UKC

We have a fit club thread, so why not a "starting to put my environment shit in order" thread?

Grade-obsessed people probably want some more definition; okay:

1. piss off if you've come to criticise people making an effort

2. piss off if you've come to signal how pure you are already

3. welcome, if you have enjoyed meat and air travel, but do genuinely want to reduce both and would welcome peer support in doing so

No judgements, better than last year is where it's at.

Last year I flew twice.  I will probably do one flight this year - though not booked yet.

Last year I ate meat maybe 4 days a week.  This year, I'm aiming for 3 days/week or less, no red meat, and no "flown" food.

And, for those about to break rule #1, committing to never eating lamb or beef again is a f*cking big deal for some people, ok?

I have planned recipes for the week, so fingers crossed.

Possibly helpful. Chili for nachos made with red lentils is nicer than with mince. 

I ate meat 350 days last year

took zero flights

this year I shall eat meat 349 days

take zero flights

Brill!  recipe?

Not helpful - fk off

Does adding extra mushrooms to my Friday morning bacon and black pudding bap count?

Let me tickle your tummy too - f*ck off.

The great thing about this thread is that tossers are self-identifying.

Our uni canteen makes an excellent Cheeseburger.

Today I deliberately chose the Tofu version (as the main veggie option was some horrible deep fried cauliflower patty).

There must be better options to save the world....

CB

I gave it some thought last year and found a good way to begin to cut back is to stop adding unnecessary meat to dishes. For example, making a mushroom risotto? Hold off on the bacon. We put a lot of meat into dishes which don't really need it - where it's not the focal point of the dish, and it just seems to be a default that it's included. I've tried to stop myself from doing that.

If the dish clearly requires meat (a steak, for example) I don't worry too much, but those meals don't make up much of my meat consumption. I'm more mindful of the more environmentally-damaging meats, and actively consider this when I'm shopping. I've also found myself eating a lot more fish, which comes with its own issues but has less impact on climate change from what I understand.

I can't help but feel a big part of the problem is how disconnected we are from our food. It's possible to walk into Tesco, pick up a pack of pre-packaged mince and never appreciate that it was once a sentient animal. We need to be more in tune with our food, our environment and our planet.

Where are we on fish? I eat no pork, lamb or beef, some poultry and occasional game, lots of veggie. Me and the missus would struggle with giving up Chippie Tuesday's fish supper by the sea.

B*gger off - I have teeth in my mouth especially evolved for chewing meat. My digestive tract has been honed over millions of years to digest the stuff. If climate change means we're off to hell in a handcart I'm bringing a bacon sandwich.

Flying, on the other hand, is unnatural.

I’ve been having more vegetarian sandwiches from the work canteen lately.  This was also influenced by the correlation between me eating their prawn sarnie and then blowing sixes on the Bristol Scale though.

We’ve started one meat free night a week but I do wonder about the carbon cost of the pasta and so on used compared to our meat coming from a local farm.  Having said that, the farm has to transport to and from an abattoir; it does seem like allowing well regulated killing on site would help reduce the carbon cost.  We used to get bison locally that was shot on site (not safe to transport) but it didn’t have enough fat for frying up really.

I try and get a lot of meat that is going to be killed regardless to reduce impact - pigeon shot by farmers as pest control and venison culled for similar reasons.   

Beyond that my efforts are on planning the next round of domestic insulation so we can sensibly move from oil to a heat pump.  As if is we run a cold house.

To be fair, horses are actually vile spiteful creatures and they’re even edible by the time they’re minced.

No.

If that's your view, go elsewhere.

Just because we're evolutionarily adapted to eat meat doesn't mean that we can continue to do so.  We've invented a new problem at a rate that evolution can't keep up with.  Also, our capacity to invent new problems out-strips our capacity to solve them.

And this thread is supposed to be an encouraging place for those trying... and I don't need any more indications that the folk being saved aren't worth the bother.

F#ck Brexit, F#ck politics, F#ck veggie sh1t, F#ck the rest of the non climby crap p1sh that most of the F#ckin armchair keyboard  warrior w4nkers on here go on about.......can we not just have the old UKC back again???

On a lighter note...if the earth falls apart and turns to barren rock, think of all the new routes ))

Glue, not food.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I believe by far the biggest impact environmentally is from the actual farming, not the transport to an abattoir. Moving the abattoir to the farm would be, I suspect, a drop in all of the combined oceans on Earth.

Well.  I'm flattered that your once-a-month posting allowance was squandered on that.

Do you not recognise that there might be a genuine climate problem?  Or that you might help address it?

Or is it just too tempting to take the piss and walk by?

