Mostly carnivorous guy here; I have started playing around with the use of tofu and mushrooms in stead of meat and have come to the realization that it is actually a lot easier to substitute them for meat. Another, even bigger realization I have come to is that it seems that my addiction, yes, addiction, to meat and meat having to be a minimum requirement for having any interest in a dish, is that it is really a psychologically conditioned addiction. I don't think that the meat alternative market is really addressing the real problem, people's habitualized addiction to meat by industry, special interests, and marketeers manipulating a vulnerability in humans.
I am not advocating universal vegetarianism, but the fact that Americans eat insane amounts of meat is proof in and of itself that something is not right. There is a healthy level of meat intake and we far exceed it. Just think of how many meals have some form of meat in it. It's probably approaching 100% for most Americans that are not vegetarians.
You have heard of the Inuit right? Or the Massai people? How many vegetables do you think they ate?
Are you actually having health problems due to eating meat?
Edit: Another good thing to watch is the canadian documentary 'My Big Fat Diet' on youtube. Talks about the canadian indians (first nations) people having a ton of diabetes due to being on carbs and not their traditional fish based diet.
>> Just think of how many meals have some form of meat in it. It's probably approaching 100% for most Americans that are not vegetarians.
Really? Neither myself, nor 99% of the people I associate with are vegetarians, but I'd say I AT MOST 50% of my lunches and 25% of my dinners actually contain meat (and maybe 7% for breakfast). Granted, I do consider myself a heath conscious eater, and thus eat lots of veggies and beans and veggies. But still, I'm nowhere near having meat in 100% of my meals. (Although I did enjoy a delicious flank steak with mango salsa last night.)
In my travels though, I have found that specific diets tent to be geographically dependent as well. Ie, I find rural areas in the US to be heavy on the meat and potatoes, with an almost irrational/religious fear of vegetables and anything spicy/with a little different flavor/texture, whereas in cities it's easy to get lost just trying all sorts of the different cuisines available. People who must have meat in their meals also miss out on lots of the fantastic flavors of non-carnivorous main courses available to them.
Based on the stuff I've read, I'm pretty sure you are much further from the norm than he is. Only eating a meat-containing dish for dinner once or twice a week is pretty unusual.
Overconsumption of red meat has been indicted, if inconsistently, for health conditions ranging from cardiovascular disease to diabetes to obesity. I haven't seen any such studies for poultry or seafood though.
I wonder how they controlled for processed carbohydrates in those studies given that there is undoubtedly a high correlation between American red meat eaters and the increasing plethora of intensely processed grain products over the past 70 years or so.
I don't remember the source, but I remember reading how back in the 60s there were two divergent schools of thought on the increasing obesity epidemic from two prominent researcher, one researcher heavily backed the saturated fat theory and one heavily backed the sugar theory. For some inconsequential reason, the latter got discredited personally which led us down decades of ill-proven assumptions about how bad saturated fat was.
The claim that there's some healthy level of meat eating that Americans are exceeding is dubious. The claim that the level of our meat eating is devastating to our environment is indisputable.
Right. In the long run, the "chicken in every pot" political slogan got us to this point, and now we're dealing the consequences. And are desperately seeking alternatives.
It depends a lot on the quality of the meat. The quality of factory-farmed meat is low, but that doesn't mean it's bad to eat lots of wild salmon and grass-fed beef.
I am not advocating universal vegetarianism, but the fact that Americans eat insane amounts of meat is proof in and of itself that something is not right. There is a healthy level of meat intake and we far exceed it. Just think of how many meals have some form of meat in it. It's probably approaching 100% for most Americans that are not vegetarians.