Fair Weather Vegetarian

so, i am just about done with john robbins' book "the food revolution". in it, he gives a lot of compelling arguments for why a vegetarian diet makes sense not only from a health standpoint, but also from the perspective of environmental sustainability.

most people know that eating more vegetables is good for you, but i had never really stopped to think about the effect that factory farming has on the environment. i sent chris a link to the article, "vegetarian is the new prius", and after reading that and watching a link to meat.org (which he said that i shouldn't watch, because it would make me cry), he is on board as well. what we have decided for our family is that we will eat vegetarian at home, and when we are at restaurants, and if possible, at other's homes as well. but, if we are at someone's home where there isn't a vegetarian option, we will eat what is available. and, i still have a few things in the freezer that we will use up, rather than waste. mostly, we are deciding that as far as our food dollars go, we are no longer going to support the factory farm system. thus, the 'fair weather vegetarian.'

now, before you get all worried that i've gone completely ga ga here, let me just say that i am not saying that i think it's somehow morally wrong to eat meat. i think that God gave us many good things to eat, meat being one of them. if i could afford to buy locally produced, small farmed meat, or if i had access to meat that was hunted in the wild, i would eat that without qualms. and, there are times when i will be able to afford sustainably harvested seafood, and we will probably buy that occasionally. the monterey bay aquarium has a seafood watch program, which monitors the status of fishing and helps decipher what fish is a good choice and which ones are overfished or farmed in harmful ways. they also have a little wallet card that makes knowing what to buy much easier.

however, that said, i do think that our typical diet in america is pretty meat-heavy, and i am beginning to realize that there are many ramifications of that, not only on a personal level, but also collectively as a nation. from a peace-and-justice standpoint, there is a lot to link our (and other wealthy nations') consumption of meat with some of the ways that poorer nations suffer. meat is cheap in our country, so we eat a lot of it. but, there was a time not too long ago when meat was a luxury--probably a good way to approach it even now.

on a positive note, this exploration has caused me to find some fun resources for vegetarian cooking. i already have the blog "vegan lunchbox" linked to the left of my blog, which is a website full of super fun lunch food. and unless you are worried that veg food is all hippy and health foody, i have also come across the cookbook "vegan with a vengeance" and the accompanying website the post punk kitchen, essentially full of vegetarian junk food, like lots of cupcakes.

so, what do you think? are you willing to make changes to what you are eating for the good of others, the environment, your own health? do you think it makes a difference?