P'haps this isn't the thread for you. I hate running with a burning passion - and thus I don't drop into the running threads, and I don't post on the running threads to tell people how shit running is.

It'd be polite to respect the wishes of the OP and stop trying to derail their thread.

Too right mate....

You are certainly correct there.  

Fair enough. It's a big ask though. You're asking people to ignore their instincts.

I wonder if we've passed the point of no return as far as our planet is concerned - in which case have a mixed grill for god's sakes.

Edit: Exiting stage left

I'm flattered that your flattered, good bye.

I had a horse steak in Austria in the 80's, tasty.

Yeah, I wish Norrie was flaming me, Fawksey was talking utter rubbish and Franco Cookson was an annoying yoof. Times change pal. So do climates it seems eh?

Btw, it's E0. And it does take off.

This is almost like the ‘we don’t eat fish’ scene in Finding Nemo.

It really depends.  The carbon cost of sheep meat has a massive range in particular and cows can vary a lot.  The farm we use is land that’s most too crap for arable crop, breeds and retains all animals on site (no regular transport to/from markets), moves animals between fields on their legs not in vehicles, makes extensive use of hilly wind power etc, grows winter feed on site, uses hedges not fences where possible, forests land not suitable for sheep or feed production etc.  Their final trip is probably the most carbon intensive part of their existence.  There is the implicit carbon cost of not having forest instead.

Your entire physiology is evolved to eat SOME meat. Your teeth in particular are optimized not for meat (which can be efficiently digested anyway and does not need to be chewed to death), but mainly for processing plant matter that needs grinding (as we cannot break down the cell walls and, unlike cows or horses, do not have helpful commensals that do the job for us). Just compare our teeth to those of pigs and dogs.

Also, the rest of our physiology is similarly optimized for a plant (and in part also dairy) centred diet. Just look at the health problems caused by eating too much meat, with diseases like obesity, gout or atherosclerosis virtually absent from countries with predominantly vegetarian diets (they have other problems): We can only handle so much fat, protein, and short chain sugars, specifically if we do not burn lots of energy foraging and keeping warm, and if we want to live beyond, say, forty years.

I guess the limited meat consumption that was common up to a few decades ago, with meat largely limited to a Sunday roast, and smaller amounts of sausage or ham per slice of bread than we are used to today, is actually much closer to our evolutionary specs.

Better quality meat less often is what I aim for.

CB

A cursory Google suggests that one cow is worth the equivalent of about 2.3T of CO2 (in methane) per year. That's about 8000 miles in the humble Fossilfuelmobile. Multiplied by 1.5 billion cows in the world...

You cannot have a proper Assiette valaisianne without horse meat! You should try some next time you are climbing in Switzerland.

Also, the horses bred for meat are outside year round, probably on par with venison in terms of animal welfare.

CB

I think that’s the problem - the times I’ve knowingly eaten horse I suspect they’ve been old knackers that exceeded their useful working life.

We mainly eat sheep.  Sheep are not cows when it comes to methane production.  I don’t believe I have claimed all animal production worldwide to be fluffy and roses; just noted that what I buy is on the least impactful end of the spectrum.  From my estimates and googling I think the trip to the abattoir of the sheep I eat is worse than their methane impact.

I’m well aware that the whole world can’t afford to eat meat that’s produced with such low impact.

Edit to add - your quoted CO2 equivalent for the methane from cows is at the larger extreme of values in literature, with other estimates being as much as 30x lower.  There are a lot of factors at work behind these numbers and it’s daft to pretend a billion cows are the same - different diets, species, gut microbiota, climates, waste management.  As I understand if there is scope to massively reduce the methane output from cow farming which surely should be considered as part of a solution.  Although some people will let their views on others eating animals cloud their judgement in favour of their preferred solution. 

Are the Inuit a sub species ?

What if you live with Vegis who also don’t fly and you have their share of the meat?

Great thread, thank you. I and Mr Busy are eating almost no meat and some fish. I am sutprised how little I miss it, even bacon.

Theres a bloke at work whose Mrs is vegan. He fills his boots at the butty van and especially when she works away/goes out

My Mrs went veggie a couple of years back and to my annoyance I, totally without trying, lost a stone over six months.

Thanks for starting this thread.

We have become largely vegetarian, but we do still have occasional meat. I honestly struggle with a vegetarian diet. We have a busy work life and whereas I could cook lots of meals with some meat in them without thinking, I struggle with cooking vegetarian meals at the end of a long day, and resort to eg tortellini, so I'd love to hang on this thread and see what people cook, as it may well help (if you don't mind!). The other thing, in getting to this point, we first cut down how much we ate of meat, and started using it more for flavour, e.g. bacon in a carbonara, we just used less, and upped the mushrooms, as the flavour goes a long way. Same with chilli, upped the veg and beans, and reduced the meat making a big batch last a long time. That worked for us anyway. Another thing I struggle with is stock. I used to use meat stock a lot, and I hate the taste of common veg stocks.  So any suggestions greatly appreciated.

