Showing posts with label environmentalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environmentalism. Show all posts

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Recap Days 3 and 4: In Which I Am Forced to Eat My Hat But don't Buy Holly a Puppy









As already stated Day 3 was anticipated as an outrageously busy day.  It was the last day before my audit at work, soccer practice for Emma and Steven, School Board and School Budget Elections with an Ice Cream Social for the kids and of course a school night.  Added in at the last minute was my teenagers final admittance that she was indeed sick enough to need to see the doctor and 5 pages of math homework for my son.  I couldn't really see where we were going to eat at all, let alone eat together.  But with a little manuevering and the admission that life is short so eat dessert first....we managed to eat take out around the table after the icecream.  This was seen as a wonderful innovation by my two youngest.  The oldest, was upstairs in bed diagnosed with strep throat which I swore I would eat my hat if that was what was really wrong.  Well suffice it to say a Lakewood Blueclaws cap fricasse was on my menu for the evening.  It was tough but we managed to make day 3 a success!  Sean's fact for the day is :  Blueberry's grow best in direct sunlight.(who knew?)

Day 4 was promising to be a challenge as well due to my actually having the audit, a Jr Class trip to NYC, dance class and school work.  This time I employed my other favorite trick for busy weeknight meals:  the crockpot. 
Tonight's menu contains two things you won't see very often in this house:  The ominvores had meat and my daughter and I ate a premade vegan non-meat product.  The heathens had spare ribs made with BBQ sauce in the crockpot.  Basically the hubby cooks the meat or it needs to be made in a way that I don't really need to look at it or touch it--hence the crockpot.  Which does evidently make very good ribs.  I personally think pork ribs look far better on the cutie above.  Holly and I had the Morningstar Farms riblets which are actually quite good.  Sean came very close to stealing mine rather than going with the little piggy.  I usually don't buy premade stuff because let's face it just because it is vegan doesn't mean it isn't processed frankenfood with environmental implications.  Also Morningstar managed to anger more than a few of my fellow vegans by changing the recipes on several of their formerly vegan products to add random egg whites and things which obviously weren't need as they had sold quite well in their previous incarnation.  It kind of felt like they were giving us the finger so you know what...Boca and home made are just fine by me.

Along with our protein (yes I watch a little too much Top Chef), we had a latin style potato salad and grilled asparagus and zuccini.  Quick and yummy and eaten by all.  The only hitch in this day was Holly's near meltdown when we refused to let her turn on Jeopardy until we were done.  Teenagers.

Sean's fact of the day for day 4 is:  The USA has the largest consumption of Blueberries in the world.  I feel at least some responsibility for this fact.  We eat a lot of blueberries.

Day 5 is shaping up for more scheduling craziness with a meeting for me, and an afterschool orientation for Holly.  Thank goodness I did a lot of cooking this week as I am thinking the menu will be leftovers!  Dinner will be served at 6pm. 

How are you doing on your pledge?  Drop me a line about what you and your family are doing.  I don't have to talk about myself ALL the time.

Happy Earthday and please take a moment today to remember Holly Maddux.  As much as I love environmentalism and respect the earth, the original founder of this day in addition to being an environmentalist committed a rather horrible murder.  It is unfortunate if  his victim and her family should be forgotten.  Justice is important for all beings.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Blog Action Day: Global Warming and the Vegan Diet or My Veganism Trumps Your Prius


Happy Blog Action Day!

Today, October 15 is the official Blog Action Day in which nearly 7,000 bloggers worldwide will blog about the subject of Global Warming in an attempt to increase awareness and generate change! Now this is an exciting event and with that number of participants you would think I would be ecstatic—and I was—until I noticed another number 45. 45 is the number of food bloggers participating. Why is this depressing to me? Because the single most effective way an individual can decrease global warming is by changing the food they eat. I know some of my friends are shaking their heads as they get behind the steering wheels of their hybrids and while I good naturedly kid you all that my Veganism trumps your Prius…..here are the facts about animal agriculture and the environment.

A 2006 United Nations report found that the meat industry produces more greenhouse gases than all the SUVs, cars, trucks, planes, and ships in the world combined.
http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/index.html

According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than a half-million cars off U.S. roads.

The University of Chicago reports that going vegan is 50% more effective than switching to a hybrid car in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=1856817&page=1

Those of you who know me personally, know that I can be an all or nothing kind of gal so for me Veganism is the answer. Because it fits on so many levels: environmental, spiritual, ethics and health. But any step you take can help improve the health of the planet.
Think seriously about reducing or eliminating your consumption of animal products. You can still get the really cool car if you want to.

If you still need more convincing here’s a little light reading http://www.earthsave.org/news/earthsave_global_warming_report.pdf
Earthsave’s report on how the environmental movement has really missed the boat by not advocating for vegetarian diets and how that strategy can be changed.

Returning tomorrow with more delicious foods including my first attempt at jelly making!
Love,
Joan
Image courtesy of Vegan Outreach.org