Vegetarianism, Veganism, and the "All-American" Hamburger, part 1

What drove the composition of this post (an expansion of a comment on a post over at AnimalBlawg, a blog written by some acquaintances from undergrad) was something that happened to me a couple of weeks ago. However, in the writing of it, I really found it's too big to tackle in one post, so look out for part 2 next.

About a year ago, I found a soup that I really like - Mexican–Style Chicken Tortilla soup. But I really hate the chicken in it. It is tasteless and rubbery and totally ruins the rest of the soup! So I’ve almost stopped buying it in preference for vegetable soup. It really depresses me that i don’t get to enjoy the ricey-corny-black beany goodness that that tortilla soup could be because of the nasty chicken. I figured it was just because it was cheap soup (hence, cheap chicken in it)

A few Thursdays back, I went to Hillwood High School out in Belle Meade to give a "Getting In" strategy session to a bunch of juniors and seniors (over 60 people were there! it was awesome!), and the PTA served Mrs. Winners chicken for dinner. Being that I am cheap, when they offered me a couple of pieces after the session, I promptly said thank you and then thanked the universe for the free meal. I started eating on the drive home, and at first it was very tasty. But as I ate, I got increasingly queasy. I figured it was because I was driving, but the whole thing really hit me as I pulled into the parking lot at home and finished off the last piece. I was really disgusted by the *thought* of what I was eating.

Now, I can't imagine that I'm anywhere near going vegan. Is this really me? I'm thinking... am i really turning into a leftist whacko that starts asking restaurants if they're cooking with animal oils?

Well, it is possible that I am. I mean, when they started serving Crispanis at Panera, I asked them to show me the ingredients label on the tomato sauce to see if it contained sugar of HFCS.

But I still am resistant to the idea of putting that label on myself. My vegetarian leanings mostly manifest in my day-to-day small choices as opposed to an overall lifestyle choice - I still do heartily attack a bison burger at Ted’s Montana Grill on occasion - but on a daily basis, I daydream of eating black beans and rice or a spinach and mushroom salad. I often wonder if it’s actually the burger I’m enjoying, as opposed to the idea of a burger (so ingrained in my middle-class, white-bread mindset!).

AnimalBlawg explained that the source of this may be umami

"Umami is the fifth taste, often called “savory.” We have “umami” taste receptors on our tongues that detect glutamates, found in protein-rich foods. And in uncreative diets, meat is the staple protein-rich food."

I will definitely be exploring non-meat ways to fulfill this 5th taste... although I see it playing out more as a way to avoid eating chicken as opposed to a way to avoid animal products entirely. Mostly, this is because I am lazy. And when someone puts free food, or easy food, in front of me, somehow I forget my desire to eat organic and vegetarian.

This Thanksgiving, we did cook a turkey, and it was my job to take care of the leftovers - pull all the meat off the bones. Now, I did enjoy the turkey/cranberry/whitebread sandwiches that were the reason we cooked the turkey - but after pulling all that meat off the bird, I wasn't interested in eating it anymore.

A more recent post at Animal Blawg introduced me to the fact that Ben Franklin dabbled in veganism - go read it! It really describes perfectly the situations I find myself in. Yes, i find that not eating animal products is cheaper. However, sometimes I am so drawn in by the smell and memory of the taste of food that I dig in without thinking. Ahhh, rationalism.

"So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for every thing one has a mind to do."

Yes, Ben. This is exactly the problem.
Up next - sure, I feel like chicken is gross, but how about the economic impact of being an omnivore?

icanhascheezburger.com

If you guys haven't seen this site, you should definitely check it out.
Usually, they make me laugh out loud, which is quite a feat.
However, one that I saw today sort of took the wind out of my giggly sails...




This is funny because of the original "lolrus" post on icanhascheezburger, but it sort of took a serious turn i wasn't prepared for... sheesh.

FreeRice.com

Thanks to Robyn Bradley for showing me the site FreeRice.com, where you play a never-ending vocabulary game that, thanks to the advertising at the bottom, donates rice to UN hunger efforts.

For a vocab nut like me, this is pretty addictive - and I also like the pretty bamboo bowl that fills with rice as you play. I'm putting a banner link to it on this blog as soon as I figure out how to not break the template by doing so.

If you're bored at work or studying for the SAT/ACT/PSAT/GRE/etc., it's a great little site!

