ColumnOur top columns on how to eat ethically.

Whether you’re new to Ecosalon, or just beginning to navigate the choppy waters of ethical eating, you’ll find the following 14 links instructive in helping you eat (and live) both well and deliciously.

1. How to Cook

Despite your best intentions, do you find yourself letting vegetables rot in the produce drawer while you rely on takeout? Learn how to integrate cooking into your daily life and you’ll find yourself eating in more frequently.

2. How to Eat Locally

Why does grocery store produce taste like an inferior imitation of that which you buy at a farmers’ market or grow yourself? It’s likely not in season, it was picked too early, and shipped from afar. With piles of produce from all over the globe, a trip to the typical grocery store is hardly instructive if you want to know what’s in season. Start here to learn.

3. How to be a Semi-Vegetarian

Not quite ready to go vegetarian, but would like to lower your consumption of meat for your health and the environment? Learn how you can have your chard and eat your chicken (once in awhile) too.

4. How to Shop at a Farmers’ Market

Have you ever headed to the farmers’ market with the goal of buying your weekly produce but become so overwhelmed by the crowds, the music, the tasty pastries, that you left with a jar of jam and a loaf of bread? Learn how to shop—really shop—at a farmers market.

5. How to Choose Sustainable Seafood

Part of the reason that our oceans are in trouble is because we’re stuck in our ways. We eat way too many of just a few types of fish, mostly from the top of the food chain. Mix it up with 11 sustainable seafood choices, which you may not have considered.

6. How and Where to Get Protein

If you’ve been trying to cut down on meat but are afraid you won’t get enough protein, learn how much protein you really need and how to obtain it from a variety of foods.

7. How to Source Ethical Coffee

You may chat up the farmers at your local market every week, but do you know where your coffee came from or who grew it? Ethical Joe is within your reach.

8. How to Clean your Kitchen Green

What do you do when icky raw chicken juice splatters on your counter? Do you stare at it in horror or douse it in toxic bleach? Learn tips for disinfecting your kitchen without bleach.

9. How to Choose Humane Meat

Concerned about factory farming? Learn who’s behind the different humane certifications for meat and eggs and how the standards are codified.

10. How to Choose the Right Cooking Oil for the Job

Oil, oil, toil and trouble. Peanut oil for frying? Canola for salads? Oh, wait! It’s toxic? Get the scoop on cooking oil here.

11. Why Bio-Plastics are Not Always a Green Choice

If you’ve been feeling good about your local casual fast food outlet or local food truck because of their use of compostable bioplastics, learn why you probably shouldn’t.

12. Why you Should Read Labels

Ever wondered what soy protein isolate is or what’s really in those fast food burgers? Find out if you dare.

13. How to Cook a Whole Chicken and Other Lessons

Innocuous boneless, skinless chicken breasts? Not so much. Discover why they’re not so benign and learn three ways to cook up a whole chicken.

14. How to Make a Sustainable Fish Taco

Did you ever wonder what type of fish is in those fish tacos that you see on menus everywhere? If it doesn’t say, you might not want to know. But then again, you should. Then go ahead and make your own.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate,  on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Images: Michigan Mom, Ron Dollete, Puuiki Beach, Andrea Nguyen, Wongaboo, Vanessa Barrington

The post How to Eat: 14 Greatest Hits from The Green Plate appeared first on EcoSalon.

Hahn Niman became a vegetarian in college but later married rancher Bill Niman. She is the author of the book Righteous Porkchop, which discusses the differences between small-scale, environmentally responsible animal husbandry and factory farming. Though she believes that eating meat can be ethically and environmentally defensible, she chooses to remain a vegetarian.

Lyman is a former large-scale rancher whose come-to-vegan moment came in the form of a near-fatal spinal tumor that doctors told him was caused by the chemicals used in farming. His conversion and the publication of his book, Mad Cowboy, got him on Oprah and got Oprah into trouble with the Cattlemen’s Beef Association when she mentioned in the interview that the news about Mad Cow Disease might just put her off her hamburgers. EcoSalon attended the debate which was sponsored by Earth Island Journal and moderated by Ari Durfel, founder of Gather Restaurant (also known as the guy who kept his trash in his living room for a year.)

