I know this seems silly, but a part of me wants to make 366 green changes to my lifestyle (yes, that’s 366 — up until now I’ve been saying 365, but of course it just happens to be a freakin’ leap year), without resorting to a vegetarian or vegan diet.
I don’t have a problem with vegetarians; for at least five years of my life I was one of them, and now I only eat meat about once a week — and it absolutely has to be happy meat. Furthermore, I realize it takes a LOT of water, land, energy and other resources to raise and feed the animals, slaughter and butcher them, then package and ship the meat.
But there’s something about those old-fashioned farms with animals grazing outside, being all cute, fertilizing the pastures (and, OK, farting a bit of methane into the air, too) that makes me want to support the people who run them. Same goes for organic dairy and free-range egg farms, even though I don’t actually eat eggs much because they gross me out.
Anyway, like I said, props to the vegetarians out there — you’re leaving a lighter footprint than me, you have great restaurants, but I want my vitamin B12 and I don’t want to get it from nutritional yeast flakes.
Where the hell am I going with this post, you ask? Here’s where:
Wait, have the vegetarians left yet? Because they’re not going to like this.
My green move today was… to sign my father and I up for a butchering class. WAIT! Don’t go rushing to the comments just yet; hear me out. It’s taking place at the Healthy Butcher, a family-run store in Toronto that gets all their meat from local, organic farms. They run these courses where you can go and see where your filet mignon comes from, learn about the different cuts, the different ways to prepare and cook them, and practice your knife skills. This will, I hope, accomplish two things:
One, I’ll have to confront my meat, which will mean I’ll have all the more appreciation for it whenever I decide to consume it; and Two, it’ll help me learn how to cut it properly so that when I try to trim the fat or bone off something at home, I waste less.
OK, that’s it, post’s over. Vegetarians can open their eyes now.
Posted by gettinggreen