How very un-green my relatively green job is

Happy post-Turkey day to you all! I must say that I am very thankful for many things, including being in control of my own bowel movements, the luxury of being able to travel to see family, and the game of football. Anyhow, here's my belated offering from last week that, in a haze of sugar and pigskin, I didn't post :)


Most of you know my many and varied feelings about my Day Job, and this isn't exactly the forum to discuss it, but a week or so ago, an email came through the pipeline that seemed relevant to this discussion.

-----Original Message-----
...
Sent: Fri 11/16/2007 1:27 PM
Subject: It's easy being green...

I know that with all of our busy schedules, thinking about what we can do for the environment isn't exactly top of mind. But did you know that by reducing power consumption and monitoring paper usage we can help save money - and the planet?

* 10,000 sheets of paper are used by a single office worker every year and 95% of it is thrown away without being recycled. Businesses that actively manage their printing infrastructures can reduce their overall cost of printing by up to 30%.
* Companies can save 40% to 80% of their energy costs simply by adopting conservation practices like making sure lights are turned off when not in use. Something as simple as making sure you turn off your monitor at night and shutting down your computer completely will really add up if everyone participates.

Please look for ways to save electricity and paper over the next year - it really can make a difference.

Thanks,

Now, I should be happy about this, right? Well, yes, in a sense I am. I appreciate that someone other than me is saying something about this. Since I started work there last November, I have desperately tried to reduce the amount of paper I use. It was just getting ridiculous, printing out every step of the processing for sending out an e-mail. Still, though, we are required to print 3-5 sheets of paper for every eBlast we process, and that's just for the client I work on. I've noticed that, for other clients, there's even more paper. And this is just for e-mail. This is to say nothing of the junk mail they print and mail from the back warehouse.

I don't know much about the environmental impact associated with the energy & resources used for electronic file storage, but at first glance it seems that storing all of these files electronically, on an external jump drive or something, would HAVE to be less impactful than printing out the documentation! Yes, like with my Prius, there is an environmental cost to the production of the microchips, and to the energy supply needed to run the electronics.
However, we can't assume that business will simply stop. So can't we use the reusable microchips to store our documentation? I am sure that the answer lies in the fact that it is "more expensive" to store the data electronically. Which touches back on the idea of economies of scope - the cost of the paper appears less than the cost of the microchips, even though ultimately we are paying a huge price that isn't readily quantifiable.

I asked if we couldn't do all of the documentation electronically, but was told that there still had to be paper documentation of some sort. ::sigh::

So that's my two cents on the first "*". On the second "*", I began to recognize that this person was appealing to people's sense of "cost". But in reality, people don't understand that energy cost as being borne by THEM! They see the Giant Corporation as bearing the "cost," and this has no real impact on their paychecks or their consciouses.

I think that this person's email would have been much more effective had s/he appealed to the employee's sense of morality.

Yeah, jobrad, gettin' on the green bandwagon!

Check out Joseph Bradley's latest post: he dug up an article about a Hummer that's getting 60 mpg... that's no 150 mpg, but for those testosterone-driven amongst us, it's a start.

Happy Birthday to Danielle - quoted in the Tennessean!

So they didn't directly plug this blog, but in an 11/5 story on "Eco-Vocab," the Tennessean quoted me, "one Nashvillian, who blogs about green living"!

Check it out here.

I like the question she asks at the beginning: "What if Al Gore suggests you reduce your carbon footprint? Or Leonardo DiCaprio asks about your plans to live off the grid?"

If Leo ever asks me ANYTHING, I guarantee my response will include "hummahnna-hummahnna..."

There's an AWESOME "green glossary" they provide as well (in the right-hand sidebar), with terms like "greenwashing" and "off the grid."

Not only that, but I'm keeping the conversation going over at the Green Shopping forums on the Tennessean's website - check it out; there's more green talk than you can shake a stick at!

My worry over being clean while being green, part 2

So now you all know about my historical mania over being clean, but what I didn't talk about yesterday was the product-end of the whole thing.

One of the first times I was really confronted with what we're putting into our environment came from my friend AblePonder, when she told me about how she was looking for a shampoo without sulfates. AP was living off-campus in a darling little house, and we were both taking that Oil & Water Use class. While talking about the expense of living off-campus and the expense of living, generally, she mentioned something about the sulfates in shampoo, and that started a domino effect in my head about the stuff I use to clean, both me and my living space.

