Vegetarian choices...
Apr. 9th, 2013 01:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osodecanelaI have flirted with returning to my older vegetarian ways for years now. I spent nearly 8 years a vegetarian, during my years in college and medical school. It felt somehow cleaner. Right sharing of world resources and all that. It's been about 33 years since I took back meat products.
I read Diet for a Small Planet early in my freshman year and the cost of raising animal based protein was (and remains) staggering. In the US, we feed our live stock enough grain based protein to make up the entire world protein debt. The water usage alone is astounding. With the changing of our climate and the risks we're taking with our water sources, where are we going to get our food in the next 30 years? (Have y'all been following what happened in the past few weeks in Arkansas with the leakage of tar sand oil coming out of a busted underground pipeline? Well if the Keystone pipeline does get approved, we're looking at a whole lot more of tar sand oil getting piped right through the center of this country, right through the heart of the Ogallala aquifer.)
It has come home to me that I have major issues with my portion control. I just eat too damned much. If I veer myself to plant based foods, I tend to do better in curtailing the amount of sheer calories I consume. This morning I ate at the hospital, and between the bacon, eggs and oatmeal in the doctors' lounge, I have no doubt I took in 6-700 kCal. I just finished lunch at my office, where I had a cup of plain yogurt over a cup of fresh raspberries and blackberries, a yellow bell pepper and a cup of cherry tomatoes. I'm stuffed. I haven't touched my coffee and I put the tangerine back in the fridge. My guess is I'm looking at half the kCal at this meal as at breakfast. Plus, it was all organic and if I believe the marketing on the products, sustainably farmed.
Much to think about, indeed. I wish to eat more like this more often. Perhaps even a change of lifestyle.
I read Diet for a Small Planet early in my freshman year and the cost of raising animal based protein was (and remains) staggering. In the US, we feed our live stock enough grain based protein to make up the entire world protein debt. The water usage alone is astounding. With the changing of our climate and the risks we're taking with our water sources, where are we going to get our food in the next 30 years? (Have y'all been following what happened in the past few weeks in Arkansas with the leakage of tar sand oil coming out of a busted underground pipeline? Well if the Keystone pipeline does get approved, we're looking at a whole lot more of tar sand oil getting piped right through the center of this country, right through the heart of the Ogallala aquifer.)
It has come home to me that I have major issues with my portion control. I just eat too damned much. If I veer myself to plant based foods, I tend to do better in curtailing the amount of sheer calories I consume. This morning I ate at the hospital, and between the bacon, eggs and oatmeal in the doctors' lounge, I have no doubt I took in 6-700 kCal. I just finished lunch at my office, where I had a cup of plain yogurt over a cup of fresh raspberries and blackberries, a yellow bell pepper and a cup of cherry tomatoes. I'm stuffed. I haven't touched my coffee and I put the tangerine back in the fridge. My guess is I'm looking at half the kCal at this meal as at breakfast. Plus, it was all organic and if I believe the marketing on the products, sustainably farmed.
Much to think about, indeed. I wish to eat more like this more often. Perhaps even a change of lifestyle.