We do still have some meat, mostly now on special occasions, as a treat, but we try to get that meat from the butcher on the basis of what they have which is local and which is organic, rather than going in with a preconceived idea of what we wanted. That would probably make a big difference in terms of climate change if meat eaters did that, rather than buying cellophane wrapped meat from the supermarket. Just an idea.

Ironically, having read about nutrient cycles and building soil, we are actually getting chickens, which is for eggs until the end of their laying life when we will eat them, and this is about deliberately turning lawn into meadow, improving biodiversity, soil and to make more composting material for our veg, which we're pretty sure will be carbon positive on balance.

Do you realise that from your posts you sometimes come across as a po-faced know-all?

I used to make much shorter posts but certain posters would regularly and sometimes - I think - deliberately misinterpret them.  

So now I take the time to explain how I got to the views I have.

People can always skip on past my posts...

I get the explaining, it's the po-faced bit you need to work on...

Dollop of Marmite is a revelation. Turns out it's what the cheapskates have been using in commercial beef stocks forever anyway. Marmite, miso, soy sauce, sundried tomato paste, kombu, dried mushrooms, lentil/bean cooking water. Other than that, save a bag of veg scraps from cooking and then make a big batch of stock (saute your veg in a bit of oil before adding the water) and freeze it in portions.

I’ve just eaten Richard Branson. Is that carbon negative or positive?

He tasted of pork, cheap supermarket pork. 

You know @aln I really struggle with this. I gave up meat about two years ago, no problems at all. Fish on the other hand I struggle (present tense) with, all sea food really. The damage caused by the fishing and farmed fish industry to the environment is catastrophic, I highly recommend the book Farmageddom for more insight into this. Despite being aware of the damage it does I still, selfishly in my opinion, excuse myself on occasion to consume it. The thinking, wrongly, being well once won't hurt.

I hope this doesn't come across as virtue signaling, I feel that this thread is part of the great step forward that individuals are taking in questioning their behaviour and its impact on climate change. Personally, I believe that this is a good thing but real change needs to come from government led initiatives and a questioning of the current economic and social growth led systems. 

Sounds good. However if lentils are the only source of protein in the meal it is deficient in some essential amino acids which humans cannot form. As we can't store amino acids or proteins It may be that this meal is useless for forming new proteins for muscle, connective tissue etc (I may be wrong about this as I'm extrapolating from remembered school biology...if so perhaps someone can correct me).

oohhh a keyboard hero has his  handbag out xx

must feel really good to be so righteous and look down your nose at people who are happy with thier diet.

keep it up  

Made a veggie wellington last night.

OK, except that I remembered I don't like pastry all that much, and it asked for orange zest and cranberries which was all a bit "Chrsitmas spice" for me.  Next time, more marmite, less fruit.  The mushrroms were great though.  I think I'm going to be eating a lot of mushrooms.

What do people do about cheese?  I'm not sure I can live without cheese?

Not really - just that this thread isn't really for people like you.

Although it might help you lose that rather impressive gut.

No. However, they are a group in which certain gene versions (and especially combinations thereof) are specifically enriched to help them cope with their extreme environment and diet, which of course gives them a unique and readily identifiable genetic signature. Otherwise they fall clearly in the general North Eurasian clade.

This is nothing special, think of indigenous populations living at high altitude, e.g. the Andes or Tibet, and their specializations with respect to coping with low oxygen pressure, or the rapid fixing of lactose tolerance in populations that have invented dairy farming.

CB

These are the horses in your Lasagne... 

CB

I wasnt suggesting it as the only meal to eat!! 

Came in here intending to take part. Already been hijacked by the dickheads I see. Guess I won't bother then if I have to sift through the debate to get anything.

Why can't people just let others get on with stuff FFS?

Tossers

Stay - they'll get bored soon enough

I don't think there was much self righteousness going on, but there was a lot of self-confessional callousness! We're all hypocrits here, but just want to try and do a bit better. If you're happy with your diet and know and are happy with the climate (and thus human and environmental) destructive impact of it, then please go and advertise that elsewhere. However, this was a thread explicitly for those who want to try to make a little effort, and was explicitly not for virtue signalling. 

