6 ways to eat less meat
Yesterday I posted about how eating less meat is good for the environment. Today I’m going to show you some tactics you can use to gradually cut back on the frequency or quantity of meat you eat. I’ve put them roughly in order from easy to more difficult, so you can start with the slack options 
Tasty treats
The next time you decide to go out for dinner, try a vegetarian restaurant, or one that caters to vegetarians. It’s a good opportunity to taste foods you wouldn’t usually eat, like tofu or lentils. And you’ll be able to see what kinds of things can be done when you don’t have to include meat in every dish. I love the nachos and breakfasts at Source Foods on Beaufort St in Perth, but would like to try more places. If you’ve got a good vego restaurant near you, let us know in the comments
Get educated
I was pretty grossed out by the details of how animals are farmed - it really makes you think about what you’re eating and can help motivate you to stick to your changes. Check out the information on factory farming at PETA’s GoVeg site (videos as well), or the SaveBabe website, and for a lighter take on such a serious subject, watch Moofeus free the pigs in The Meatrix (remember that although cows in Australia are usually kept in pasture, chickens and pigs are factory farmed here, and the slaughtering process is pretty bad for all of them).
Buy less meat
When you’re working out how much meat to buy, keep in mind that people only need one serve a day,which is 65-100g. That’s about the size of a deck of cards. If you don’t buy large portions of meat to start with, you’ll find it easier to cut back, especially if you’re the sort of person who has to eat everything on your plate. And since the price of meat keeps going up, this can save you a bit of money.
Buy only sustainable meat
When you’re at the shops, restrict what sorts of meat you buy. You could stop buying red meat; or restrict yourself to free-range or organic meats instead. That way, when you get home you’ve got little choice but to reduce the amount of meat you’re eating. Unfortunately, if your butcher or supermarket stock lots of sustainable meat, this won’t do much to help you - you’ll still be able to eat quite a lot of meat, and will have to try harder…
Learn to cook meat-free meals
This is where you might have to learn some new skills, although you probably already have a few favourite meals that don’t have meat in them: bruschetta and Dave’s leek and mushroom pasta are my faves. You can try replacing meat with things like tofu or seitan as well.
Taste.com.au allows you to search for vegetarian recipes. If you need a bit of inspiration, try some of the fantastic vego and vegan blogs out there: the photos at VeganYumYum make me hungry in an instant! I’ve also bought a vegetarian cookbook, Fresh Food Fast by Peter Berley, and try out new recipes from it often. If you’ve got any good recommendations for books or websites with recipe ideas, please let me know, especially if they’re Australian (converting ounces to grams does my head in!)
Set yourself a challenge
Decide on a challenge, and try it out for a while. Some examples might be: making Tuesdays meat-free; meat-free lunches; giving up beef; or trying one new vego recipe a week. Do it for a month and see how you go - it could become a permanent change.
Dave and I have been doing all of these except for the last one, but we’re tackling that next. Tomorrow I’ll tell you about the challenge we’ve set for next week…
Tags: how-to, less meat, vegetarian
February 29th, 2008 at 3:35 am
What exactly is this “cruelty-free meat that you speak of?
http://peacefulprairie.blogspot.com/2007/11/faces-of-free-range-farming.html
February 29th, 2008 at 8:17 am
I actually meant to edit out the phrase “cruelty-free” as I felt it was misleading when applied to food (it’s a term usually used in the cosmetics industry), but obviously it slipped through, my mistake.
I had a look at the Peaceful Prairie site, which was really interesting, and looks like some very caring people running it. However, regulations in America are different from here in Australia, and not all free-range farms are as cruel to their animals as the ones shown on that site. As always, it’s up to the customer to investigate anyone they’re buying from, and that’s why buying local is a good idea - it allows you to check up personally on the conditions.
February 29th, 2008 at 8:20 am
NB: I’ve edited out the cruelty-free phrase from the 4th tip - it’s not really an accurate word for the situation.
March 2nd, 2008 at 3:34 pm
The problem with looking at your diet and deciding that less meat = less carbon emissions is that it’s not that simple.
