"Vergetarianism"... What's that!?

Two years ago, I began experimenting with some simple changes in my diet with the hope of reducing my "ecological footprint". Since then, I've gone on and off for a few weeks as a vegetarian, several months as a "vergetarian" (someone who eats meat only on rare-occasion), and have currently settled in on what I've found to be the right fit for my lifestyle: giving up red meat completely and eating at least 1 meal everyday completely vegetarian. My friends have definitely noticed the difference on my caf tray over the last two months, asking me why I'm ignoring the bacon in the breakfast line and or flank steak fajitas for dinner. Their frequent questions about what the point of my dietary changes are have led us into some interesting conversations that have ranged from the numerous benefits of doing so to the claim that humans are naturally omnivores and that becoming vegetarian is downright unnatural and dangerous to human health. Because of these conversations and some articles I've recently stumbled across on grist.org and BBC, I decided to write a post about the numerous environmental and social benefits of a diet with less meat.

But first a little disclaimer: as usual, the point of a post like this isn't to try to guilt people into giving up meat, rather it's just to highlight the many reasons out there why it's a really great (and surprisingly easy) option for many people who are concerned about doing their part to reduce their ecological footprint and fight accelerated climate change.

-In America today, the typical meal now revolves around what type of meat it includes. A typical dinner has a burger at the center of the plate, with some fries on the side. Or it's got pork chops as the centerfold, with potatoes and veggies on the side-or spaghetti, with four or five meatballs on top. Only fairly recently in the course of history has industrial meat production made it possible for so many in the developed world to make meat the main course of a meal. Before feedlots, slaughterhouses, and meat packing companies existed, meat was neither cheap enough nor available enough to be the centerpiece of every meal. In this sense, the meat-centric American diet is NOT as natural as it seems today (it was historically much more of a luxury item or a side dish) and as were increasing seeing its absolutely not sustainable.

Here's a few facts and thoughts I've gathered on the subject:
As this article on grist.org points out, "In 2006, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization published a 390-page report called "Livestock's Long Shadow." The dense document came to a startling conclusion: Livestock production -- including land-use changes for pasture and crop production -- contributes more to global warming than every single car, train, and plane on the planet."

-The average quarter pound of hamburger only reaches your table after the following production costs: 100 gallons of water, 1.2 pounds of grain, a cup of gasoline, greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to that produced by a six-mile drive in an average car, and the loss of 1.25 pounds of topsoil (source: Lily's Chickens by Barbara Kingsolver).

-Or we can look at it from an input cost perspective-in other words, how much energy it takes to raise our livestock. Every time we feed livestock in order to fatten them up before sending them to our supermarkets, we lose a great deal of the grain's energy in the animals' processes of digestion and metabolism. For this reason, eating a purely vegetarian diet is far less energy-intensive than eating meat.

-Different animals convert grain feed into milk, eggs and meat more efficiently than others-AKA, not all kinds of meat are created equally. For example, it takes only 1.1kg of feed to produce 1 kg of milk, 2.8 kg of feed to produce 1kg of chicken, 7.3kg per kg of pork produced, and 20kg to produce 1kg of meat! The environmental ramifications of this are well-stated by Kingsolver above. Not to mention the human ramifications that eating so high up on the food-chain has by putting all that grain to use feeding livestock rather than directly using it to feed the millions of people out there who could use it as well (Source: Environment: The Science Behind the Stories).

So, what simple lifestyle changes can we make to reduce our impact? As this article from the Guardian points out, "In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it [eating less meat] clearly is the most attractive opportunity,' said [Dr. Rajendra] Pachauri, [chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]. 'Give up meat for one day [a week] initially, and decrease it from there,' said the Indian economist, who is a vegetarian."

For me, a "vergetarian" lifestyle has never really been about animal rights. Instead, it's about making a pretty small lifestyle change that makes quite a big difference. If I happen to be a guest at a dinner gathering without many vegetarian options, or if I'm offered a grass-fed burger at a summer grill-out, being "vergetarian" doesn't require me to offend my host or reject treating my taste buds. That's why so many people find it easier to live a "vergetarian" lifestyle rather than a vegetarian one. After all, the point of making these choices is not to punish yourself. Instead, its about voluntary simplicity, or realizing that you're often happier and healthier when you opt not to eat that 1/4 pound burger and instead take a few minutes to cook vegetarian pasta with your friends. And if you end up reducing the amount of meat you eat by 50, 70, even 90%, then you'll have made quite a difference.

So, next time you're deciding what to make for dinner, see what it's like to opt for a meal without meat or go with turkey burger rather than a hamburger. You're likely to find that this really doesn't seem like much of a sacrifice after all, and as the above points show, it can make quite a big difference in your ecological (and carbon) footprint over the long term.