Filed under: diet, food, lifestyle, meat, meat neutral, vegetarianism | Tags: meat, meat eaters, reclaiming vegetarianism
In past posts, we have mentioned how from a political perspective, Meat Neutral is about reclaiming the word “vegetarian.” Continuing in this thread,today, we are going look into the origin of the word meat.
The first meaning of the word Meat was solid food in general, in contrast to drink. This was the meaning in the first citation in the Oxford English Dictionary ~900. It was not until ~1300 that meat was used to denote the flesh of animals and not until even later the definition in the dictionary was changed.
So there you have it. We are all meat eaters, whether you like it or not.
Leave your preconceptions behind, or take them with you, and join the Meat Neutral movement.
Filed under: cooking, food, fusion food, local food, meat and potatoes, meat neutral, vegetarianism | Tags: mollie katzen, moosewood, recipe, speck, squash curry
Its not. Meat Neutral may sound to good to be true, but it is a living, breathing, reality. We are writing a cookbook and the people from the Woodstock Collective are going to help. This week, the Meat Neutral blog celebrates its 1000th visitor and the momentum continues to build.
Already we have received several recipes our reader’s favorite Meat Neutral creations. Some of our favorites so far include Lovely Laura White’s scrumptious creation, Yummy Yummy Squash Curry (with Chicken) and our European correspondent, Nicole Porteous’ Speck Lasagna. These foreign fusions keep raising the bar higher and higher.
Our goal is to collect at least one recipe per week over the next year, so that we can put them together into a cookbook — with each recipe profiling the creator chief.
So take this as a call out to all you closet vegetarians. Start exploring your pantry and think of the frying pan as your canvas. Send your recipes to meagan@gomeatneutral.com
Help us take back vegetarianism!
PS: “…Meat is fine if you like it.”
Recently, an astute Meat Neutral reader pointed out that Mollie Katzen (author of one of the best selling cookbooks of all time, the Moosewood Cookbook) has been endorsing the Meat Neutral concept.
Ms. Katzen who holds a charter seat at the Harvard School of Public Health Nutrition Roundtable recently commented: “Vegetarianism is a negative statement about meat. My cooking is a meat-neutral positive statement about the joys (for everyone, no matter where they get their protein) of eating plant-based foods. I don’t like to draw lines in the sand with meat eaters in one category and vegetarians across the border in another club. I just want everyone to eat a lot of vegetables, whole grains, fruit, nuts and legumes. Meat is fine it you like it. Eggs are fine if you like them.”
Woodstock. Moosewood. Its all Meat Neutral.
Filed under: animal rights, cooking, food, meat neutral | Tags: animals, anthropocentrism, diet, fish, fishism, fishist, vegetarianism
Over the past few weeks we have begun to articulate the Meat Neutral “manifesto” in each successive post. Some of the key tenets which we have covered include:
- Vegetarian food is good… its just missing meat
- Meat Neutral = Balance (like yoga)
- We promote culinary creativity
- Meat Neutral is about promoting vegetarian cuisine
- Meat Neutral can reduce your carbon footprint
Another pillar of the Meat Neutral lifestyle/philosophy is that we do not condone or support fishism.
What is fishism? For those of you not familiar with the term, fishism (\ˈfi-ˌshi-zəm), is a phenomenon quite common in the “vegetarian” world. It is a situation where an individual has made a strong political statement about their beliefs and ethical code that is reflected through dietary habits. (i.e. “It is morally wrong (and cruel) to kill sentinent beings to sustain our lifestyle”). This is a respectful choice that people have a right to make. However, more often than not, the fishist, does not extend this moral framework to the aquatic species. They bend the rules for when it comes to fish. Haven’t you ever heard the phrase: “I’m vegetarian, but sometimes I eat sushi.”
In essence, this statement entrenches the prejudice that our scaled friends endure on a constant basis. The fishist, acting as if they were nature’s omnipotent anthropocentric judge, grants freedom and rights to certain animals whilst taking them away from others.
Meat Neutral would officially like to state that we do not judge animals by their scales (so as we may not be judged by theirs). Instead we strive to spread and reduce our inevitable impact on the living world due to our perpetual need of victuals.
And remember:
Fish are animals too.
Filed under: cooking, fusion food, local food, meat and potatoes, meat neutral, vegetarianism | Tags: bbq, carbon footprint, co2 emissions
In addition to the obvious health and tastiness benefits of a Meat Neutral diet, this week we are going to explore another bonus. Reducing your carbon footprint.
As a case study, we are going to see how this week’s featured recipe, Stuffed Italian Sausage Portabella Burgers, actually decreases the meat consumption (and CO2 emissions) of your average BBQ.
Lets do a brief analysis and see how:
As we can clearly see, the Meat Neutral version actually decreases the meat consumption of your average BBQ by 500g.
Jamais Cascio, former editor of Worldchanging.com determined that 2.85 to 3.1 kg of carbon emissions (see Treehugger.com article) can be contributed to the average hamburger. As we normally eat large burgers at Woodstock, we’ll assume the CO2 emission for each burger is on the high end, around 3.1kg.
Lets calculate the total amount of CO2 equivalent emissions of four burgers:
Let us then calculate the CO2 reduction for the 500g decrease in meat consumption:
We can see that by eating Stuffed Italian Sausage Portabella Burgers we actually reduce the carbon footprint of an average BBQ by 8.86kg or 71%.
–Put that in your salad and toss it.
