I’m not one to make New Year’s resolutions. And when I do make them, they tend not to stick. My personal resolutions are most successful when they’re accompanied by a strong urge for real change — and that doesn’t usually happen when there’s snow on the ground.
But this year, the desire for a new beginning crept up just as the new year was approaching. Since reading Fast Food Nation (an eye-opener and stomach-turner) last spring and finally starting The Omnivore’s Dilemma this month, I’m finally out of excuses: I can’t continue to support factory farms and unsustainable food practices by eating processed meat.
So, in what I hope is just a starting point for long-term change in my diet, I’m giving up all meat that isn’t local and sustainable. Goodbye pepperoni pies from the neighborhood pizzeria! So long crispy turkey bacon! And adios beef-topped nachos from my favorite Mexican restaurant!
What does this mean? And what exactly is local and sustainable meat?
The way I see it, I can shop for ground beef at the Amish farm stands at Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia and dine at restaurants that pledge to only use meat from local farms where animals are raised on grass — not stuffed with corn and medicated on antibiotics. According to the New York Times, it won’t be too difficult to find local and sustainable meat. In fact, this website seems a good place to start.
And yes, this does mean my meat will cost more. But I’ll also be eating less of it.
What does this have to do with Italian food? For starters, there are plenty of meat-free Italian dishes I love and even more I want to try. In fact, I wrote a post awhile back about Italian food as a cuisine of choice for vegetarians. From Batali’s Meatless Monday to a vegetarian-only Italian restaurant in London, non-meat eaters are finding that the cuisine of meatballs and lasagna can actually suit their taste buds, too.
But for me, this resolution is about more than adapting Italian food to fit new food trends and tastes. It’s about getting back to the heart of what Italian cuisine is: fresh, delicious comfort food made with love. It’s about getting local meat from the butcher down the street and tossing it with a sauce made from your garden’s tomatoes. Italians, with their backyard fig trees and allegiances to neighborhood bakers, are the original local and sustainable eaters.
I hope my resolution is just the beginning of a fresher, more healthful personal diet. By the end of 2011, I plan to be growing some of my own produce, canning local vegetables to use through the winter, and making all of my own dressings and sauces.
When I think about it that way, losing processed meats seems like a detail. My real New Year’s resolution is to get closer to my Italian (food) heritage. Happy New Year.
What are your food resolutions for 2011?
Christina
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I made that same change around September 2009 after seeing Food, Inc. I haven’t missed meat that much, although I allow myself “holiday exemptions” mostly because I love the nostalgia of eating turkey at Thanksgiving
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I think for most folks it’s totally paradigm-shifting to move away from eating a meat and two sides for dinner…but it shouldn’t be a stretch because you’re right, Italian food is perfect for vegetarians!
One of the more interesting comments I’ve heard recently on the subject of factory produced meat was from the introduction to “Eating Animals” (listened to a podcast of it)… the author says that most people assumed that, in writing about the meat production in the US, he was writing a case for vegetarianism. He points out that because people made that conclusion, most people already know that our food system is unhealthy and that any examination of it would lead someone to conclude that we need to avoid it! But he, like you and me, has concluded that eating animals can be OK as long as it’s done responsibly. Ominvore’s Dilemma is on my bookshelf, waiting for me to cozy up to it. Enjoy your veggies!! –Tiffany
Thanks for the comment, Tiff. It’s nice to hear that for you there was life — and good food! — after processed meat.
Pollan mentions something similar early in Omnivore — that most of us do, on some level, realize the food system is unhealthy. But I guess like any big personal change, it takes a jolt from within to make a reality.
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