Ostrich, snails, aligator, usually the stranger the better for me, just check out my fun with bacon (http://greenguysglobal.com/blog/meat-bu … ng-smoking).

Looking for 20 other meat-eaters to join me between Fri 12th – Mon 15th JUNE and try out vegetarianism.

NO MEAT FOR 4 DAYS – EASY?

SIGNUP http://www.pledgebank.com/4DayVeggie OR text ‘pledge 4DayVeggie’ to 60022 (in the UK only)

Glasto 2008 : 16 people tried

CAN WE BEAT THEM?

People go vegetarian for many different reasons but for me it’s about the environment.

Reports say vegetarians have halve the carbon footprint of their meat eating counterparts.

I’ll be writing from the Isle of Wight festival on Green Guys Global, where I’ll be trying out:

• A solar oven
• A solar charger
• Homebrew
• Living cheap – camping green

Today I’ve been building a vegetarian food package that includes home made elderflower champagne, wild garlic pesto and ingredients for bannock, curry, veggie burgers and a fried egg breakfast roll.  I’ve even got a mesh tea ball incase I find any nettles on site.

You can read more about my efforts on GreenGuysGlobal, MySpace and Twitter

Twitter
http://twitter.com/GreenGareth

The GreenFestivalMan
http://www.myspace.com/GreenFestivalMan

A few years ago I visited the Jamestown Settlement in Virginia, USA,  ‘Pigs. If you ever need to be self sufficient, Pigs are what you need.  Eat anything, and the whole animal can be used’.  That was the message of one of the colonial actresses as she made up another batch of lard scones on an open fire.

Despite my best efforts to reduce my meat consumption I confess that I’m partial to a bit of bacon.  I may never get over the addiction, but I’ll still pursue my belief in a significantly skewed vegetarian diet for environmental reasons.  I can substitute meat with fish and veg, but I needed to deal with the meat ghosts in my diet.

Covered in plastic, mechanised, sanitised and ill-treated – that pretty much sums up most meat you find in supermarkets.  I’m keen to get away from that industrial consumption.

So I find myself at River Cottage HQ just past the Dorset border under the skilful guidance of their now world renowned in-house butcher Ray “The Meat Guru” Smith for a day of meat curing and smoking.  With half a pig on the wooden table in front of us, the ‘classroom’ looking like a scene out of the Sopranos was prepped, and people had come from all over the world to experience his training.  Hong Kong, Australia and Mexico. Ray had built quite a following and it was obvious from the start this was going to be a rewarding day.

Over the next 8 hours 26 people were shown how to cut up half a pig into useable cuts, make bacon, salami, chorizo, proscuttio, gammon, roasting joints, how to cure meat, how to smoke meat, how to build a smoker, make biltong and parma style hams.  Pig farmers, small holders and individuals alike, were entertained and amazed at the ease of many of these artisan ways and throughout the day the food kept coming.

There was an emphasis on welfare. Ray was keen to make sure people understood how to treat pigs well.  River Cottage practices sustainability in everything it does and not just in the food it produces.  The toilets were serviced by a sustainable reed bed system, the power from a wind turbine, plant pots from old wellies and a recycled wine bottle lampshades.  I felt happy here, knowing full well this was a low carbon initiative.  Ray was like the favourite teacher you had as a kid, and Steve “The boy” (his accomplice) was equally as entertaining. I just can’t wait to get my own meat hanging up in a fashion that would make Tony Soprano (and the pigs) happy.

I found bacon nirvana in a small cottage on the outskirts of Axminster, and I don’t think there’s any going back.  (That said I’ll still be carrying out my vegetarian Green Festival Man campaign this year)

Links:

Ray “The Meat Guru” Smith – http://raythemeatguru.com/about.htm

River Cottage Courses – http://www.rivercottage.net/Category9/HQEventsCourses.aspx

Jamestown Settlement – http://www.historyisfun.org/

Green Festival Mans 4 day vegetarian stint – http://www.pledgebank.com/4DayVeggie

For some time now I’ve tried to reduce the amount of meat in my diet, knowing full well, meat can be expensive in price and cause greenhouse gas emissions.

In fact UN figures suggest that meat production puts more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than transport. (1)

I’ve been sea fishing since I was a kid and this year for my birthday I chartered a fishing boat in Dorset, so all my friends could share the enjoyment.