Nice one. Yup we use alot of mushrooms. Just a big baked mushroom with garlic, salt, herbs and olive oil is wonderful. My favourite veggie curry is saag aloo, sometimes with cauliflower too with fried mustard seeds, coriander and methi (fenugreek) leaf later in the dish. My favourite stir fry is pad kaprow, which is a stir fry with thai holy basil (which Asda's often have), chilli, garlic, pepper, and whatever your favourite veg are.

Well I didn't want to hijack your op, but this is where I struggle. I love cheese. Again, I try to buy organic and local, but other than that, I eat alot of it, so would like to hear other's suggestions around this.

Well I did plough through to the end, but I do so agree with you. Anyway ploughing through to the end led me to your comment, so thank you for lifting my spirits again.

^ This.  Did 'fit club' have similar problems in its first week?  Dunno, I never look at that thread.  (Which is kind of the point.)

If you're serious about making this a weekly thread, stick at it.  The novelty for the interlopers will wear off soon enough.  Best of luck.

I hope you’re right about the ‘bored soon enough’ - it’s interesting to read thoughtful comments from all sides, but the simply negative ones don’t usefully progress the discussion.  Please continue to post on your findings.

It’s good to know that people consider what they eat and thought-provoking to read the different views and reasons people have for what they choose to eat. Interesting comments made by meat-eaters and non-meat-eaters alike.  (BTW I’m vegan for a number of reasons - not virtue signalling, simply a statement. As a general rule I don’t mention it, but here it is pertinent to do so.) 

Further to MG’s suggestion of red lentils for chilli for nachos, you could try green or speckled lentils too, both add a savouryiness. 

For gravy, I don’t eat much of it but my husband recommends vegetable gravy granules, Marigold brand, Sainsbury’s own label and Tesco’s own label.

Cheese was a problem for me too for some time, and it’s replacement still doesn’t figure much in my food but when it does, I can recommend Violife Mediterranean style cheese (Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Tesco’s), also Marigold Engevita yeast flakes (Waitrose, Tesco’s). Violife do other ‘cheeses’ but I’ve not tried them so can’t comment. I’ve tried a number of other brands over the years, they vary a lot as replacements. Violife Mediterranean is nice if you used to like a tangy cheddar. If you prefer a dairy cheese but would like to consider an alternative to cow’s cheese, my husband has goat’s cheese, most supermarkets have it, often own brands, but I understand that St Helen’s Farm cheese is good. Hope this helps.

I have  six chickens for laying. Living in the countryside, we let them 'out' every day and they are free to roam wherever they like. I guess they must be the luckiest chickens on this Earth as they will never be eaten, they live all their natural life and  we know one morning we will find them 'expired'. We buy their replacements along with chickens to be eaten  from a nearby organic poultry  farmer. 

Decided to cut out processed meats (for health rather than environmental reasons) and found meat consumption dropped by half. No bacon sandwiches, use mushrooms in cassoulet, basically less pig.

To add flavour I make Nage stock and freeze it in cubes so I can add small amounts to boost flavour.

Honest Burger (fantastic burger joint, if you have not been ...GO!) do a vegan burger that is so realistic that my mate who is your typical alpha male, hairy, strong, opinionated rare steak lover was totally blown away by it and now only orders it over their meat options (it is the most expensive thing on the menu though which is a bit annoying)

Just an FYI to help burger lovers kick the habit

The biggest change I've made as regards meat consumption is almost exclusively buying from local and as often as is possible, organic producers.  I can't  remember the last time I 'picked up some meat' from a supermarket. We certainly eat a lot less, perhaps twice a week. We're spoiled  for choice, with chicken, Black Bigorre (Iberic) pork and wild boar almost on our doorstep. Last weekend we went over the border into Spain ( Aragon) to buy some lamb for Easter. The butcher, who's family has been trading for nearly 100 years uses locally sourced lamb that grazes on the Pyrenées, slaughtered on the premises.  We usually fill a couple of cool-boxes of the vacuum packed meat, carbon foot print and all that ! 

If you ever find yourselves in the  Aragonese Pyrénées, look them up

:https://www.carniceriamodesto.com

Quite a lot of gravy granules are veggie, though you have to read the small print to see that as the manufacturers generally don't want to advertise it.  For the same reason the makers of Bovril kept schtum when that was vegetarian for a few years in the aftermath of the 'mad cow' thing, I suppose - they want their customers to assume there is meat in there.

Looking at it from an environmental PoV I think it's actually harder to find gravy granules without palm oil than without meat.