Now, it wasn't immediate, but it got me curious, and then curiouser. I was shocked at the price sticker on "environmentally safe" shampoos and cleaning products - and especially when something is expensive, I'm slow to change. I bought some shampoo from my stylist, Shana, that was sulfate free; she was selling it because it was safer for color-treated hair (oh yes, that's another topic altogether, one that I'm afraid to start researching). But I started talking to her about it, and got more than I bargained for.

Shana had just started buying Melaleuca products, and got me to go to one of those in-house presentations (Amway, anyone?) where they convince you to buy their stuff. I was not really enthused about it, because I didn't really have an extra $50 a month to spend on something silly.

But then, of course, due to peer pressure I started using the stuff. I'll quit after a few months, I thought. But then I started taking the vitamins. I don't know if it's psychosomatic or what, but I sleep better and have more energy when I take the vitamins on a regular basis. And since I was buying the vitamins, I started trying the other stuff, too. This was around the time that I moved out of my Hillsboro Village apartment and into my Green Hills condo, and I was cleaning a LOT - cleaning the apartment to move out, cleaning the new house to move in... and I used the Melaleuca cleaning stuff to do it. It didn't burn my throat and nose, and it didn't make me dizzy, like 409 or Clorox cleanup does.

As I've used this stuff more and more, I keep being surprised by it. Using their body wash & deodorant, I don't smell at the end of the day (or the next day, since I've started alternating days on showering). I always felt like using the Olay body wash and Secret deodorant that I was just covering up my smell - but with this new stuff I really feel like I just smell like myself, not a stinky, gross version of myself.

Still, I wasn't really sold on the "Melaleuca" label... until my ex-roommate Alex moved out. Alex's dog, Chance, had assisted Alex in making the carpet in their bedroom really gross. It's pretty near impossible to keep the carpets clean anyway, what with the city dirt combined with the tar-sealed parking lot outside and the wood floors in the rest of the condo. I told Alex that he'd need to clean the carpets after he moved out. Well, Alex was pretty strapped for money, and so he and his girlfriend tried to clean the carpets themselves. They got into my cleaning closet and got out the "Sol-u-mel" stuff, which Melaleuca bills as a triple-threat stain-remover, deodorizer and cleaning product.

I sort of hate myself for raving like this (I feel like I sound like an infomercial), but that stuff is AMAZING. Case-in-point was Alex's carpet. It went from dingy-grey to the off-white "ecru" it was when we moved in! I was really stunned. Not only that, but I started using it as an additive to my laundry when i did sheets and towels - it removes smells COMPLETELY. I wash my dogs' towels and rags, there is NO TRACE of urine or "dog"smell. My friend Steph used it to wash stuff that her cats had peed on, and it also came out of the laundry smelling like new.

Now, AP uses a lot of vinegar and baking soda when she cleans, and I've taken that up, as well. Using vinegar and water on the wood floors seems to be keeping that nasty black dust at bay, and baking soda is a great laundry and cleaning additive.

Frankly, even though I'm impressed by the Melaleuca stuff, there's still a part of me that wonders if I'm not making a mountain out of a mole-hill. Would using vinegar and baking soda on everything - from my hair to my laundry to my floors - not be just as effective? And cheaper?

I'm still quite in the middle of this thought process. With the new Whole Foods & Whole Body down the street, I've been wanting to try to get away from Melaleuca (because there's a minimum to buy every month, and there's a shipping charge, both bank-breakers - and the shipping isn't a very green option).

Any suggestions for stuff that you love would be very welcome! What do you use to clean?

My worry over being clean while being green, part 1

First, a little update for you all - since I turned off my a/c, my NES bill went down by 30%! This is very good for my pockets!

Now, on to this week's topic: being clean.

First of all, I've always been a little manic about being clean. When I was in elementary school, there were these two boys who smelled simply awful, and I was not very nice to them about it - I vividly remember telling them, in front of everyone, to stand behind me in line because they had to be downwind. I was not (nor am I, actually), a very discreet person. I don't like other people being dirty and I don't like being dirty myself. My dad is a pretty smelly person, and my dogs are pretty smelly, too. Trying to eliminate the smells and dirt around me is a losing battle that I continue to fight, and part of that fight for me has always been showering at least once a day, wearing deodorant like a madwoman and spending Sundays cleaning. I talked before about being sweaty; maybe this is where my being clean paranoia comes from? I'm extra-paranoid because I've always found myself to not be very clean? I'm not sure.

