Continuing
this week’s series of posts, my second post will cover another thing I’ve done
to reduce my environmental impact:
CUT OUT BEEF.
This
is probably the second-best thing you can do, today. Beef is the number one
worst food item ever for the planet. If you’re not willing to go vegetarian,
which is hard for many people including me, commit at least to not eating beef.
As we speak, the Amazon is burning from overgrazing of cattle. Just as cars
have taken over all our roads and cities and have subjected us to them as
slaves to an iron master, cattle are taking over forests, pastures, meadows,
and every ecosystem, subjecting all flora and fauna in these various climes to
their trampling hooves and dulled, butcher-fated faces. If cows are not taking
land over directly, their feed is. The amount of pollution caused by a single
cow is something like ten or eleven times that of a chicken and four or five
times that of a pig, not to mention that the current, maddening deforestation
of the Amazon is directly linked to
beef consumption. Imagine every parakeet, macaw, spider monkey, jaguar,
piranha, and beautiful rainforest animal you ever saw in a book replaced by a
square, dark-brown, dark-gray pasture with two hideous cows standing in it.
Because that’s what’s actually going on.
To
cut beef out, just start doing it. Try it for a week and see if you still miss
it. When a recipe calls for beef, substitute some less damaging meat. Making
spaghetti alla bollognese? Sub in ground pork or ground turkey instead of beef,
or, if you’re feeling adventurous, forego the meat altogether.
If
you end up missing beef from your everyday cooking, try to see if you can
reduce your consumption and commit to buying it only once every week, or once
every two weeks, or once every three weeks. Whatever you can do is helpful.
Just be aware that every bite of beef may as well be a slashing of the throat
of some toucan.