The first question was: What are the environmental reasons to be vegetarian?

Predictably, both participants agree that factory farming is absolutely the worst thing for the environment, as well as for human and animal health. But they answer the question differently. Both experts touch on meat production as a major cause of global warming. Lyman focuses on the term humane meat, asking if killing can be humane and asserting that the only reason we eat meat is because we have an addiction to fat.

Hahn Niman focuses on the facts behind meat production and global warming, citing the often quoted statistic that 18 percent of global warming gasses come from meat production. But, she asserts, “nearly half this from deforestation in developing world and very little of that meat is going to USA. In the USA we are not deforesting at all for meat production.” Hahn Niman goes on to say that livestock production, when done correctly, can actually build soils and contribute to reforestation while also providing valuable fertilizer for agriculture.

“Both of you agree large scale CAFO farming is not okay. Is there a certain scale that you could be comfortable with? Or is general livestock across board wrong?

Acknowledging briefly that of course there is a way to farm better, Lyman stays focused on individual consumer actions rather than farming practices, asserting that there is no way a person can live in an urban area like Berkeley, eat meat and benefit the environment. “Unless you’re willing to raise and kill own meat, no way can you have anything but a negative effect”.

Hahn Niman makes the point that talking about avoiding meat is a false choice because all food production contributes to global warming through carbon, methane, and nitrous oxide omissions. She also mentions that certain non-meat items have a larger carbon footprint than certain meat items. Hahn Niman then reverts to Niman Ranch talking points, asserting that at Niman Ranch, 99 percent of diet is naturally growing/occurring grains and grasses produced by the sun without irrigation feed, or chemicals. When animals eat this basically free food, they become nutritious food for humans. She adds that 85 percent of land in the USA isn’t suitable to row farming of grains and vegetables and ends with the question, “If it’s not meat, what is the appropriate use of land for best impact?”

The next question focused on the ethics of eating meat.

The fact that Hahn Niman is a vegetarian who believes meat eating is a personal and ethical choice puts her in an interesting position and illustrates how stickily personal questions of ethics can be. She raises animals and bonds with them. She is a rancher who has no ethical problem with killing animals, but evidently has a personal problem with it. Perhaps she just doesn’t like meat, but she never says so. She does say that she believes the human body has evolved to eat meat and that our brains developed because of it. She emphasizes that as animals, we are part of the system of living, dying, and regenerating.

Lyman takes issue with Hahn Niman’s assertion that we evolved to eat meat, saying that we were designed to be herbivores and that animals have feelings and the capacity for love. He says if we don’t have to eat animals to survive, how can we kill them? Are we willing to do it ourselves, or would we rather have someone else do it? He says that eating animals is just feeding our addiction and it is wrong.

Hahn Niman vehemently disagrees that human beings evolved to be herbivores, adding that raising animals for food doesn’t mean you don’t care or don’t think animals have feelings. She says death by humane slaughter is better than violent or slow death in the wild (a bit of red herring, if you ask me). For her, the biggest question is how the meat is produced and the answer is that an omnivorous diet can be sustainable.

The moderator asks Howard, whether or not we were designed to eat meat, do we have to eat meat?

Howard throws out his own red herring, saying, “If we’re true omnivores why aren’t we eating our cats and dogs?” Then he says he supports small-scale farms doing it better but does not think animals are necessary for his survival, though he’s not convinced everyone has to become a vegan.

Hahn Niman counters that omnivore doesn’t mean you eat everything. “We make choices. But studies show omnivorous diet gives you survival and immune advantages – just avoiding meat as a category when some things are worse than meat for the environment is not a reasonable response.”

During the audience question period both speakers had an opportunity to offer real-world tips on how to eat better for the environment and also a perspective about why the factory-farming model exists in the first place.

