Eating Less Meat
As a rule, I eat meat daily and would never considering being a vegetarian. However, there are benefits to eating less meat for three reasons.
1. It’s better for your health. I started cutting back on red meat on the advice of a dermatologist. I had very bad acne in college and he told me to abstain from beef because of the synthetic hormones which might cause my acne to be worse. (Stress on ‘might’, but I had nothing to lose.) Plus there are added benefits to cutting out meats like lowering your fat intake and cholesterol counts.
2. It’s good for the wallet. Meat is expensive. Pound for pound, tofu is kind of expensive too if you get the organic stuff, but let’s face it, when you’re looking at entrees on a restaurant menu, the vegetarian options are always cheaper. As it is, at the Korean wholesale place, I get them for $1.50 a block (about 14 ozs).
3. It’s good for the environment. Most corn in the US is actually used as animal feed for the animals you like to eat most. I read somewhere that it takes like 16 lbs of grain to make 1 lb of beef. It also takes a lot of water and fertilizer to make 1 lb of grain, so any quantities of those inputs have to be multiplied by 16. You can reduce your carbon footprint quickly by cutting meat from your diet.
I’m not ever going to give up all meat unless my doctor says I have to. But I’ve been eating more meatless entrees, or halving the portion of meat I do eat. Consider trying a meatless meal once or twice a week. Track your grocery spending. You might find you’re saving money. (Just be mindful of your cheese intake. That kind of negates #1 and #3.)
lulugal11 wrote:
I generally do not eat a lot of meat. I gave up red meat for lent last year and then just never got back in the habit of eating it on a regular basis.
I eat fish but only about twice a week and the rest of my meals for the week are generally meatless.
It has been an easy transition for me because I took it slowly. Try cutting out one type of meat at a time so it won’t seem as bad.
Posted on 07-May-08 at 8:59 am | Permalink
L@spillingbuckets wrote:
I’d like to cut more meat out of our diets, but I don’t know many meatless recipes. Do you have any you particularly like?
Posted on 07-May-08 at 10:36 am | Permalink
asgreen wrote:
I’m amazed how expensive it is to eat meat. I’m beginning to work it out of my diet only because of how expensive it is. However, since I get most of my protein through meat I’d never be able to give it up.
Posted on 07-May-08 at 10:39 am | Permalink
Traciatim wrote:
We don’t eat a pile of meat, but I can’t give up my BBQ’d burgers all together. What we do end up doing is mixing any ground beef that is in sauces (like in Taco’s, Pasta Sauces, Lasagna) half and half with bulk TVP. I still haven’t figured out if/how I could make a good half and half burger with it though. I’ve mentioned to the GF that we should institue ‘Meatless Wednesdays’ in our home and it didn’t get very much loving. I’ll settle with reduction for now.
Another good one is eat things that are grown and sold from farms in your area. Do you think the people in the 1920’s were picking up Acai, and Goji berry juice at their local grocer?
Posted on 07-May-08 at 11:00 am | Permalink
amanda wrote:
I’ve been eating less meat lately, too. But for a somewhat lame cook like myself, there is no substitute for a little bacon in soups or lentils - I cannot make them taste as good without bacon!
Posted on 07-May-08 at 11:05 am | Permalink
Melissa wrote:
I try to eat less meat, but part of that is because of reading about how most animal are raised in CAFOs. *shudder* Those are the ones that also consume all the corn, which some people say is really much more than 16 lbs. I’d rather spend my money on buying less meat, but when I do buy it, buy it from a local farm that pastures animals or raises them humanely. The meat tastes much better, too!
Posted on 07-May-08 at 11:41 am | Permalink
Mrs. Micah wrote:
We eat enough to make sure we can still eat meat…because if we go for a month, it does something to our stomachs. But we don’t eat that much….cost and taste.
Posted on 07-May-08 at 2:35 pm | Permalink
Cheryl wrote:
I have recently cut red meat out of my diet, over about a 6 month period, it started to gross me out - all the tainted meat recalls didn’t help! Now, the thought of eating a steak makes my stomach turn…I either go meatless, or have chicken or fish.
Posted on 07-May-08 at 8:45 pm | Permalink
K. wrote:
I cut red meat & pork out of my diet about 4 years ago. I don’t think there was much of an impact on my weight b/c I still ate my fair share of turkey burgers & chicken. But still, I just don’t like red meat and it made me sick when I tried to go back to it. I can get away with Pork @ Christmas dinner.
For the past month or so I’ve cut down on my turkey/chicken intake (from 1-2x/day to 3x/week) and have lost about 6lbs already.
Posted on 08-May-08 at 2:20 pm | Permalink
Meagan wrote:
I definitely cannot give up my meat, because it just tastes so good. I can say that I have cut back though since I am taking control of my finances and budgeting.
Posted on 08-May-08 at 3:00 pm | Permalink
Dean Jackson wrote:
Awesome.
Posted on 12-May-08 at 9:34 pm | Permalink