Musings on Meat

Fresh Community Market Veggies - Yum!

Let me begin by setting the stage (or table as the case may be) for you. We sat down to dinner with Robert’s parents who are visiting Flag for a while. It was the summer solstice. The weather was beautiful so we sat outside. We had this amazing meal to indulge in together. A giant garden salad with tomatoes, radishes, carrots, salad turnips, sunflower sprouts and greens. A pile of roasted golden beets. A sweet corn and potato hash I had just encountered on one of the 1001 food blogs I read. Roasted carrots and sweet potatoes to accommodate my mother-in-law’s dietary needs.

As I surveyed everyone’s plate of food, I proudly realized that every single item, down to the onion and garlic, was either from our CSA share or the Flagstaff Community Market. Way to be local and sustainable! BUT. There was one more thing staring up at me. A big brown slab of meat. Steak to be exact. Steak that I had bought for just this purpose before knowing I was going to embark on a challenge posed by my friend Colette. Steak that after a bite or two, I decided was not really doing it for me and was filling up the space in my tummy that could be instead filled by all these amazing vegetables. I ate another bite or two and gave the rest to Robert wondering why I had even bothered in the first place.

Colette decided to take on a personal challenge to be vegan from June 19 to July 14. She also sent an invitation to all her friends to join her in this endeavor. You can check out the experience of the participants on Facebook at Community Challenge: Vegan for a Month. Her reasons for doing so? Here is a little excerpt from her invitation to us:

“However lately as I drive by the Swift plant and hear screeching pigs on the way to work or read about chicks with overgrown breasts that break their legs being jammed into wire baskets, or our that oceans will be depleted by 2050 I find myself feeling really guilty and awful about our level of consumption. Granted, I strive to eat as locally as possible, and am increasingly careful where I purchase meat and dairy down to researching how they are butchered to if they are grass finished or not. However, I can't shake the feeling that if I ate less local meat and dairy, there would be more for folks who aren't ready to be vegan.”

It should also be noted that she goes on later to admit that she is not sure worldwide veganism is the answer and acknowledges that our current food system structure could not handle such a drastic change and provide sustainably for everyone if we all immediately switched to an entirely plant based diet. She also talks more about her purpose in doing so at the blog she started with her partner Drew to capture how the experience goes. I encourage you to read at least the first entry to learn more about why they are trying out this drastic diet change. Her sister is also supporting her in the challenge and also blogging about it. She has some good thoughts and comments on food systems and sourcing as well.

Colette invited everyone to consider taking on one of four options:

1. I will go vegan from June 19 thru July 14th and encourage folks who aren't ready for it to buy local instead.
2. I will go vegetarian and encourage folks who aren't ready to buy local. I will try to source my dairy from sustainable, humane sources.
3. I will buy only local, humanely, and responsibly raised food for this month.
4. I will do challenge 1, 2, or 3, not for a month but for a day or one week.

Knowing Colette loves to eat well, and that in some ways this would be a tough challenge for her. I, of course, wanted to be supportive. So I opted for an emphasis on number 2, with a dash of 1 as was reasonable, and a little number 3 thrown in as an option to give me some leeway since I was not expecting Robert to embark on this little adventure with me. Honestly, I wasn’t troubled by the idea of giving up meat, but I wasn’t sure I wanted give up dairy and eggs. However, I mentally told myself that I would attempt to be as plant based as possible throughout this process and use dairy and eggs sparingly.

Important Things to Note

Robert and I already eat a mainly plant based diet with animal products being more of our “vice” than animal flesh itself. First of all, we like vegetables and grains. They are yummy when fresh and prepared well. This quinoa and vegetable salad is a great example of how we like to eat. Clearly, it is not vegan because of the mozzarella, but it was locally made and purchased at the Community Market. And of course, you could just leave the cheese out if you liked. For quite some time, meat has been more of a treat than what we center our meals around. Knowing the status of factory farming and acknowledging our budgetary restraints, we have mutually agreed that we would rather spend more on a small share of local beef through the CSA and stretch it out than buy $1/lb chicken breasts weekly at a big box grocery store.

Toasted Quinoa Salad

I would also like to note that I do not want to make any family or friends feel uncomfortable about their own food purchasing decisions and worry that there is judgment from us with regards to what you chose to eat and/or serve us when we are guests in your house. Of course, I will always encourage critical thinking about the topic and appreciate recognition that it IS a serious issue worthy of pause and consideration. We should all know and understand how our food is sourced and produced. What you do with the information after that is up to you. That is all I will ever ask.

The issue of using animals as a food source has been one that I have been struggling with for about two years ever since I took a philosophy class entitled Animal Ethics. I went into the class knowing the basics of our food system problems, but this class took it to a much deeper level for me and forced me to really examine my love of animals and my choice to use them for a food source. Can they coexist? Is it hypocritical to want both? I don’t have the answers… clearly. But, it was the impetus for beginning to drastically reduce my intake of animal flesh. In fact, a lot of times, it just doesn’t taste that good to me anymore. Psychological or physical reaction? Who knows.

