Be a Compassionate Carnivore

Main Meal Recipes for Meats Can Still Be Green

30 Days to Green Your Diet - Consider how animals are raised if you're a meat eater.

Photo: Istock

By Deborah Barrow

30 Days to a Greener Diet - Day 10

Okay, we know this will rattle all you vegetarians and vegans in the audience, but here we are. Please remember as you read this that we love you and know you have an important point of view that we honor and endorse.

However, we at TheDailyGreen believe that eating a diet that includes the judicious inclusion of meat that comes from compassionately raised farm animals is one way to encourage the maximum number of people to incorporate the principles of health and sustainability into their diet.

Yes, we know and are concerned about the climate issues relative to raising meat. And yes, we know that industrialized farming is, as Michael Pollan says in In Defense of Food, “notoriously brutal.” We really

But we also know that if we tell people that they have to go vegetarian or vegan in order to "go green," millions of people will reflexively jump off the green bandwagon immediately, thereby relegating it to the dustbin of history. And we can’t afford for that to happen. Not as an earth-friendly movement that needs to gain ground fast, not to mention as people who care about the climate and serving healthy eats to their kids.

So where can we find a happy medium? A position where fewer animals are raised in factory farms and the carnivores in the crowd believe they have a role in greening the world, too?

We think we'll make a good start by suggesting that people reduce the amount of meat they eat, and by asking them to think about ways to fight back against the inhumane treatment of animals raised on factory "farms." Instead, when you do indulge, select high-quality meats that are grass-fed, family-farm raised, as local as possible, hormone-free and raised with fewer meds.

And eat less of it.

We think it's a plan that will help create a bigger market for meats produced from animals treated more humanely. And it will result in a greener diet and a greener world.