Meatless Mondays

There is a new trend going on in the food world called Meatless Mondays. Mario Batali, Sir Paul McCartney and others are embracing this concept as a way to reduce greenhouse gases caused by producing meat products, as well as reducing our meat intake. In theory both reasons seem sound. If even a small percentage of the population would cut out eating meat for at least one day a week, the overall reduction in potential environmental damage would be significant, and there is no question we as humans would be healthier (as long as you don’t have 4 bourbons and smoke a cigar after your veggie burger like I would).

Now, that said, I do have some core issues with this. Keep in mind these are just issues that I see, and it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to do this. First off, IF every person in the country ate meat at least once a day, and IF every one of those people stopped eating meat for one day a week, then it follows that we would reduce the amount of damage caused by 14%. The other side of that equation though is that we would also reduce the net income from folks involved in the production of meat products by that same 14%. Simple supply and demand economics there. Now this is just simplistic math. I know that the suppliers would also be able to reduce their feed costs, trucking companies would be able to reduce fuel costs, and so forth. The point is that there would be some negative effect. That’s all I’m trying to say. I know it’s important to do what we can to improve our Mother Earth. Trust me. I also know we need to always keep in the back of our minds the cause and effect of everything we do, and to not just jump on any feel-good bandwagon because it’s “trendy.” We need to begin to make sound choices for ourselves and the planet not just once a week, but rather every day moving forward.

Okay, now that I have that out of my system, in honor of Meatless Monday I give you 2 previous recipes that are vegetarian in nature. “Rue Not” Rueben and “Dark Delight” sandwiches. Both are quite tasty, easy to make and will do you and the planet some good. And to all my vegetarian friends, I’ll try to have some more recipes up soon. I promise.

Peace

Gregor