And the arguments against eating red meat seem to be based on several false premises. Firstly, that the beef is grain-fed - which in Australia, much of it still isn’t, and if you care about your health you’ll seek out pasture-fed meat anyway, because it’s much better for you. Secondly, that the land being used for the cows/sheep could instead be used to grow crops - whereas the land used for grazing cattle is too marginal to grow crops on. Thirdly, that eating the crops would be better for our health and better for the environment.
A recent study in Japan (http://environment.newscientist.com/article/mg19526134.500#comForm) showed that 2/3 of the carbon cost of beef was in the feed and the transport. If you cut out the cow, and ate the feed instead (assuming it’s corn or soy, which it generally is), you’ve actually only cut out 1/3 of the carbon cost. Cut out the feed and eat the grass-fed cow, and you’ve still cut 1/3 of the carbon cost. Eat locally-produced grass fed beef instead of eating tofu that’s been transported half-way around the world, and you’ve presumably saved on the carbon. Eating tofu is not necessarily better for the environment.
We do make an effort to get our meat from local producers, and to make sure it’s grass-fed. If we were to cut that out and eat grains transported from further away - which we don’t, we don’t eat grains - there are no wheat producers, for example, within 100 miles of where we live - we wouldn’t be doing the environment any favours.
Soy is grown in enormous monoculture crops, that take a heap of pesticides and herbicides to produce, and those are made from oil.
I won’t get into whether or not meat is better for you than soy - although I certainly believe it is. Humans evolved eating meat - we didn’t evolve eating soy.
March 2nd, 2008 at 9:39 pm
You raise some interesting points, thanks for posting.
I’m aware that most Aussie beef is grass-fed, but even now there’s pressure to switch to grain. It’s happened to the best grass-fed meat producer here in WA: pressure from the wheat-belt here? or cost? or control by a parent company? I haven’t found out yet.
Most of the info I found about meat production impacts was from the EU and the US, and the one you linked was about Japanese methods. The assessment I linked to in Wednesday’s post is the only Australian info I could find. It says that in Australia, 2/3 of the greenhouse gas emissions come from the animals themselves in the form of methane, which isn’t something we can really stop them from making.
There’s also more to the impact of meat than just climate change. There’s water usage, a huge issue for Australia; salinity problems; marginal land used for farming when maybe it’d be better as wildlife corridors.
I’m wary of soy for the reasons you brought up, and also for the potential for GM breeds (still looking into that). And yes, replacing meat with crops like tofu and soy that need pesticides, etc and is water-intensive isn’t a good solution. What I had in mind was locally-grown fruits and vegetables (and I’d love to see more native foods).
I don’t advocate giving up meat altogether as an eco-cure-all. But I think that since most Aussies eat too much anyway, and as a nation we’re just increasing that amount, it can’t hurt to cut back and learn about the alternatives.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:15 am
“Too much” is a relative concept - the Inuit, for example, when eating their traditional diet, are very healthy, and their traditonal diet is pretty much 100% meat and fish (fatty meat at that).
I’m all for lots of fruit and vegetables (particularly locally grown and organic), but I think the “unhealthiness” of eating a lot of meat is vastly exaggerated.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:45 pm
I think the “too much” in there refers to “more than is needed” not “unhealthiness”. It would be interesting though to see the effect of a pure Inuit diet (and lifestyle) on a bunch of Australian volunteers. All we need now is our own version of Morgan Spurlock and some great big woolly parkas.
March 12th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Just out of interest - how do you feel about eating local meat as in kangaroo? No pasture as such required, totally adapted to the local environment. And lean and high in protein on top of that?
I live with two vegetarians at home, so we don’t cook meat inside the house (one half of the BBQ is for meat), but i’ve been thinking of buying roo snags. What do you think?
March 13th, 2008 at 8:30 am
If you’re on a low-meat eating plan, I reckon switching some of the usual types of meat for some kangaroo is a great idea. I quite like roo, although I prefer the steaks to the snags.
And it’s better suited to some regions than cattle for sure. Tim Flannery has said that it’d be good for Aussies to follow the lead of other countries and eat the animals that belong in your area rather than importing foreign types that are suited to other types of weather and food.