Shopping for Sustainable Meat Choices

Grocery shopping has become a challenge. Five Green Food Actions

Are you stopping to really look at ingredients? Are you putting back products with palm oil and unpronounceable preservatives?

I found that my shopping cart had fewer items, but more fresh fruit and veggies. Shopping for meat products has become a journey into reality. I could not find any meat from an animal raised on natural food. The beef and pork were labeled as having a vegetarian diet, and the fine print on the organic roasting chicken spelled out that that vegetarian diet was corn and soybeans. Chickens will naturally eat corn, but having raised chickens, I know it isn't their first choice. They would much rather eat greens and small protein items, insects, worms, etc.

Pigs will eat most anything. Cattle however do not digest corn and soybeans well. I've finally gotten around to reading the Omnivore's Dilemma by Micheal Pollan. I recommend it. It will explain to you how cheap corn is being used to make large corporations wealthy, while making animals and people less healthy.

So what to do? I bought an organic roasting chicken and one small steak. Then I whipped out my Seafood Watch guide and found two types of fish on the Preferred listing. I wasn't the only one reading labels and putting back pieces of meat. A European couple was doing the same thing. They had more resolve than I did. When they found nothing "grassfed," they bought nothing.

It is time to check out the local farmer's coop and their meat choices. Time to really say 'No,' to the corporate production of unhealthful animal protein.

Five Green Food Actions

Because there are so many people on the earth, our food choices are changing the balance of life around the globe. Human consumption is the main threat to species ranging from Asian turtles and forest primates, to sharks and wild ginseng. Even more species loose their habitat to agriculture. Farms to produce palm oil, corn and soybeans displace creatures ranging from orangutans, to bison and jaguars. The raising of domestic animals for meat uses a vast amount of resources. At the same time over-harvesting of sea life threatens the largest ecosystem in the world, our oceans. We can all make a difference by increasing our awareness of what we eat.

So I'm making a life change with Five Green Food Actions.

1. Veggie Tuesdays and Thursdays - I started this in December. For the most part it is easier than I thought. I will admit dinner is the hardest meal for me to eat vegetarian.
2. Harvesting food from my own yard and buying locally produced plants and animals
3. Buying food items that only contain ingredients that I would use myself
   
4. Eliminating products with unsustainably harvested palm oil
5. Pledging to adhere to Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch - Monterey Bay Aquarium offers guidance regarding which seafood species are being sustainably farmed or harvested. They do the fact finding work and make it easy to be an informed seafood consumer. They have specific species watch lists by geographical location, including a sushi watch list. They also offer Sustainable seafood recipes

I picked lemons this morning and made lemonade. The earth gives to us, it is time we think about the big picture of the earth's health when we use its bounty.