Eat less meat
This is a sermonette I delivered as part of my UU congregation's service today on Ethical Eating. Comments welcome :)
Twenty eight years ago, when I decided to stop eating meat, it wasn't because of the poor animals being killed. I didn't think most of those animals would even be alive if they weren't raised for agriculture.
It wasn't for health reasons; my father's first heart attack when he was just a year younger than I am now probably had more to do with his being a pack-a-day Camel smoker than his love of red meat.
The argument that it was more efficient to feed grain to people than to feed grain to livestock and then feed the livestock to people appealed to my logical and liberal natures, but that's not really why I stopped eating meat either.
Frankly, I stopped eating meat because my roommate liked meat more than I did.
When I was in grad school, I lived with a sociology major named Rick. He was a pretty easygoing guy, and so even though I wasn't, we got along pretty well.
One of our only areas of disagreement was over food. We shopped together and split the bill, but he liked his steak and chops and chicken. I never really liked meat that much, and when I ate it, I preferred hamburger to steak, and hot dogs to pot roast. So when he'd buy his pound of flesh, I tried to get something equally expensive that I knew he wouldn't eat, so I wouldn't be subsidizing his chosen lifestyle.
Of course the more I bought that he wouldn't eat, the more he bought that I wouldn't, and so on. Before this situation escalated to truffles and lobster, I started shopping at the Real Food Coop, which didn't sell any meat at the time. This was my excuse to get off the household plan and cut my food bill in half.
When I stopped eating meat, it wasn't because I wanted to save the world. I did it because I was a spiteful, selfish bastard.
I'm telling you all this so you'll know that I'm not here to be anyone's conscience today. I believed we evolved with a varied diet that included fish, flesh and fowl.
It would be both moralistic and simplistic to say that everyone should stop eating meat right now. Besides, if I did, then I'd have to explain why I still make an occasional exception for barbecued shrimp or Burger King's fish sandwich.
Back in 1980, when I decided to quit eating meat, I didn't know about global climate change.
But now I know that 18 percent of greenhouse gases come from raising cows, chickens, turkeys, pigs and other animals for food.
That's about 40 percent more than all the cars, trucks, airplanes, and all other forms of transport combined.
It's more than twice as much produced by all the homes and offices in the world put together.
Now I know that world meat consumption doubled from 1961 to 2007, rising twice as fast in the developing world. And that meat consumption is expected to double again by 2050.
Now I know that this demand is being met with assembly-line meat factories which consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate huge quantities of greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests.
Now I know that it takes sixteen times as much fossil fuel to produce a six ounce steak as to produce a cup of broccoli, a cup of eggplant or eight ounces of rice. Calorie for calorie, it takes ten times as much fossil fuel to produce meat protein as it does to produce plant protein. The Atkins diet is basically the SUV of the food industry.
And now I know that Unitarian Universalists, whom I'd never even heard of in 1980, are concerned about the fate of the planet and are individually, congregationally and denominationally in the forefront of the movement to stop and reverse global warming.
Many of you have already changed all your lightbulbs to compact fluorescents.
You may be driving a hybrid, taking a bus, bicycling or telecommuting.
You may have turned down your thermostat and put on as many sweaters as you can wear and still be able to move your arms.
But because you're UUs, you still want to do more. I'm here today to offer you one of the easiest, healthiest and most effective strategies you can take to help combat global climate change: eat less meat.
Again, I'm not a purist. I'm not telling you to give up your barbecue completely or go cold turkey on ... cold turkey. But I do want you to be aware of the real cost of the meat you eat, and offer you four ways to be a more responsible omnivore.
1. Don't have a cow. While poultry production shares a lot of the same problems as beef production, beef is definitely the form of meat that is least efficient to produce and most harmful to the environment.
Sadly for me, seafood isn't necessarily a good option, as a lot of energy is used to catch, freeze and transport fish. And even farmed fish use a lot of fertilizer and feed, and have other negative environmental impacts.
2. Eat local. Eating locally raised meat means you at least cut out some of the carbon produced in transportation. Even better, try for organic meats, which consume less fossil fuels in terms of feed and fertilizer.
3. Meatless Monday. Try a going meatless one or even two days a week. The meatlessmonday.com website has lots of easy and delicious options. If you're already vegetarian, try a vegan day. If you're already vegan, congratulations! Now why not prepare the yummiest meal you know and use it seduce a meat eater to the light side of the force?
But let me tell you the truth about meat substitutes like garden burgers and tofu dogs. I like them, but they really don't taste like the real thing. So if tofurkey and facon aren't to your liking, stick to real food like vegetables and grains. Besides, being less processed than packaged convenience foods, they also have a smaller carbon footprint.
4. Eating out. When you eat out, try a place where there are naturally a lot of non-meat options. Most ethnic foods rely less heavily on meat. So instead of Scotch and Sirloin, try Tokyo Seoul. Or instead of Burger King, think outside the bun and go to Taco Bell.
Finally, let people know what you're doing and why. And don't worry that you're not doing it perfectly enough.
When I stopped eating meat, it was fashionable in the group I was in to be a vegetarian. So much so that one friend, Allison, talked about how she didn't eat chicken, only boneless chicken breast. So much so that Larry, the most vocal of our friends, was once discovered to have hidden the fixings for baloney sandwiches in his room.