So, you are thinking… if I am willing to do the vegetarian thing then what is the big deal with giving up eggs and dairy for a month? Here is where I am right now on these particular issues:

We can get local eggs very easily, and I believe it is an ethical choice if you have that option. The key is that eggs we get are unfertilized, which means we are not eating a future baby chicken. That hen was going to lay that egg regardless of whether or not Mr. Rooster was around to fertilize it for her. It will just eventually rot if not eaten by someone. I feel more comfortable buying from a small scale operation knowing that the chickens are be treated humanely, get to chill and eat bugs in a pasture, and are going to lay the eggs anyway. So, I guess that is why I am okay with eggs. But by doing so, I am also committing to spending almost $5 a dozen to do it right, which compared to grocery prices seems expensive. However, if you do the math, we are talking less than 50 cents an egg. Pretty cheap and healthier eats, really…. We have started exploring the use of egg substitutes when it comes to baking. We have done some experimenting and found some good options like combining ground flax seeds and water and a commercial egg substitute product that has given us good results. That also helps stretch the dollar a bit and reduces our egg intake.

Dairy…. That is a harder one. Anyone who bothers to do some research quickly realizes that for both dairy and eggs, words like “humane,” “organic,” “free-range,” etc. can have some pretty loose interpretations these days. We’d like to think that the idyllic drawing on the side of our milk carton and the organic stamp means that we are doing better… and I guess we are… but it is STILL a big corporate operation. And frankly, those animals’ lives are not really that much better than their cousins down the way as these large corporations still engage in some questionable practices. It’s a hard truth to face, but it is the reality. However, oh how I love my dairy products. Buttah (think Paula Deen when you say it to yourself), cheese, ice cream, cream cheese, sour cream, cheese (oh, said that one already didn’t I?)…. It tastes really good, and much of it is critical for proper baking.

Luckily, I know we can source locally made butter and cheeses at a fairly reasonable price at the CSA. For right now, I just don’t see dairy going anywhere in my life, and instead, I hope to make the best possible choices I can. That doesn’t mean I am not willing to try some experimenting like we have with the egg substitutes. For my first deliberate attempt at a vegan dish the other night, I made this Cosmic Cashew and Kale dish. It had some execution issues due to the type of greens I ended up pulling out of the freezer, but the creamy cashew sauce… Yep, I think I could use that as a substitute for some stuff. I know some of you are thinking, “Well, Cori, there are some lovely dairy alternatives out there made of soy, rice, etc.” My response to you, “they taste like sh*t.” Just not going to happen, boys and girls… and I could get on my soapbox about THEIR production, but we will save that for another conversation.

So back to meat. As I began thinking about all of this, I started considering whether or not choosing to eat the locally raised meat in Arizona is a sustainable and justifiable option as it is quite accessible here. Additionally, at such a high elevation with only about 75 growing days, large scale farming is not really a viable option for everyone around here. I should point out that pretty much all the produce I have been referencing is grown 1 to 3 hours away from here. What we do have is lots of open land that is perfect for grass and grazing. As a result, there are several reputable free-ranging ranches. According to this article, the climate is ideal for open land ranching and there are ways to do it sustainably and actually contribute to the ecological health of the area. Probably the best known is Flying M Ranch, which provides beef for many local Flagstaff restaurants. They are part of the Diablo Trust, which is an area land management organization with the goal of responsible and sustainable land use. The CSA sources a lot of its meat from the A Bar H Farm, which also cites sound ecological practices and humanely raised animals. I also found this gem of website, Eat Wild, which has the purpose of telling you what are your local sources for grass-fed meat, eggs, and dairy. It also shares information about the benefits of these practice: for your health, the animals’ health and the environment. Just like eggs from free-range, pastured chickens, pastured and grass-fed beef is a much healthier choice for you. The Flying M Ranch also cites several studies about why their practices make for a healthier product for us.

I guess the real question will always be, no matter how it is raised, is it ever humane to kill an animal for the purpose of eating it? For the time being, it will be up to each of us to make the decision. For me personally, I still go back and forth on the issue. However, I do find comfort in knowing that I have the option to select products where I know the animal has had the best quality of life possible. The other consideration to think over is whether or not eating meat on a regular basis can ever be a sustainable practice given the resources required to raise and process them as a food source. Not sure where you stand on all of this? Perhaps start with your own challenge. Use Colette’s guidelines above or just challenge yourself to give up something “animal-related” for a designated period of time and see if you really miss it or need it. This is also the best time to try a vegetarian diet while you can take advantage of the summer’s bounty and diversity.