I used to keep chickens too. Many years ago when I used to eat eggs. They were bought from a farmer as ‘past their useful laying life’ but we found they had plenty of laying life left.  We built them a wooden chicken-house, off the ground so they were safe at night from foxes and rats. Their house had individual boxes attached to the side for laying as they like a bit of privacy. During the day they were out in the garden. They were such entertaining characters, and you can definitely see where the phrase ‘pecking order’ came from when you watch their behaviour as they go up the ramp into their house at night. Like you, we used to let them live out their lifespan and then bury them. 

Good point re palm oil. 

Appeals to nature never work well if you stop for a nanosecond to think. I look forward to seeing pictures of you au naturale in your cave. On second thoughts, no I don't. 

"Better quality meat less often is what I aim for."

This is my philosophy for wine as well

Ok, I will play along with your criteria as I'm looking to cut down on my meat intake as well, I see people have asked about fish and cheese, what about eggs?

Yesterday my diet consisted of fried egg for breakfast, super noodles and an apple for lunch and then bottle of wine and big bag of crisps for dinner - no meat but not exactly a healthy day

Today has started with a two egg and mushroom omelet, Ive got some home made red pepper soup for lunch with some fish at home for dinner (went to fishmonger yesterday) - but being Friday evening I can see more wine and possibly more crisps later

Again, another no meat day, but plenty of eggs, along with wine and crisps - hmm, perhaps I need to reduce the crisp intake   

Apologies for diverting from the thread. I appreciate I forgot point 1 in the OP. I just thought a main course  based on lentils might provide no protein (IF I'm correct) and subsequent meals should correct that.  However you've tempted me to try it to see if it really is better than mince!

True, and also for cheese, climbing kit, and everything else, really.

CB

The only thing I have found which cuts down Friday night crisp intake is crochet.  I have to put it down to pick up a crisp, lose my place then don’t want to get crisp grease on my work, so it deters me.  And by the time I get to a point where I can have a crisp my kids/husband have eaten them all.

I gave up cheap wine for Lent.

I didn't drink any less. It just cost me a whole lot more...

Good thread, hope it becomes a regular one...

I've been a Vegetarian / Pescatarian for nearly 35 years now, but last few years become a 'thinkatarian' and really care for the way that food is produced, packaged and how healthy it is. Started growing some of my own crops last year and trying to forage and fish more regularly. 

Nettle soup's on the menu today

I've given up "Meet and Greet" at Heathrow

I promise I'll never watch "Meet the Fockers" again

Can I eat Spam? There's no meat in that I think

I don't think that's really relevant unless someone was proposing exclusively eating those chilli nachos for every meal. Any single meal will be missing some parts of some food groups, and that's just fine as long as you're getting what you need from your overall diet.

True.

I guess if anyone is worried they could buy a jar of multi vitamin tablets.

My son was strict vegetarian from birth to about age 16 and grew up healthy and clever. I suspect the whole vitamin deficiency thing is a red herring.

Good thread, thanks for starting it. As the OP and others have said, this is more of a self help group than anything to do with virtue signalling, so I'm not sure why anyone not interested in this is particularly commenting.

I've recently (like, this week) made the decision to cut down meat consumption as much as I can...I'll see how long I last I guess, but I think having one meat day per week is doable for me. Doing it this way means I can still eat meat if someone invites me round for dinner, for example. Random initial thoughts on it:

- Going food shopping was surprisingly liberating as, while there was a load of stuff I could no longer buy, I enjoyed thinking more about what I may cook that week and I was impressed by the number of veggie options in the freezer aisle.

- This stuff is a minefield when you think about your overall environmental impact. e.g. cutting out meat reduces my impact in one respect, but then what is the impact of the manufacturing of meat replacements such as Quorn? I honestly have no idea and haven't yet made the effort to find out.

- I make a sandwich for my lunch every day and normally would have ham or beef, so am now looking for good substitutes. Cheese isn't bad, but I find a bit dry in a sandwich, and I tried Quorn "ham style" slices which were....odd. I had one sandwich with some fake chicken, which was surprisingly close to the real thing (I'll check the brand when I get home). Any suggestions welcome on this!

- I like milk, so I think that may be the hardest bit for me to cut out. I have been told Oat milk is one of the best substitutes but, again, how does this all compare in terms of emission and land use? A minefield when you really try to work it all out.

I don't post on UKC much but will try to check in on this occassionally as long as it's people sharing ideas and recipes etc and not just sniping and accusations of us acting holier than thou.

Oat milk tastes great in cereals. The kids prefer it to real milk, i think because it tastes sweet. The oat milk seems to last for ages. We still use normal organic milk and oat milk. We tried oat milk because we read it has the least impact, certainly in terms of water consumption and doesn't contribute to deforestation. But i haven't found a local one yet. It is also apparently straightforward to make.

