On Tue, 10 Apr 2001, Kristin A. Ruhle wrote:
> OK, vegetarians go ahead and get smug (There's still cross
> contamination to worry about getting into veggies...) Carnivores, my
> hands are not clean so I cannot self righteously ask YOU to eat
> vegetarian! But think about it: what if meat consumptioln in America
> dropped by half? What if every meat eater ate only half as much meat
> (esp red meat) as they do now? It is the huge demand (and things like
> fast food) that drives the huge push for mass production (Not to
> mention greed and their evil politcal lobby.)
My sister is in, what is it, the 10th month of an eating experiment. She
will eat what she terms "land meat" (i.e., animal protein not fish or
seafood) once a month. She is very careful about selecting the one meal
including that meat; when she visited us around New Year's, she chose for
her one meat meal for January to be spaghetti with my husband's wonderful
sauce, which includes ground beef.
I can't quite do that, at least not the eating lots of fish and seafood
part. I eat more poultry than anything else, at least that's what I do
left to my own devices. But if I go for too many days without eating any
beef, I get this incredible craving for it (and this happened *before* I
got pregnant, in case anyone was wondering). Right now, I crave beef on
the third day or so; at an earlier time, I could go as long as 5 or 6
days before I really wanted it. The fish & seafood allergies aren't the
only food allergies I have; there are a number of things I just have to
avoid, and it's possible that the collection as a whole has some certain
nutrients that I'm only getting out of beef from my regular diet.
My mom was inspired by my sister's experiment to try one of her own, and
she is in the habit of having at most one serving of meat in any given
day; I think she has maybe 5 servings a week in a normal week. She says
she feels better since she adjusted her diet. (And she was fairly
enthusiastic about fixing macaroni & cheese from scratch for me while she
was here; one of those pregnancy cravings I think I'm past, but was having
rather intensely on a regular basis for a couple of months, anyway. Lots
more calcium than the crap from the box....)
I also like a number of meals where the meat is present, but certainly not
the focus. We have a wonderful soup recipe that has some ground beef and
lots and lots of vegetables. (When mixing up a big batch, 2 pounds of
browned ground beef are thrown into a huge pot with everything else on the
ingredient list, and we end up with a good 10 quarts of soup once it's
simmered for awhile, just to give you an idea.) Some of that is enough to
stave off a beef craving, if one hasn't hit bad already, but there's an
awful lot of veggie matter for each ounce of beef. And when I go to
Mongolian BBQ, I load up my bowl of ingredients with almost as much
broccoli, and a lot more each of water chestnut and celery than, the
chicken I include. (About 1/3 to 1/2 as much bamboo as broccoli, and a
little cilantro and green onion for extra flavor, conclude the non-sauce
ingredients. I go nuts with the ginger sauce when it comes time to pour
sauce ingredients all over it before taking it up to be stir-fried.)
I will admit that the orange-flavored chicken and the chicken enchiladas
that I'm so fond of are a lot more meat-intensive, though. (But keeping
in mind a certain meal with Kristin a couple of years ago, when I'm in a
restaurant, I try not to order any more meat than I'm going to be able to
eat, so as not to disrespect the animal by wasting it. Ordering cheese
ravioli is another solution, if you're not totally down on the dairy
business.)
I'll quit babbling for now. :)
Julia
