In the wonderful Macca's Meatless Monday series, beach babe in FL posts lots of great vegetarian recipes, some of them vegan. She also includes music from the Beatles. And reasons why eating meat destroys the world.
She is a vegetarian. Well, good. Not in the least snarky. I think vegetarianism is a great choice. But it's not one I'm going to make any time soon; nor are most Americans. And worldwide, the number of meat-eaters and the amount of meat eaten is growing.
Is the only recourse vegetarianism or even veganism?
It is not.
We can all eat less meat.
It's cheaper, healthier and a whole lot better for the planet.
What could be more American than a burger and fries? Oh yeah! A slab of ground meat (sometimes from factory farms, sometimes from many farms), a bun and some potatoes cooked in oil. Many restaurants now offer a burger that weighs half a pound or more. And the ketchup has that yummy high fructose corn syrup!
No veggie (oh yeah, Reagan said ketchup is a vegetable). No legume.
SuperSize me and it won't surprise me.
But ....
Did you ever wonder why so many cultures have dishes that include grains and legumes? From risi i bisi (Italian rice and peas) to southern red beans and rice, to South America and Latin America's many versions of rice and beans, and much more.
What about a nice big bowl of chili? WITH meat? And some rice. And maybe a salad? It will have a LOT less meat and a lot less fat than the burger/fries, because more than half will be beans.
How about some pasta? With sauce, of course. Hey! Put a little ground beef in the sauce if you like. Or not. There are LOTS of yummy ways to have pasta. If you eat a half pound of meat in your sauce .... well that is one HELL of a big plate of pasta!
Then there are all those other meats! Now, it's true that there is no meat that is as efficient a source of protein as grains and legumes, but other meats are a lot better than beef. There's lamb, mutton, duck, chicken, goose and hen.
And you can eat ALL of the animal (in Spain, apparently, they have a saying that, with a pig, you can eat everything but the squeal). Offal is part of meat. It's a part that many Americans avoid. Some even view offal as awful. But there's a lot of good eating in the parts you might throw away - brains, kidneys, tripe, liver, sweetbreads and more. There's even at least one offal cookbook: The Whole Beast: Nose to tail eating by Fergus Henderson.