This milk is even better:

youtube.com/watch?v=dhjGXCk-RVU&

- I make a sandwich for my lunch every day and normally would have ham or beef, so am now looking for good substitutes. Cheese isn't bad, but I find a bit dry in a sandwich, and I tried Quorn "ham style" slices which were....odd. I had one sandwich with some fake chicken, which was surprisingly close to the real thing (I'll check the brand when I get home). Any suggestions welcome on this!

I found the key to reducing meat was not trying to substitute with "fake meat" in a meal or dish that I used to eat, but preparing/cooking completely different dishes. Rather than a sandwich a hunk of bread with a flask of soup or  a wrap filled with hummus/falafel and salad, A bento box of cold rice, marinated tofu, pickled vegetables.

Don't want to divert the main thread too much but useful to know that (IF I'm correct) it won't just be part of a food group but probably no protein at all would be obtained from that particular meal. I take your point that subsequent meals should make up for it. I think most pulses are deficient in the same essential amino acids (with the notable exception of soya which has the lot). Proviso: I may be incorrect and hope someone with better knowledge can advise. The meal sounds well worth trying though!

For sandwiches - Marmite. Mmmmmmmm....

Also bananas, Tartex spread (the mushroom one is lovely), peanut butter, hummus. Not all together

Also crisps, but here we enter the minefield....once I start I don’t want to stop!

If you find cheese a bit dry, try sliced cherry tomatoes with it. Or pickle. My husband says cheese isn’t so dry in a sandwich if you grate it - I can’t give an opinion on that but it sounds reasonable.

My kids have been veggie since birth, as has my wife. I've been a veggie for decades and I'm thriving. Running marathons and ultras, all be it slowly (because I'm lazy and fat.)

I find the thread heartening, in a non patronizing way. Like friends trying to give up smoking. Of course there will be lapses, but if the general direction is downwards that's got to be a good thing.

I'd suggest that rather than looking at it from a 'I'm missing out on ..." point of view. Look at it from a "wow that looks interesting" point of view. If you went for a posh meal and Heston served jack fruit pork and hemp milk, you'd rave about it (possibly).

There are lots of new products in supermarkets, I'm amazed by the range. Go and explore, if you like cooking. If you're more of a processed foods type, there are plenty of ways you can swap out meat for an alternative.

Regarding the "recipe", just replace the mince with red lentils and bubble for a long time until the lentils have mushed up. 

My wife and I eat meat at most once a week, and when we do it is chicken. I very rarely (like, once a year), eat red meat. The norm is loads of vegetables, sometimes roasted, sometimes in soups or stews, sometimes with noodles South-East Asia style, or whatever seems nice. We have loads of cook books and an allotment and enjoy the food. It is all lovely.

All of this is done out a combination of interests in food cultures, a care for our health and a care for the planet, including the other animals we share it with. Nothing unusual there.

Where I struggle is with milk. I have it on oats with fruit and six (not five, not seven, four and eight are right out) almonds in the morning and in coffee. On this, I am with Mike Berners-Lee, he of 'How Bad Are Bananas?' and brother of the THAT Berners-Lee. He describes in the book how he and his colleagues at his low carbon consultancy tried going without milk in tea and coffee but found it horrible so decided to fight other battles and come back to the milk thing when they'd won them all. My wife has some non-dairy stuff on her birkemuesli, but I don't like it.

And bread. I like bread.

On the whole question of what is the best thing to do, diet-wise, for the sake of least impact on the planet, or on the climate specifically, I have tried to do calculations, but have always ended up scratching my head. Meat-eater, vegetarian, vegan, local, in-season? None of these choices, I found,  seemed unequivocally to lead to higher or lower emissions, although I picked up that food-miles were less of an issue than I had supposed, unless planes were used. 

For example, if you switch from a meat and dairy diet to a vegan one, then you need a lot of vegetables to get the same energy intake, and if those vegetables are grown in hot houses, it is not so immediately clear that the switch leads to lower emissions. So you need to take care about where and how the vegetables were grown, and rapidly you run out of data or  time to finish the calculation...

What I have often pondered over is whether the idea of a locally sourced, maybe organic diet is in fact anything other than a lifestyle choice, with benefits for the local economy, for biodiversity and for personal control and knowledge over what one eats, but not necessarily something that would lead to lower emissions than a Tesco bought, massive distribution centre channelled, huge mega-farm grown, animal abusing, motorway-arctic transported packet of something, given the standard of living we want, and given how many of us there are. The latter represents an utterly different relationship to the environment and those we share it with. In many respects it seems abhorrent, but surely it has the advantage in terms of efficiencies of use, control and measurement of resources and inputs. it is not clear to me that, from a narrow impact-on-climate-change perspective, it is the worse option. Indeed, I wonder and fear if it is the only option.