Anyhow, several things have conspired lately to have me thinking about being clean in a bigger sense than just me.

A while back, there was news of Cate Blanchett taking two-minute showers and foregoing hair-washing in an effort to conserve water and therefore be earth-friendly. I thought about it, and although i generally take short showers, I have started experimenting with only showering every other day... and it is actually okay. I wash my face in the morning and put my hair back or in a braid, and I don't find that I smell or that I look gross. Maybe this is because I do nothing but sit in an office chair all day - not moving equals not sweating. Maybe it's because i've finally made it out of greasy-gross adolescence. Maybe it's because, like with the a/c, winter makes it easier. Whatever it is, I'm doing okay with alternating days.

Another factor may be the new dog in my life, Madeline. Now, Georgia, who we've had since I was 10, has never really smelled. Sure, she'll lay in the sun every so often and come away stinking, but in general she's never had that signature dog-smell. Madeline, however, definitely smells. It's sort of a dog smell, but it's also sort of unique to her. I love cuddling with her, so maybe i've gotten used to it, but maybe overall i'm just getting less manic about being so hyper-clean all the time.

In October, Slate ran a story on why being really clean can cause problems. I've always agreed with this in theory (of course, not with any actual science or self-research to back it up) - I've heard that kids who grow up on farms are less likely to develop allergies, etc. I think that being so manic about it is akin to a lot of other manias - if we'd just let go and be sensible about things, we would be better off in the end. I mean, living in the city has sort of encouraged me to let go. I track in black sooty stuff every day and so trying to keep my floors clean all the time would just be insane. And with two dogs in the house, it's just not possible to keep the place free of hair - mine or theirs!

So with that, I bid you a hearty adieu this Friday - I'll be back tomorrow with a follow-up to this, to tell you about my obsession with green cleaning products and how much happier I am with them!

NBC's Green is Universal

WOW.

First it was Fox's Bones and the CW's Top Model... now NBC has jumped on the bandwagon, and how!

I was watching this week's The Office on my DVR last night, only to discover NBC's Green is Universal campaign. Apparently the head honcho mandated that all the shows include some green theme.

I was rolling my eyes, but I am also kind of excited. If pop culture can sell mainstream culture the green movement, then it will get even easier and cheaper to be green... maybe.

I think that it will still be hard. After all, it is being sold, which leads naturally in this consumerist era to "buy new stuff to be green!" It's a slippery slope, but I hope that those of us who aren't just trying to sell-sell-sell will be able to use this new pop development to our advantage to affect real attitude change.

aside: my favorite part of the NBC green site is about how to have a green wedding. It totally made me smile :) Also, shout out to my brother, who has used a push mower - we actually have one at my parents' house.

Taking the bad with the good, part 3: the Prius

Hymotion will be making their Hybrid conversion packs available to individuals in early 2008!!!

So I thought that today I would tell you all the story of my Prius, dubbed Thumper by my friend Saralyn.

Back in May, things were going well for me. I was up for a "fast track" promotion and I had finally decided that not only I was ready to make the commitment of buying a car, but I also knew which car I wanted.

The Toyota Prius had been on my mind for several years (all through driving two cars that I hated, that guzzled gas and coolant), and after much thought and research, I decided that it was worth the monthly car payment, and I took the leap. I bought a Prius (hahaha - "bought" meaning "put myself into debt for")

1. Though the payment would take up the entirety of my expendable income, I would save $60 a month or more in gas (depending on how many trips I took down to Murfreesboro & Georgia to see my family), and I should be getting a tax credit for the purchase, but it remains to be seen how much (I'm crossing my fingers so hard i'm cutting off circulation!)

2. Though I would have the mental stress of a new car (worrying about every little scratch and ding, driving thoughtfully instead of balls-to-the-wall abusive like with my other cars), I would have the opportunity to add a Prius to the road, helping to "spread the word" and talk about the technology.

3. Though the eco-cost of producing a new vehicle would be large, I would be supporting the hybrid technology, putting out fewer emissions and using less gas.

It was a lesser of two evils situation, and I chose to take the leap.

