I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger..once a week?

daphne on April 19, 2009

It appears that I have gotten myself into a bit of a spot.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled when something I write reverberates with a reader.  It’s just that this time, some of my readers have taken a suggestion I made a little too seriously.

Make that one reader in particular: my husband.

Seems he’s gone whole hog (pun intended) on this concept of dragging our family onto the meat-free bandwagon.  Damn.  Talk about your selective reading.  What happened? Did he miss the part about the climate change chocolate bars? Ten years of marriage and he still can’t sort through my pretty-sounding rhetoric to get at the solid (dark, chocolate) core of my argument?

Perhaps he’s forgotten about the youngest in our household?  Our little bacon-loving fiend will not take lightly to his proposed plan. Which, by the way, I think he’s calling Let Them Eat Tofu.

Ironically, I’m pondering his plan as I type away here at the kitchen table, draped in the aroma of Asian BBQ ribs that is wafting out from our crock-pot.  I don’t care what you say — no matter how long I steep the broccoli, it will never smell this good.

But I know, it’s bigger than that.   It’s one thing to have a quiet little tug-o-war with my conscience over doing right by my body.  But when it’s out here in the open, and the balance of our planet is at stake? Well, that makes it a little harder to garner support for the id side of my rope. (That’s the side that’s whining over the prospect of missing a tasty burger, not to mention the overwhelming challenge of coming up with week after week of meat-free dinners when I’m already maxed-out over what to feed my group every single day.)

That’s it, actually.  I despise the never-ending ritual of figuring out what to eat for dinner.  Taking the meat out of the meals makes that task all the more daunting. It’s intimidating….intimidating, yes, but wait a minute.  Surely this is not impossible for a multi-tasking, masters-degree wielding mama like myself.  What if I were to just tackle that bull broccoli by the horns right here, right now?  It only follows that my food-figuring fears will be put to rest.

Here it is then.  A sample week in the life of the Let Them Eat Tofu meal plan:

  1. Day One:  Spinach Lasagna.  So far so good. I love spinach lasagna. This is going to be a snap.
  2. Day Two: Eggplant Parmesan.  Tastes like chicken, right?
  3. Day Three: Pancakes. Meat-free recipe. No additional trip to the store. Everyone’s a winner.
  4. Day Four: Um. Hmm… Cake! Cake for dinner. Cake contains exactly no meat.
  5. Day Five:  Let them eat cake! Again! This is not bad at all. What was I worried about?
  6. Day Six:  Pass the syrup, pancake night is here again.
  7. Day Seven:  On the seventh day, I rest. Someone please order take-out.

Truth be told I didn’t review this menu with Dave before I posted it.  Just in case he finds fault with my weekly plan, maybe I can get him on board with meat as an occasional treat, presuming we go for the good stuff, locally raised, grass fed meat. It is a bit more pricey, but since we’ll only be eating it during the harvest moon and on alternative leap years, it’s well worth the splurge. Locally raised means a smaller carbon hoof-print for the earth, and grass fed beef is loads healthier for us people too.  It’s lower in fat and higher in omega 3, among other benefits.  Let’s see what Mr. No-need-for-chocolate-if-we-skip-the-meat has to say about that.

Speaking of chocolate, I’m still waiting for my climate change bars to come in.  Which means I’m back to figuring out what on earth to make for dinner tonight.

I think you know where I stand.  Let them eat cake.

It’s diet time

daphne on April 12, 2009

It’s time for the Bieners to get leaner.  Don’t get me wrong. We’re not doing anything crazy like cutting down on ice cream sundaes or our regular chocolatey indulgences. No, I’m talking about a different kind of slimming down. I’m talking carbon diet.

You know? Carbon diet.  As in — does this road trip make my footprint look fat?

Thing is, we’ve decided to take a big old road trip this summer.  Wagons east, loading up the car, stuffing it full of luggage, kids and gasoline.  The kids and the suitcases I can manage; it’s all that fossil fuel that’s making me feel guilty.

We make this trip each year, but there’s something about standing and pumping that gasoline every 6 hours or so for days on end that makes it feel like more of a carbon splurge than the jet fuel we usually consume on this bit of travel.  I’m feeling the need to assuage some of my guilt before we hit the road.

So I hit the internet.  There are loads of dietary options floating around on the internet.

We could go meat-free for a couple of months.   Studies reveal that one kilogram of beef is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution than driving for 3 hours while leaving all the lights on back home.

Speaking of lights, we could take a cue from Earth Hour and sit around in the dark a little more often. Or, once summer hits we could forgo turning on the air conditioning, and just rely on that old fashioned evening breeze.  I could cut down my 36 weekly trips to get groceries to just one car ride a week to the store.  That sounds delightful. In fact, I’m pledging right here, right now to make that one a reality.  So what if my family eats pancakes for dinner every now and then?  At least I finally learned to make them the right way.

So many worthy ideas, and yet all options paled in comparison once I happened upon the perfect solution to our proposed carbon diet: chocolate!  As in climate change chocolate. Each bar comes with an offset of 133 carbon dioxide reductions, which is roughly the size of the average American daily footprint.  Also, the recycled wrappers are coated in clever tips to help us tread more lightly upon our planet.

All I need is a moment to crunch the numbers. Let’s see:

  • 4 people in our happy little family
  • 1600 miles to go
  • One 1999 Subaru getting approximately 26 miles/gallon

Ok then. Assuming my calculations are correct, and adjusting for varying wind velocity, I’ll need to eat about 5,893 candy bars to make peace with the world.

It’s a small price to pay.  I think this diet and I are going to be great friends.