Hahn Niman says to minimize footprint, you should get dairy and meat from grass-fed sources. Such foods have a lower footprint, are healthier, tastier, and are almost never fed drugs. Unprocessed, fresh, whole foods close to harvest are always good choices, as is eating seasonally. “Applying all these values to all of what you eat, whether meat, vegan or vegetarian, is going to be more environmentally sound and healthier.”

Lyman says the best thing a person can do is to spend some time thinking about what you actually like and what you actually want to eat for your life. Do research, start with small steps. Try Meatless Monday. “Look at issue honestly and ask what you are truly able and willing to do. And ask what you must do for posterity.”

One member of the audience asks: “How on earth could we farm enough meat sustainably to actually make it mainstream for world? Could we convert animal agriculture entirely to pasture?”

Hahn Niman says yes; “You could absolutely do that if western cultures reduced consumption modestly. I’m a huge advocate of reduced meat consumption – I support meatless Monday. But abolishing totally is not a good idea.”

Lyman says, “If we wanted to talk about viability of doing things right, we have to price it according to the value of inputs going in. We would have to remove those subsidies [going to CAFO producers]. We would have people driving up to McDonald’s and having to pay eight dollars for a burger. Niman isn’t available everywhere and isn’t affordable for most. And Niman can’t make enough profit to expand. People with the gold are gaming the system. It is rigged.”

What do you think? Can you be an environmentalist and eat any meat, even “sustainably raised” meat?

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: Laurel Fan

The post Can You Be an Environmentalist and Still Eat Meat? appeared first on EcoSalon.

Cheese is my weakness. Camembert and cheddar, stilton and swiss, mozzarella and mascarpone, gouda and goat’s cheese, feta and fresh quark – I love them all. And while it may not be great for my waistline or as environmentally pure as organic lentils, at least I can eat it knowing that it’s a more eco-friendly choice than, say, tucking into a juicy slab of steak. Or can I?

My vegetarian friends certainly seem to think so – many of them seem to subsist on cheese. Trust me, I can understand why – it’s an easy source of protein, calcium, vitamin B12 and other nutrients that omnivores typically get from meat. It’s easier than boiling up lentils from scratch and, let’s face it, for most people cheese just plain tastes good.

These same vegetarians might feel confident, or even a little smug, that they are making good dietary and green lifestyle choices. After all, going vegetarian is better for your health, the welfare of animals and the environment. Isn’t it?

Maybe not. Actually, cheese is pretty much just as bad as meat on all counts. Here’s why.

1. Animals die.

You are drinking the milk of the cow rather than eating its flesh, but all the same animals die. Maybe you already know that most cheese is made with animal rennet and you take care to buy vegetarian cheese. Sorry, but you’re not off the hook!

How do you think the mother cow (or sheep or goat) gets milk? She has babies and since after six months her milk production declines, she needs to keep having babies. What do you think happens to the bull calves? They get killed. And since dairy cattle and beef cattle are generally different breeds and there’s little value in raising the male offspring of dairy cows for meat, this happens when they are still babies.

Often, the calves are slaughtered immediately or just left to die, then added to the farm’s compost heap. Otherwise they may be raised for veal, which is usually a cruel process where they are kept in a confinement in semi-darkness and denied proper food, so their flesh stays white.

However, there are varieties of veal that are more humanely raised, allowing the calves to stay with their mothers and eat grass. Surely the ethically consistent position is either to cut out meat and dairy, or to eat the “humane” veal along with your dairy? Oh and by the way, mama cow will likely only live until she is five to seven years old – instead of the 20 years that is her natural lifespan.

2. Animal cruelty.

Most EcoSalon readers will be familiar with concentrated animal feedlot operations or CAFOs. These factory farms are not just prevalent in the rearing of meat animals but in the dairy industry, as well. The book The Ethics of What We Eat by Peter Singer and Jim Mason cites a Cornell University Study predicting the number of dairy farms in the United States to decline from 105,000 in 2000 to 16,000 in 2020, while the number of cows per farm and the total milk production both increase.

Many cows are confined to a single stall where they are fed and milked for a single year and if they do get to move outside, it’s usually on a dirt lot rather than on pasture.

