiny amounts. A sprinkle of dried shrimp gave taste to sauteed cucumbers, some tiny slices of pork set off the stir-fried celery. And then meat intake is further diluted by the bowl of rice eaten with the dishes.

And this is also the first time I've seen the protein "issue" dismissed on a non-vegetarian site. Yaaaay.

I grew up in a very traditional home and my mother (who's still a good cook) made typical meat/potato/vegetable dishes. Then I moved to my own apartment and found out in a hurry that I *hated* buying meat because I hated dealing with the raw stuff, hated cooking it, the whole deal. I gradually moved over to being a non-red meat, non-poultry person 99 percent of the time though I do sometimes eat some fish out.

I used to very occasionally have bacon though I've almost given that up too except for a great breakfast quesadilla (which also had egg, cheese, tomato, onion) I had over Memorial Day weekend. I'll have meat though at someone else's dinner but not otherwise.

I really don't miss meat. It's as much a matter of taste for me as anything, but I do feel queasy if I were to eat a burger. Glad to hear of the potato revival; they are also very affordable!

I was a vegetarian for three years, until I went for a two-month visit to my country.
Mine is the land of meat and barbeques and people can't conceive not eating meat two times a day, every day.
So, when I called telling everyone that I was a vegetarian, everyone started saying: "but, but... you'll still eat my special *insert meat dish here* that I'll be doing especially for you... right?".
After a while, I just gave up, when I came back, my husband seized the moment to get me to start eating meat permanently and here I am.
Incidentally, last week my husband was of the opinion that we should only eat meat when we go out and be vegetarians while in the house.
Such statement coming from him almost made me fall on my butt, but, hey, I'll take it!.
I miss my vegetarian days very much and I'm considering to just be a plain vegetarian even when eating out...

Then I moved to my own apartment and found out in a hurry that I *hated* buying meat because I hated dealing with the raw stuff, hated cooking it, the whole deal.

Rose,

I had the same experience!

we should only eat meat when we go out and be vegetarians while in the house.

we did this for awhile and it also worked well!

I guess you can tell - our little family has experimented widely with eating styles! We have settled on vegan/vegetarian for time being ... but I say whatever works!

Blueskighs