The landing has also been a take-the-bad-with-the-good experience, and here's why:

I didn't get that promotion (what a lesson in putting the cart before the horse), so now I'm consuming lots of mac-and-cheese, bananas and water at home, and I'm going into debt. This is pretty bad, because I love to eat fresh and organic. I love the new Whole Foods and would gladly spend my entire paycheck there, eating salads and breads and milk. So eating like a college student really stinks.

On the good hand, though, I am IN LOVE with the Prius. She runs so smoothly that it's fun to drive, I fill her up once a month normally instead of 3 or 4 times, and I get into conversations about her all the time. She gives me an excuse to talk about why I bought her, which lets me talk about Greener Nashville, shopping locally, eating organic... all the things that I love to talk about right now because I'm so obsessed with them. I feel good when I get in the car in the morning, instead of dreading that i'll be stuck on the side of the road, the car overheating because it guzzled a gallon of DexCoolant in just a month (thanks, Pontiac...). She also has a lot of trunk space (ahhh, we have so much in common).

So, owning the Prius has been both a bad and a good thing, but I do feel that it was the right decision to make. I was even more convinced of that when I saw the news about Hymotion's conversion packs.

Hymotion's Battery Range Extender Modules (BREMs) convert Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs) into Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles (PHEV) with 100+mpg fuel efficiency...

Right now, they're only available to fleets, but soon they'll be available to anyone. Obviously, they're going to cost thousands of dollars, but tax credits will supposedly be offered to those buying them (the bill has only been introduced, so this isn't for sure yet).

Back when I was thinking about buying it, I was sad that there wasn't a plug-in option. Yes, the energy from an outlet in my home is coming from fossil fuel (about 60%), but in buying the BREM, I would be one step closer to being independent of fossil fuel, just like i was a step closer with the purchase of my Prius.

I do think that buying less is one of the strategies I want to use for reducing my carbon footprint, but also think that the development of technology is going to be an important way for us, collectively, to reduce our consumption. It's not realistic to think that we will all completely stop driving, stop using electricity and stop eating food from far-away places. So, if we can do both at once - reduce our consumption while funding the development of new things, maybe we can get somewhere.

I just have to keep the idea of small steps in mind, because size is relative. After all, the Prius purchase was a big step for me, but a very small drop in the bucket for the alternative fuel industry. I hope that that big step was the right step to take.

Taking the bad with the good, part 2: my A/C addiction

Happy Friday, all!
Nov. 5 is my 25th birthday, so I have all sorts of fun plans for the weekend... and the Nashville weather is cooperating so well.
This is definitely my favorite time of year... the slant of the sunlight, the chilly nights that call for a jacket, the changing leaves...

But by far my favorite part lately is that I have been A/C free for three weeks now! The windows are thrown open, the door is open with a gate up to keep the dogs from wandering off, and I am looking forward to my electric bill.

It feels so good to have it turned off. The air is cold, which I love (I would be happy to have life at 40 degrees all year round), but it's fresh, too. Yes, I live in the city, but even the city-dirt has a tang to it that the A/C doesn't provide.

Colin over at No Impact Man talked about changing social norms a while back, and it got me thinking about having my front door open. I really like it - I like saying hello to the neighbors as they walk by, and the dogs love it, too, laying on the door mat and watching the squirrels and birds and people. This morning, because my door was open, my neighbor Sarah and her new roommate came by to say hi and we talked for 15 minutes or so.

I wish more people had their doors open around here - I'm not a social butterfly, but it did feel good to get to talk to Sarah for a bit. But thinking about it has got me apprehensive about summer - yes, it's far away, but I'm enjoying my open door and windows so much that I'll hate to see it end.

And at this point, I know I will see it end, because I haven't been able to live without cold air. In the summer, the A/C has to be below 73 at night or I can't sleep! I've tried (the penny-pincher in me had me turning it off to try it out), but i just ended up tossing and turning. Growing up (and now) my family keeps the house around 69 degrees, and we've never used the heat. We did have space heaters for the frigid winter months, but in general, our house was cold year round. Thinking about giving up the A/C, for me, is akin to thinking about not driving - it is so ingrained in my ritmo de vida that I am actually afraid to give it up! Changing this social norm, for me, is a scary proposition.

So I'm going to use these next cold months to think about how I can reduce my A/C consumption come spring. Maybe I'll just end up being a really sweaty person? Or maybe I'll give in and hope that by not using the heat for as long as I can this winter, when I turn down the thermostat this coming spring, I'll have been able to balance out my footprint a little.