Thankfully, you don't have to pass any purity tests to make a difference. Just eat less meat.
Twenty eight years ago, when I decided to stop eating meat, it wasn't because of the poor animals being killed. I didn't think most of those animals would even be alive if they weren't raised for agriculture.
It wasn't for health reasons; my father's first heart attack when he was just a year younger than I am now probably had more to do with his being a pack-a-day Camel smoker than his love of red meat.
The argument that it was more efficient to feed grain to people than to feed grain to livestock and then feed the livestock to people appealed to my logical and liberal natures, but that's not really why I stopped eating meat either.
Frankly, I stopped eating meat because my roommate liked meat more than I did.
When I was in grad school, I lived with a sociology major named Rick. He was a pretty easygoing guy, and so even though I wasn't, we got along pretty well.
One of our only areas of disagreement was over food. We shopped together and split the bill, but he liked his steak and chops and chicken. I never really liked meat that much, and when I ate it, I preferred hamburger to steak, and hot dogs to pot roast. So when he'd buy his pound of flesh, I tried to get something equally expensive that I knew he wouldn't eat, so I wouldn't be subsidizing his chosen lifestyle.
Of course the more I bought that he wouldn't eat, the more he bought that I wouldn't, and so on. Before this situation escalated to truffles and lobster, I started shopping at the Real Food Coop, which didn't sell any meat at the time. This was my excuse to get off the household plan and cut my food bill in half.
When I stopped eating meat, it wasn't because I wanted to save the world. I did it because I was a spiteful, selfish bastard.
I'm telling you all this so you'll know that I'm not here to be anyone's conscience today. I believed we evolved with a varied diet that included fish, flesh and fowl.
It would be both moralistic and simplistic to say that everyone should stop eating meat right now. Besides, if I did, then I'd have to explain why I still make an occasional exception for barbecued shrimp or Burger King's fish sandwich.
Back in 1980, when I decided to quit eating meat, I didn't know about global climate change.
But now I know that 18 percent of greenhouse gases come from raising cows, chickens, turkeys, pigs and other animals for food.
That's about 40 percent more than all the cars, trucks, airplanes, and all other forms of transport combined.
It's more than twice as much produced by all the homes and offices in the world put together.
Now I know that world meat consumption doubled from 1961 to 2007, rising twice as fast in the developing world. And that meat consumption is expected to double again by 2050.
Now I know that this demand is being met with assembly-line meat factories which consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate huge quantities of greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests.
Now I know that it takes sixteen times as much fossil fuel to produce a six ounce steak as to produce a cup of broccoli, a cup of eggplant or eight ounces of rice. Calorie for calorie, it takes ten times as much fossil fuel to produce meat protein as it does to produce plant protein. The Atkins diet is basically the SUV of the food industry.
And now I know that Unitarian Universalists, whom I'd never even heard of in 1980, are concerned about the fate of the planet and are individually, congregationally and denominationally in the forefront of the movement to stop and reverse global warming.
Many of you have already changed all your lightbulbs to compact fluorescents.
You may be driving a hybrid, taking a bus, bicycling or telecommuting.
You may have turned down your thermostat and put on as many sweaters as you can wear and still be able to move your arms.
But because you're UUs, you still want to do more. I'm here today to offer you one of the easiest, healthiest and most effective strategies you can take to help combat global climate change: eat less meat.
Again, I'm not a purist. I'm not telling you to give up your barbecue completely or go cold turkey on ... cold turkey. But I do want you to be aware of the real cost of the meat you eat, and offer you four ways to be a more responsible omnivore.
1. Don't have a cow. While poultry production shares a lot of the same problems as beef production, beef is definitely the form of meat that is least efficient to produce and most harmful to the environment.
Sadly for me, seafood isn't necessarily a good option, as a lot of energy is used to catch, freeze and transport fish. And even farmed fish use a lot of fertilizer and feed, and have other negative environmental impacts.
2. Eat local. Eating locally raised meat means you at least cut out some of the carbon produced in transportation. Even better, try for organic meats, which consume less fossil fuels in terms of feed and fertilizer.
3. Meatless Monday. Try a going meatless one or even two days a week. The meatlessmonday.com website has lots of easy and delicious options. If you're already vegetarian, try a vegan day. If you're already vegan, congratulations! Now why not prepare the yummiest meal you know and use it seduce a meat eater to the light side of the force?
But let me tell you the truth about meat substitutes like garden burgers and tofu dogs. I like them, but they really don't taste like the real thing. So if tofurkey and facon aren't to your liking, stick to real food like vegetables and grains. Besides, being less processed than packaged convenience foods, they also have a smaller carbon footprint.
4. Eating out. When you eat out, try a place where there are naturally a lot of non-meat options. Most ethnic foods rely less heavily on meat. So instead of Scotch and Sirloin, try Tokyo Seoul. Or instead of Burger King, think outside the bun and go to Taco Bell.
Finally, let people know what you're doing and why. And don't worry that you're not doing it perfectly enough.
When I stopped eating meat, it was fashionable in the group I was in to be a vegetarian. So much so that one friend, Allison, talked about how she didn't eat chicken, only boneless chicken breast. So much so that Larry, the most vocal of our friends, was once discovered to have hidden the fixings for baloney sandwiches in his room.
Thankfully, you don't have to pass any purity tests to make a difference. Just eat less meat.