In terms of local organic grass fed meat from your butcher (vs intensive meat from a supermarket that might mean eg US or Argentinian beef), the efficiency in terms of per land productivity is poor but the emissions should be lower per animal. However, that sort of system is not globally scalable for current levels of meat consumption. One area that the critics of a meat free diet are right on is that much of the carbon impact assessment of meat farming do not include or even attempt to include evidence of soil carbon gains which in low intensity grazing is evidenced to be soil carbon building. However, buying organic local meat from a butcher doesn't guarantee you that that is the way animals are farmed, but it is the only selection the consumer can apply which is in that more environmental direction of travel. What we really need is farms to unbreak nutrient cycles which provide for greater land productivity and soil building, growing plants with animals in mixed farms along agroforestry and permaculture lines, albeit streamlined for efficiency.

Is it really natural to consume the sheer quantities of meat we do in the UK though?

Winner! 

I think your thread is a great idea, and if you are as committed to this as you sound - then I'm very impressed.

What I can improve is to source more local vegetables, grow my own food, and to work with the seasons better.

The latest two things were making sauerkraut (yay! second attempt succeeded) - but it was too salty to eat without being rinsed first, but I put it into my hummus salad and it tastes good.

The other thing which was experimental - was pickled wild chervil (I cheated and just used the brine from an existing jar of shop bought pickled asparagus). I only put a little bit in my hummus salad (I tend to have 2 of these for lunch every week), but the first indications are that the pickling has taken the edge off and created something greater than the sum of parts. The key is to harvest the chervil stems before they flower (as apparently then the stems are at maximum sweetness and minimum bitterness), and to go for the thinner ones rather than the fat stalks which are a bit thready. I'm thinking there must be a way to harvest the fatter stalks, but I haven't come up with a plan yet.

I think you guys are so inspiring to us all that this could make a good program outside of UKC as well as inside. 

I have often gone the other way, a steak is a big chunk of meat, a slice of bacon is considerably less so you could probably have 10-15 risottos with bacon in it for the same meat use as a steak dinner. I started cutting down on meat after reading Hugh Fearnley-Wittinstalls meat book in my teens Although back then his aim was more an animal welfare one I've often followed his advice to treat meat almost like a seasoning. Things like a stick of chorizo will make a dozen meat based meals but only weigh a third of what a steak would. We had a beef roast about 10 days ago. Had a couple of thin slices with the meal with some seasonal veggies. There's still a box of it in the freezer but it's been in probably about 20 meals and lunches in some way or another. I had a slice chopped up and fried in with some cherry tomatoes and pasta last night, probably about 20 grammes of meat compared to maybe 150g per portion in a spag bol. I think one of our problems with reducing meat culturally is that we see it as a single meal, meat and two veg etc., a chicken roast where the carcass goes in the bin instead of feeding you for a week etc.

This wasn't intended as a criticism by the way, just an alternative approach. I couldn't agree more with your final sentiment on the loss of thought over what meat is.

I've really struggled to find decent vegetable burgers, did not really like the honest burger ones though not tried the vegan one.  The best place I've found is the Temple of Seitan in Camden but there seem to be a few vegan only burger joints opening up, the ones I've tried are pretty good.

Hmmm.  Had my first real challenege yesterday on this very point.

Went out for lunch at an unknown pub, not chosen by me.  Menu very pubbie but thought I'd try a veggie option, of which there was a lone bean burger.  Spent the rest feeling conflicted - it was pretty dire so part of me wished I'd had ham egg and chips (as the thing least easy to mess up) but it was on my plate, so one meat meal avoided.  Must learn to inspect menus ahead.

I'll admit I'm looking forward to tomorrow's chicken casserole - the chicken is in the freezer, so may as well eat it.  Not exactly a craving, but the deeper savouryness will be nice.

I keep seeing ads for Huel (I'm sure other similar products are available), a vegan meal-replacement shake-type thingy. It seems to be made of oats, rice, peas, flaxseed and coconut, with added vitamins and minerals, and claims to give a full-house set of all required nutri requirements in 'correct' proportions. Sounds quite dull unless other flavours are added but would be fine for lunch/fuel on a busy work day.

Got me wondering how easy - and presumably much cheaper - it would be to make one's own. 

Anyone tried?

That is very true, but when you're really in the mood for steak there aren't many substitutes for steak. I rarely eat steak, but very occasionally after a hard [ice hockey game/workout/week of climbing] I really do fancy one.

