Veggie Tuesdays and Thursdays

Green Holiday Action #29

I am not a vegetarian. I'm an omnivore and I admit that I like the taste of meat. But it is a fact that when you eat higher up in the foodweb, you are consuming more resources.

For example: If you eat a salad, the lettuce, tomato, carrots, cucumber, etc., the plants are all "producers" who take in energy from the sun and convert it to energy stored in their leaves, roots and fruit. When you eat meat, the animal had to eat plants or other animals to get the energy it needed. Animals are "consumers" of "producers." The further away you get from a producer who converted the sun's energy to its own use, the more resources are needed to create the same about of energy. So when you eat a piece of meat, you are also eating all of the food that that animal ate.

Vast tracts of land around the world has been lost from native forests and grasslands to provide grazing areas for domestic animals that provide meat. A great deal of plant food and fresh water goes to raising animals for food. Waste from domestic animals also creates pollution problems. Reducing the amount of meat we consume could help the planet significantly.

With that in mind the Union of Reform Judaism is proposing the Green Table/Just Table initiative. They are supporting eating locally produced plants and animals, eating food grown and harvested by people that are treated justly, and reducing meat consumption.

The food we eat is part of the Earth's splendor and it should be treated with respect.

Because we don't have to catch it, raise it, or butcher it ourselves, meat has become very easy to consume in the last 100 years. I'm going to aim for eating low on the foodweb twice a week.

Won't you join me in Veggie Tuesdays and Thursdays?