11.9.2009 12:16 PM

Talking Turkey: Serve a Delicious, Vegetarian Thanksgiving Dinner Without Disappointing Guests

It's not all about the bird. Also see four simple slow-cooker Thanksgiving dishes and nine vegetarian Thanksgiving recipes.

While making a pumpkin puree is easy, for the time-crunched among us, there are now great alternatives from purveyors of organic canned squash such as these from Farmer's Market.

Photo: P. Barrow

By TDG Community

The following is a guest post by Heater-Home

Thanksgiving is just a few weeks away and this year we have a few green additions to our family. With my newly turned eco leaf and with one of our family members going vegetarian, this year Thanksgiving presents a whole new set of challenges.

But the idea of a green or even a vegetarian Thanksgiving can seem like blasphemy to die-hard turkey stuffers. To ease them into what will inevitably be a culture shock, I already started dropping the idea of a green feast that goes beyond just a heritage or organic turkey. When asked how they'd "green" their Thanksgiving, I got all sorts of responses from "add more plants to the dinner table" to "use green dye on the turkey."

If we're to be literalists, then I'd rather go cold turkey than sit across the table from a green turkey.

Rethinking the Main Course

The veggie kick brought with it the "Tofurkey," a tofu turkey that received grimaces from most non-vegetarians, including myself if only because of the horrid name for it. Another option is to try a soy-seitan turkey -- (for a great recipe, check out Chef Bryanna Clark Grogan). Seitan is an alternative to tofu, and for many it has a more appealing taste.

Most people are immediately turned off when thinking of vegetarian alternatives to traditional meat dishes. But this isn't because of experience (since most like they've never tried it), but rather because of conditioning. We're brought up being programmed to think fowl when imagining a Thanksgiving meal. It'll take a lot of deprogramming and a little willingness on people's part to taste a soy turkey -- but once they try it, they'll be one step closer to rethinking their attitude.

Your part in all this is to make sure you don't botch it up. Find a great recipe, and do a quick pre-turkey day test run. This way you can rest assured that your feast will be a big hit, with some turkey somewhere thanking you for being spared the gauntlet.

DID YOU KNOW: Approximately 45 million turkeys are (killed) cooked and eaten in the U.S. on Thanksgiving? That's about a sixth of all turkeys sold in the U.S. each year.

Why You Should Green Your "Meat"

Recently, people have started looking at the carbon footprint of the meat industry, which is enormous. According to a 400-page report by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization entitled "Livestock's Long Shadow," the world's 1.5 billion cattle are responsible for 18% of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than all forms of transportation combined.

A great measure of how much awareness is spreading about this issue is to look outside of the green community. When my non-eco friends started discussing it, I knew we were starting to gain ground on the importance of the impact cattle has on our environment.

It's a more commonly known fact that cows produce a tremendous amount of methane, adding to global warming (especially since the gas is more potent than carbon dioxide). But cows aren't the only ones. Any livestock that is farmed bears a similar burden on the environment. And if you recall the number of turkeys harvested and killed to cater to a Thanksgiving feast, you can start using your abacus to tally up the figures.

The Problem with Turkey

Turkey dinners have their own carbon footprints, or in this case "wing prints," according to NPR, which did a piece on tracking the resources it takes to raise a turkey and transport it to its final destination.

DID YOU KNOW: A landmark study at Cornell University revealed that turkey meat production consumed energy in a 13:1 ratio to protein output. The study goes on to add that:

Animal agriculture is a leading consumer of water resources in the United States.
Livestock are directly or indirectly responsible for much of the soil erosion in the United States.
According to David Pimentel, Professor of Ecology at Cornell University, "More than half the U.S. grain and nearly 40% of the world grain is being fed to livestock rather than being consumed directly by humans."

With such facts, we find ourselves hard pressed not to switch out turkey for soy even if just for one day. My recommendation is to email this article to your friends and family, particularly your guest list, to get them thinking about the importance of an eco-friendly Thanksgiving feast.

At the end of the day, Thanksgiving is not about the food as much as it is about community -- a gathering of loved ones over a feast regardless of what type of feast it is.

If when you serve your "green meat" there's a chill in the room from cold stares, warm up the place with a portable space heater. Ignore the stares and dig in. Sooner or later everyone else will likely try it too -- especially considering it'll be too late to go anywhere else for a last minute meal.

If you've got to get people to consider alternative lifestyle choices by hook and by crook, then so be it. About 45 million turkeys will be grateful to you for your efforts.

By Heater-Home.com. Follow Heater-Home on Twitter.

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