The modern dairy cow produces three times more milk than its counterpart from 50 years ago, as a result of breeding, and many cows in the United States are injected with bovine somatotrophin (BST), a genetically engineered growth hormone banned in Canada and the European Union. This boosts milk production by 10% but the site of the injection can become swollen and tender and the injections can increase problems with mastitis, a painful udder infection that affects one in six dairy cows in the US.

The natural lifespan of a cow is 20 years but most dairy cows are killed between five and seven years because they cannot withstand the unnaturally high rate of milk production. By “killed”, I don’t mean euthanised – the process of dealing with “downed” animals involves dragging and winching them by the hoof with a tractor and taking them to a truck to deliver it to the slaughterhouse.

3.  Cheese has a huge environmental impact.

Slate had a great article on the environmental impact of cheese, just before Christmas. The truth is that rearing dairy cows or goats is a carbon-intensive process – and for some reason, sheep are even worse. They need to be fed and most dairy cattle are not exclusively grass fed, so that requires grain to be grown and shipped in. If they are kept in CAFOs, there is a huge manure problem that can pollute local waterways. (If the untreated waste doesn’t go directly into streams and rivers, it’s sprayed onto fields through an irrigation system, but often in quantities too great for the soil to absorb, and then in heavy rain it runs off into the creeks).

According to a local environmental group in Michigan, Lake Erie’s new “dead zone” is linked to runoff from livestock waste. Finally, there’s a problem that sounds like a joke but really isn’t – dairy animals are ruminants that fart and burp a lot of greenhouse gases, specifically methane. Scientists are working on reducing this problem by improving the diets of cattle, but it’s a long haul. All this is just to get the milk – to get cheese, it requires further processing and storage at just the right temperature.

4. Cheese isn’t healthy.

I know many people who go vegetarian – or simply cut out red meat – for health reasons. Yet they eat cheese. This makes no sense to me. In what universe is cheese a health food? I want to move there!

I’ve looked up the nutritional statistics on Fitday.com and generic cheese is 27% fat. A whopping 62% of that is saturated fat, while only 22% is protein. Admittedly you do get a decent serving of calcium with your fat, but there are 84 calories and a heart-stopping 20mg of cholesterol in just one slice.

By contrast, a typical cut of beef compares favourably with 26% protein and 20% fat, of which just 39% is saturated fat. You don’t get so much calcium, but that’s more than compensated for by the fact that 20% of your meal is iron, something many women lack. There is also less cholesterol in beef than cheese.

So pound for pound, beef is healthier than most cheese. Unless of course, you are eating low fat cottage cheese, in which case it’s only 1% fat and 12% protein. But then you could be eating healthier meats as well – lean cuts of beef or lamb, low-fat poultry and fish with healthy oils.

All this is not to make anyone feel guilty. But I do think there is little point in going vegetarian and then making up the shortfall with cheese. Sure, you can eat organic dairy in moderation from small family farms with good environmental and animal welfare practices – such as Straus Family Creamery in Northern California – but you can do the same thing for meat. I know plenty of ethically minded omnivores who eat meat and dairy in moderation and source both with equal care.

I believe if you are going to cut out meat, you need to fully embrace cooking with and eating beans and lentils. There are some great recipes – I am a meat-reducing omnivore myself but one of my favourite all-time recipes is vegan – a Lebanese eggplant moussaka with chickpeas that comes to me via Nigella Lawson.

Free-range and organic eggs are another good source of protein in moderation as well, though caged eggs still account for 98% of US egg production. (In Europe it’s a different story – sales of free-range eggs were due to hit two billion eggs a year in 2009 in the UK, exceeding battery egg sales in value terms, while from next year eggs from battery hens will no longer be sold in German supermarkets). You may want to check out Vanessa’s post on how much protein the human body actually needs.

Images: Joi, fklv, smoodysarah, orinzebest, TheBusyBrain

The post Think Cheese Is More Eco + Humane Than Meat? Think Again appeared first on EcoSalon.