Meat
on 02.23.09, 07:34am in life • share on facebook • comments (2)
Back in July of 2008 my wife and I decided to stop eating beef.
As a long time carnivore, something happened to us between watching both Fast Food Nation and Super Size Me and the various ground beef recalls that just did us in. Don’t get me wrong – sometimes I still crave for a cheeseburger or an amazing Stubbs steak but the thought of what goes on in the slaughterhouses to turn a cattle into packaged beef just put me over.
I usually have an incredibly strong stomach, but watching the ’sticker’ and the ‘knocker’ just was too much. From Wikipedia:
The sticker severs the carotid artery of a steer every ten seconds. The knocker stuns cattle on arrival to the slaughterhouse by shooting them in the head with a captive bolt stunner.
In some ways, this was remarkably reminiscent of working in Sunnyvale (I kid, I kid), but it was something I think about every time a piece of meat sounds appealing.
The best news, which may or may not be related, is that combined with a revamped work out routine, I’ve managed to drop my cholesterol from 232 to 195.
Of course, we’re hypocrites – we still eat chicken and turkey on a regular basis for protein. Still trying to figure out the next steps to cut that out.
Ryan Kennedy (February 23, 2009 @ 9:18 am)
Nice! If you want more reasons to reinforce your decision, try reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I’m about two-thirds of the way through it and the sections on beef are incredible (not in the good way).
If you’re looking for some vegetarian forms of protein to try out, look into beans. My wife and I have been making a ton of recipes with beans in them to add protein. Pinto, black, soy, garbanzo and more. You can try lentils as well. We’ve been picking recipes out of a book full of slow cooker recipes and they’ve all been really great.
Glutens (wheat and mushroom) and whole grains can pack quite a bit of vegetable protein as well. If you want something a little more processed, have a look at things like seitan (wheat gluten that, *sort of*, resembles the consistency of chicken or steak), tempeh (fermented soy beans, sounds nasty but is quite tasty when prepared correctly) and tofu are all great stand ins for meat in dishes.
Seeds can also be good for protein as well. Hemp and sunflower are both pretty good, although I’ve yet to find really good ways to incorporate hemp seeds into recipes and I can’t eat them by themselves.
Oyun (February 26, 2009 @ 8:52 am)
Thanks Ryan Kennedy