It wasn’t until I got back home that I really appreciated how sustainable the trip had been. Line fishing must be more sustainable than fishing by trawler. Firstly you only pull out a few fish at a time; secondly you have greater control over those you keep, and the those that go back. Trawler fishing in Europe, means you are at the mercy of mindless fish quotas.  These quotas stipulate you are only allowed to catch a specific weight of each species, and it is hard to get fishing nets to discriminate. Over catch – and they frequently do – and the dead “extras” must be thrown back to the sea as waste.  At this point I should stipulate the problem here isn’t fishing but the quota system.  Better to limit fishing by the weight of all fish caught, however each solution has it’s own problems.  Maybe it would be better to remove all quotas and let people fish themselves into bankruptcy?

All day charters vary in price depending on how long you want to go out for, whether you have your own fishing tackle and where you go to. A day’s wreck fishing can cost around £50-70 pound in the UK, Wreck fishing tends to be productive because fish like sniffing around old boats on the sea bed.  But there are a number of different options at much cheaper prices. Go local, whether it’s in a river, fish farm or supporting a local skipper at sea.

Our greedy cats eat £10 worth of fish per month.  So using crude maths I’ve decided that if I can get enough fish for 3 months I’ve already covered half my costs.  Factor in my substitution of fish for meat and I reckon I could break even, have a great trip on the water, and take another step up the self sufficiency ladder. I think I might need a chest freezer though. (Freecycle here I come).

Fishing can be a fun way to get in touch with your food, and improve your self-sufficiency even for the squeamish – by the end of my birthday even the girls were threading their own bait onto the hooks wondering what they were originally protesting about.

Links
(1)    Shun Meat says UN Climate Chief.  BBC News

What do Food and Climate Change have in common? Well if you look at this Cars=13% of all carbon emissions and Livestock=18% of all carbon emissions eating less meat or even going Vegetarian/Vegan is better than switching to a hybrid car and even better if you go vegan and own a hybrid!

About 5 months ago I went Vegan and have loved every last bit of it and I feel great being a vegan so I decided to create this post since it is “Green”.

What is a Vegetarian/Vegan?

Lacto-Ovo Vegetarian: One whose diet excludes meat and fish but permits milk and eggs.

Lacto Vegetarian: One whose diet excludes meat and fish and eggs but permits milk.

Ovo Vegetarian: One whose diet excludes meat and fish and milk but permits eggs.

Vegan (Strict Vegetarian): One whose diet excludes all animal products.

Why go Vegetarian/Vegan?

• Eating a vegetarian or vegan diet is healthy because you can prevent many diseases and cancers like heart attack, strokes, prostate and colon cancers and can even lower your cholesterol levels, lower your blood pressure, lower type 2 diabetes.
• You are less likely to become obese and you will lose weight and keep it off with exercise.
• You will discover you have more energy to do things, need less sleep and need little to no caffeine to keep you awake during the day.
• Raising livestock for food accounts for about 1/3 of all the US fossil fuels and about 50 of all the water in the US is used by the meat industry.
• Going vegan/vegetarian stops cruelty to the animals you eat because they feel pain too.

(Taken from http://www.sugarrocket.com/vegan/why-i-am-vegan.php)

Daily water usage in the US for…
An omnivore : 4,200 Gallons
A vegetarian: 1,200 Gallons
A vegan: 300 Gallons

Yearly land usage in the US for food…
An omnivore : 3.3 Acres
A vegetarian: 1/2 Acre
A vegan: 1/6 Acre
To make one pound of “food”…
Pound of beef = 2,500 Gallons of water
Pound of apples = 49 Gallons of water
Pound of lettuce = 23 Gallons of water

But don’t take it just from me do plenty of research at your local library, search on the internet on what vegetarians and vegans can eat and what items you can order when you go to a fast food/restaurant.

Also you don’t have to go completely vegetarian/vegan by incorporating a day or meal each week to be vegetarian/vegan friendly.

In conclusion: Going Vegan/Vegetarian reduces animal suffering, consumption of natural resources, makes you healthier and reduces your carbon footprint!