Bacon, on the other hand, adds very little to my risotto. If it's not there I don't at all miss it - I just add some other ingredients to add flavour instead. When I think about it like that, I can't justify adding meat to the dish.

In order to reduce our red meat intake, Mrs Num Num and I have switched to veal

We’re testing out coach travel rather than plane travel. As far as I can tell it’s got about 1/2 the CO2 emissions compared to flying, which isn’t brilliant but taking the train just costs too much. Flying would be the cheapest by far, it’s friggin ridiculous.

So far it’s been much better than I expected.  It takes loads more time to get anywhere, we were on the coach for 26 hours between London and Madrid. Our kids coped amazingly well, so far I haven’t wanted to kill either of them (and I gather that environmentally speaking killing them would be a good thing?). The coach was fairly comfortable, it even had WiFi (granted it didn’t work well) and usb charging sockets. Sleeping on the coach was not fun, it improved when the coach emptied out a bit and we got some more room.

We are now in sunny Spain enjoying our hols, it’s taken us 3 days of travel to get here but we just had to think of that as part of the experience. The environmentally aware thing to do is probably to holiday at the bottom of our garden but f*ck that we need a holiday this year and his thread is about improvements not perfection right?

Thanks for your effort. And your account of it. We really need to plough the fossil fuel subsidies that go to tge aeronautical industry into things like trains to make them way more accessible and make flights cost what they actually should cost environmentally. Have a good holiday.

Planning recipes for next week.

If you name it I'll cook it (within reason) and report back.  Hit me with your favourites.

Pad kaprow

Stir fry with your favourite veg, but quorn mince works in this too if you prefer a meat replacement.

Prepare in advance chilli and garlic. I usually do 6 medium chillis, half seeds in and half seeds out and finely chopped. Finely chop six large cloves of garlic.

Pre-prepare chopped red onion with a selection of your favourite veg. Not too chunky.

Pre dilute a few tablespoons of light soy source with as much water as you like to make a stock you like the taste of, add pinch of white pepper and a few decent grinds of black pepper. Add a decent pinch of dark/brown sugar.

Finely chop bunch of thai holy basil. You can get this in Asda or Tesco grown in uk. However, instead I grow "massive leaf" basil which has a similar aniseed flavour and grows well in the UK. Normal (sweet) basils like genoviese aren't right. Put the herbs in with the light soy stock.

With a very hot wok or frying pan, stir fry onion first until cooked as desired, I like a little brown on their edges, then add veg of choice, and with them half chilli and garlic. Fry until veg cooked as you like them. Add remaining chilli and garlic and fry for another minute. Then add light soy stock mix  (which includes the chopped herbs). Heat through and take if the heat.

Serve with rice, noodles or your grain of choice.

If you want to try quorn mince, add it after you add your veg mix, once the veg are half way there and before the second round of chilli and garlic.

I have korean mint growing this year, which i'm going to try and compare it to the mammoth leaf basil I usually use.

I hope you can try this and enjoy jt.

Get mammoth leaf basil seed from the "real seed" company.

After we're done eradicating the herbivores we can concrete over wetlands next.

Thanks - that looks fab.  It's on the list

Not tried making my own but my wife bought a few bags of huel. Its a trial to get through but its tasty if you make choc chip energy balls with it. Or use roasted nuts. That's the most palatable method we've found that works for us.

Good luck explaining that to my pony-loving daughter!

Same here, we had our first Assiette at my brother's place near Sion when our girls were 9 and 11...

CB

I like meat, particularly beef, which I suspect is one of the more environmentally damaging.

I've recently taken the decision to significantly reduce my meat intake, my idea is to be veggie during the week and only eat meat at the weekends, when I do eat meat I want it to be high quality and unprocessed. I'll follow this thread for ideas.

We do aubergine and black bean chilli fairly regularly - it's tasty, easy and freezes well.

Chop a couple of medium aubergines (c. 450g) into bite sized pieces and fry to soften and brown a little. Tip out into a bowl.

Chop and fry 2 red onions, along with 4 garlic cloves until soft. Add chopped red chillies (we use about 8-10 but ymmv) & fry for about 5 mins.

Add two tins of chopped tomatoes, a tsp of ground coriander, some ground cumin (recipe says a pinch but I put more in), a pinch of cinnamon and a bay leaf. Chuck in the cooked aubergines. Simmer for 5 mins

Drain a tin of black beans and add to the chilli. Season well and cook for about 15 mins. Add a some 70% dark chocolate (recipe calls for a tbsp of grated chocolate but I normally just break up a couple of pieces because life is too short to grate things that are about to melt)

Serve with soured cream (if not vegan) and rice or pittas. It also works really well as a filling for burritos, with a blob of rice and some cheese