Getting Off The Meat, One Step At A Time

We've heard the old standbys several times already about red meat vs poultry vs fish. Red meat is sin; poultry is okay; fish is best. But, the thing that this supposes is that meat, in terms of animal protein, is inherently good for us.

Is it?

A lot of the recent efforts behind the pushes towards veganism and vegetarianism have been to not only say that eating less meat is better for you, but that eating any meat at all is not good for you. This has been an attempt to show that the non-meat eating ways isn't just about saving the chickens and the cows, or making a political statement, but about eating better.

I, personally, once again fall on the fence of this. On one hand, I've seen some information that's made some very convincing arguments against the consumption of meat, even underscoring that our "omnivore" status has been greatly exaggerated over the years. On the other, I won't deny the tastiness of meat. I want to enjoy my life, as well as live for as long as possible. So, there needs to be a balance.

The most important change of our lifestyle has come from a movement away from thinking of ourselves as Meat Eaters Who Can Also Eat Vegetables, but as Plant Eaters Who Can Also If Necessary Eat Some Meat Too. One of the best ways to do this is to change the fundamental construction of the meal. American culture has the focus on the meat, with vegetables and grains serving as sides.

My suggestion is to simply move that around. Have instead a meal where you put vegetables as the "meat"¹ and use the meat as a side dish. I won't get into grains here and now, so let's say that if you have them, you should keep them as a side dish. That's pretty good. Even better is cutting out the meat altogether, and replacing it with something like cashews/almonds/sunflower seeds/etc. Stay away from beans as an option, even though you've been taught that they are a good source of protein--they have other factors that make them very difficult to digest for a human, which is why they are frequently a source of gas.

Give it a try. It's a good way to get started on making meat no longer a focal point of all your meals, and helping to teach your brain to eat meat in smaller portions.

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FOOTNOTES:

1. Some great ways to help with the visualization of this shift is to get a vegetable that is big. Sometimes a bunch of small vegetables just doesn't do it for your eyes. I've found things like rounds of American eggplants, or wide slices of squash, or thick slices of grilled zucchini, help to visually make you feel like you have something big on your plate. You can serve this on top of a bed of smaller vegetables, or even some greens like spinach or green leaf. Try to get the presentation of the vegetables as close to what you'd expect with a good cut of meat at a restaurant, without spending too much time on it. Remember, you're trying to trick your mind into thinking that meals revolve around VEGETABLES and not meat. It'll take some time.

Comments

[Vixenofflames]

The problem with nuts is that they have a very high amount of fat in them, even if it's good fat. Most nuts have nearly double the amount of fat to proteins per serving :/ My issue with veganism is that it's very difficult to get the right balance of nutrients, especially proteins, without skyrocketing the fat content to undesirable levels. This is especially so for the general population, who think nothing of eating an entire container of nuts, when the actual serving size is much smaller. Soy has been found to give you negative effects if eaten too often as well, which is quite a shame.

That said, I think you should avoid red meat as much as possible (though I do enjoy a good steak!), and stick more to fishes and turkey or chicken (no skins of course). I agree with the concept of not thinking of the meat as the... uh... meat... of the meal, but just as another part of it. Eating rice has helped me actually think of THAT as the bulk of the meal, and everything else is yummy addition to it. Personally I think that if we weren't supposed to eat meat, we would have adapted without it.

Another trick is to use plates that are made for correct portions, so you don't feel like you're eating nothing, while serving it on a 15-inch plate. ;)

[Eve-Athena Pallas]

Raw Foods veganism isn't quite the same as just "veganism" or "vegitarianism" which are often based on more of an emotional/spiritual belief against eating meat. Raw Foods, in general, is usually based a lot more on nutrition. You first have to understand how fat works in our bodies, and how it's processed, particularly with a different sort of diet than, say, French Fries or cheese or such, in order to truly understand how much of nut-related fat really is harmful. Yes, many people misunderstand nuts/cheese in terms of an alternative protein. Many do not do research into the issue, but attempt to just entirely cut out meat/eggs/etc.

Even more significantly, you get the problem of people who do partial veganism or partial vegetarianism, who don't understand what they should and shouldn't do when they're not converting fully. Many people end up with an iron deficiency when they go off meat, because they haven't really looked at all the nutritional data of what they should eat in a day (that isn't based off the fascist food pyramid the government uses), and then what will be missing if they cut out certain foods, and what can be used in place of those.

And the plate trick is something that is a Western issue. We've been conditioned to think large portions are better. In Eastern cultures, particularly in Japan, the art of using a large plate to create a presentation for a small dish is a FREQUENT occurance. In fact, the practice of using many dishes, to create a separation of the food, and therefore a greater variance of color and texture is a lot more important to their presentation than piling it closely on a single plate to create the illusion of "more food." For us, more important that trying to trick our brains into thinking we're eating more food, is to try and break the conditioning that Food Should Be All Over The Plate.

[Vixenofflames]

Re: Plate trick. I didn't even think about that! Ahaha! How embarrassing. Upon further thought, I realized that when I DO look at those pretty dishes in Asian cultures, my brain DOES automatically think "THAT'S NOT MUCH FOOD." -_-; Definitely need to fix that.

Have you seen the new "pyramid"? XD It's all sideways, and fats/oils are this drop at the bottom. I remember going o_O when I worked in a middle school and was helping kids in health class to color and label the "new" pyramids (which, honestly, aren't that different than the previous one, only that everything is sort of next to each other to indicate importance being spread out or something vs stacked).

[Eve-Athena Pallas]

Yeah, it's definitely a product of a different mentality. But, then again, there is incredible social pressure in Asian cultures for women to be VERY thin. So, even with the traditional background in creating space/color/contrast/etc, it's very likely that a motivation is to make it look like LESS food, a desirable trait for a constantly dieting woman.

I've seen the new pyramid. I think that it's a better step in the right direction, as opposed to the older model, but I still think that it is far too heavily influenced by industries such as dairy production, and grain production. After all, it basically says that you NEED to eat pasta/rice/bread on a daily basis. They often use the argument of carbohydrates as fuel for the body, but the reality is (as anyone who ever went on that one No Carbs diet knows) that most food has carbohydrates in it. Food that isn't made of grain. *shrug* So, in my opinion, until the Food Pyramid starts grouping by nutrients, rather than categories like Fruit/Vegetable/Meat&Bean/Milk, it will never be a really honest evaluation of food.