Green Challenge #4 – Eat a Vegan Meal Once a Week

Happy New Year!! It’s January 1, 2011. And you know what that means. Its time for the next Green Challenge.

Green Challenge #4 – January 1, 2011-January 1, 2012

For this challenge, Chris and I will each eat a vegan meal once a week. Chances are, we will be cooking this meal together. But you’re probably wondering what going vegan has to do with the environment. A LOT!

Most animal products we consume come from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs. CAFOs are also known as factory farms. A lot of environmental problems can be associated with these CAFOs. For example, according to the book Lucid Food: Cooking for an Eco-Conscious Life, These problems include: “water pollution from waste runoff, methane gas production caused by large concentrations of animal manure, and high pesticide quantities used in growing the grains that feed the animals.”
The website ChooseVeg.com makes the point that eating animal products wastes natural resources. They state, “feeding large amounts of grain to farmed animals in order to produce a small amount of meat is an inefficient waste of limited resources.”

(source)

Also, according to the same website, “Of all water used for all purposes in the United States, more than half goes to: livestock production.” For example, to produce a pound of meat, 440 gallons of water is needed. That’s a lot of water!
(source)
Did you know that even rain-forests have been destroyed in South America in order to create more room for cows to graze? According to VeganOutreach.org, “70 percent of previous forested land in the Amazon is occupied by pastures, and feedcrops cover a large part of the remainder.”

I could go on and on about the reasons eating a plant based diet is better for the environment! Here are a few resources I find helpful.

VeganOutreach.org
ChooseVeg.com
Peta.org

Now, why is eating vegan a challenge?For one, I really enjoy eating cheese, eggs, and yogurt, and fish! I eat mainly a plant based diet, but I eat those foods on occasion. Actually, I eat yogurt every day. But limiting these items from my diet will help out the environment, even in a small way. It will also be much healthier! I may even turn the challenge into eat vegan one week a month if its not challenging enough for me!

I’m going to eat my vegan meal on the weekend, when I’m most likely to stray. I’m going to cook a whole, plant-based meal with no animal products in it. This is hard because a lot of vegan recipes call for weird, hard to find ingredients that you can’t find at your normal grocery store. I’m going to have to take some trips to the co-op to get some things, which will be fun! I’m actually really excited about this challenge because I love experimenting with recipes and I think it will be a bit of a challenge.

And yes, Chris is also going to this challenge with me, and I think this will be his most challenging one yet, since he is a complete carnivore.

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Wednesday night we tested out this challenge by making a vegan meal for dinner! We looked through a few recipes, and we came up with: roasted beets with garlic, sauteed collared greens, and wild rice.

I had never had wild rice before, and it was delicious! I found it didn’t even need that much seasoning. The beets were small, but extremely flavorful. They crisped up nice in the oven, and tasted like “beet chips”. Although, next time we might add a protein (like tofu or a legume) to make our meal more filling. It’s going to be an experience!

Who’s going to join me? Leave a comment!

8 Comments

Gabriela @ Fro-Yo Lover

January 1, 2011 at 1:02 pm Reply

Loved the idea, Jen!
I just might try it myself 🙂
Thanks for sharing, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!
xoxo
Gabriela @ Fro-Yo Lover recently posted..Last Post of The Decade

abbi

January 1, 2011 at 1:39 pm Reply

That’s a great challenge – I could easily take out all meat products from my diet but dairy products could be hard for me. I’m might try something similar – like vegan one day/month or something like that. Have fun with the challenge!
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Kate

January 1, 2011 at 1:47 pm Reply

Great idea for a challenge! I got into vegan eating because I was looking into the environmental effects, too. It was pretty eye opening! It’s also really fun to try new recipes. The cookbook Veganomicon has a great selection of things to try. Good luck!
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Emily

January 1, 2011 at 2:48 pm Reply

What a great challenge! We should cook a vegan meal together… I also have an AMAZING vegan chocolate pudding recipe for dessert 😉

Hope your race went well today, miss ya!
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Katie H.

January 1, 2011 at 6:19 pm Reply

Love this challenge! I am so in!
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Sarah

January 2, 2011 at 12:24 am Reply

So glad to hear you’re doing well with your green goals. Love the new one! I started eating vegan around Thanksgiving and love it. Cheese is the hardest thing for me to avoid so far, but I can usually remind myself how unpleasant I feel when I eat those kind of foods. I was happy to stumble upon your site. Its fun!