Posts by the Green Girls you may like:

Veganism – Part 1 (The Reasons)

Guest Editor: Vika Lebedeva – 10 myths about vegan

Useful Links:

http://www.goveg.com/environment-globalwarming.asp

http://www.goveg.com/healthConcerns.asp

http://www.tryveg.com/img/vsg0501.pdf

http://www.goveg.com/feat/chewonthis/index.asp

http://www.backwardshamburger.com/

http://www.veginity.com/

http://www.vegbox-recipes.co.uk/index.php

http://www.vegansociety.com/html/

http://myhq.com/public/s/u/susanv/

http://www.viva.org.uk/goingvegan/index.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD67tltFyAw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05zhL1YUd8Q

Movies/Documentaries to see:

Earthlings

Fast Food Nation

Super Size Me

The Future of Food

Frankenstein foods, biodiversity loss, corporate takeover of the countryside. These have all been given as reasons to hate GM. That’s my experience in the UK.

Some Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in poorer countries support the use of GM crop. These NGOs see it as another problem: the gap between the rich and the poor, between people that grow in order to survive, and those that grow for profit.

Corporate names like Syngenta and Monsanto have become dirty words for opponents of GM crop. Sometimes options are limited, drought, pest resistant GM crop? or famine? Some can not afford the choice. GM producers need vision to survive. If they want to help create the future perhaps they could identify ways to work closer with local communities to tackle food and environmental challenges together. Perhaps they could grow back the rain-forests, or grow plants on the moon? All companies can pursue ethical profit.

World food prices are on the up. Globally this means more people starve to death. But with that comes resource wars, famine, and mass immigration. Oh and the price of bread goes up in your local shop. (Ahhh – That’s why developing countries like GM crop).

GM food could still provide solutions. such as better use of natural fertilizers and local crop varieties. A UN report in April 2008 called for more local food production (1) . Developing countries will need to adapt quickly to survive in a world without the same levels of trade in cash crops with developed countries addicted to unseasonal, flown in food. I only hope that the World Bank accounts for this in their policy making.

Why do we hate those GM crops so much? Well at heart we’ve always been a nation of farmers in the UK (and many other countries). We can still afford the luxury of non-GM varieties. For the moment I prefer vegetables that haven’t been produced so intensively. Those that have used natural fertilizers, as opposed to those generated from oil.

Developed countries don’t have the same concerns as non-developed ones. We do not have wide-scale hunger and nutrition problems. But we do have a legitimate concern for our environment.

I love those local varieties of crop, those that help regional agriculture and resist the development of crop mono-cultures. They make me feel humble. I’m proud of Jersey Potatoes and British Strawberries. I support fair-trade for our farmers. I don’t want to see one type of wheat, I want choice.

The argument against GM is not one against feeding the needy, its one against the alteration of our national natural environment.

(1) UN report demands urgent action on soaring food prices. The Independent, April 2008.

A few days a go I had found a article in Good Housekeeping which talked about what are these fancy names we put on products in the store like “natural” and “no CFC’s” and what they really mean to the consumer. I had read this article and knew about most of the labels and learned some about these labels but there was one that I was curious what it really means when it is labeled so I thought I would do some some research on this label. The label I was curious and done some research on was “organic” the information I had found online was kinda interesting. So heres what I had found out about organic labels.

Organic is a agriculture product made without pesticide, harmful chemicals, hormones. You can find “organic” on most anything but most of the time it is not completely organic unless you see one of many logo’s like these.

These logo’s on products found in groceries stores are quite hard to get placed and certified on a product because they test just about everything from fertilizers to what the wood was treated with on fences and if one thing that is tested as “modified” the produce won’t be certified to sell as organic. Only 100% organic products may use the organic seal. if a product is 95% is organic they can’t put the organic seal but they can say it is a organic substance. If the product is at least 70% they only can label up to three items that are organic. finally if a item has less than 70% organic they can’t say its organic anywhere on the item. for more information visit this site http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/FactSheets/Backgrounder.htm Heres the actual chart that was in the magazine Good Housekeeping. In other words your best bet will be finding a product that has a certified seal that states that it is certified “organic” on the product you want to buy.

Before you buy something try to remember what the correct labels for a item should be and what labels you should not buy into on a certain product.

I’m not sure any of this information applies to people in the U.K. but it certain it does apply to the people in U.S.A.