Category Archives: Environment

Too Much Getting Sent All Over

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We have had our current computer, an iBook, since 2003 or so.  It still runs fine.  We have updated the operating system.  We can send email and write documents and watch videos and all the other computer stuff one might do these days.  But we are starting to have a few issues.  For one, the R key is off.  It popped off, literally, once (snagged on a sleeve, I believe) and we couldn’t get it back on quote right.  It still works but requires a small extra effort to type that important letter (22 of them so far, including the ones in these parentheses).  The screen also has some issues, turning half blue if it is tilted at the wrong angle.  Oh, and the battery is dead, so essentially it is a desktop on the counter.

So we decided to get a new computer.  Here is our strategy:  cash in all the points we have accumulated from our credit card for a mortgage payment (who knew you could get that?) and use what would have been our mortgage payment to buy a new computer.  We want to get another Mac (I mean, duh) and right now they have a deal that we would be prudent to accept.  We can get a free iPod Touch with the purchase of a new computer.  Done.  At least, I tried to make it so.  Then I pulled the plug.

A couple of days ago I went to the Apple web site and put in an order.  I even got the free engraving on the iPod Touch.  I was excited and eager to get the goods.  I splurged on the $19 remote for the desktop (the laptop just seemed more than we needed after using our current one in stationary mode for so long).  Then my wife pointed out that you can download a 99 cent app and turn your Touch into a remote.  When I tried to go back to the order online (now a mere hour old) I couldn’t separate the remote from the order.  It looked like I would have to cancel the whole thing.  So I called.

The good news came first.  “We won’t make you cancel the order,” the rep told me.  “We’ll just leave the remote in there and credit you $19.”  What a deal!  Then she mentioned the tax holiday.  Vermont has a tax holiday on August 22nd so no one has to pay state sales tax on anything under $2,000.  We would save close to $100.  That seemed stupid to pass up.  But it would mean I would have to cancel the order and start over, ordering on August 22nd.  So I told her to cancel it.  That meant no free remote.

The problem was that the iPod Touch was already being processed and it was too late to stop that being sent.  They are quick with those puppies apparently.  No big deal, I thought, I can wait for the computer.  The catch, however, is that to get the free iPod Touch you have to order it at the same time as the computer.  So now I would have to pay for the Touch or send it back when it arrived.  Free sounds a lot better than $229 to me.  They would email some labels so I could mail it back without having to pay postage.  Easy.  Done.  I hung up.

But then I remembered that if you get engraving on an iPod you can’t return it.  So I called back.  This time I talked to Sheryl, and she was patient with me.  She told me that typically they would not accept an engraved iPod as a return, but they would make an exception for me.  What a deal!  Great customer service, I’m thinking.  Then I asked her what would happen to it when it got sent back.  She said they would remove the back, where it is engraved, put on a new back, and sell it as refurbished.  So they would pay the postage to get it to me, pay the postage to get it returned, then make less of a profit on top of that.  That seems, well, kind of dumb, considering I really do want the thing.  If they would simply let me keep it and use the rebate (and it is a rebate after all, meaning I have to pay for it and get the cash back) then everyone would be better off.  They would have less work to do, make more money, and I would get what I wanted faster, all saving green house gases and fuel and whatever else would be saved.

So I will get my new toy in the mail, send it back, and then re-order the whole kit and kaboodle in a couple of weeks.  I hate to wait, but I also hate to pay an extra hundred bucks.  I loved Apple’s customer service, but it does make me a tad concerned for the company’s future.  They were willing to give me a free remote, take back something they wouldn’t normally take back, at a loss perhaps, and mail me something twice that I am sure would be perfectly good the first time.  I will end up with what I want in the end, I suppose, although I will have to wait longer than I wanted.  Apple takes the hit.  That is too bad.  I am sure it could have been better for both of us but hey, not all relationships can’t be perfect, now can they?

Birds and Coffee

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We have a huge field in front of the house, but we do not seem to have any nesting bobolinks in that field.  They are in the fields all around, just not ours.  Throughout the day I can hear their warbling.  They sometimes pass over our field but they seem to avoid it.  It is a puzzle.

One theory is that the plants in the field are not what they like.  We cut it once every year, in the fall, and let it mulch itself.  This keeps things open.  If we left it to grow a forest would trying to occupy that field in a couple of years.  Maybe these birds prefer the grass in the fields that get hayed.  Frankly, we were hoping that by keeping it open we might attract bobolinks.  So much for that idea.  We do attract lots of butterflies and lots of other birds, however, so we have that.

Another theory is that our neighbor’s cat loves our field too much.  Either it has driven off the bobolinks that did manage to make a home here or the birds decided not to stay when they discovered the cat.  Nice place to visit but the neighborhood just isn’t all that safe.

Maybe it’s too wet.  Maybe all the activity around the house intimidates them.  Maybe it smells bad to them.  I don’t know.  In any case, I love to listen to them.  We do get to hear them sing and that is a joy.  Maybe one of these days they will come around to stay.  The cat can’t live forever.

Listening to the bobolinks, and then the hermit thrushes and robins late in the day, plus the red-winged blackbird scolding me for getting too close to her next, and the field sparrows and the kingbirds, I’ve got a lot to keep my ears busy.  Tomorrow I get to head out early to try to find one of the most elusive birds in Vermont, Bicknell’s thrush.  I don’t hear that bird in our field.  They only hang out up high where the trees are dense on the mountains.  I’ll have to get up early.

They typically only sing during the day’s bookends–dawn and dusk.  So I will rise at 2:00 in order to drive and then hike to get where I need to be on time.  I am a volunteer for Mountain Birdwatch, a program of the Vermont Center for Ecostudies. I will listen for Bicknell’s thrush and other birds in the wee hours.  This made me think about coffee.

A hot cup of coffee might be nice as I drive in the dark.  So I had the idea of setting up the brewer tonight.  Then I though I wouldn’t.  Then I thought why not?  I am still wavering.  And then I thought about the connection.  One reason thrushes and other migrating songbirds are threatened is because their wintering grounds are no longer what they were.  When forests get slashed for coffee plantations, birds have to find a new place to hang out in the northern winter.  Where do they go?

I try to purchase shade grown free trade coffee, partly because of this study.  I learned to hear a Bicknell’s trush because I volunteered nine years ago and I still am amazed by its song.  To know it is still there, that it has returned for another summer, fills with the unexplainable wonder of the world.  So making sure the coffee I drink doesn’t impinge on that is important.  It is an easy thing to do.  I will get some coffee on the way home either way, but do I sip in the car?

You know, I think I will.  I never have and one thing I can’t stand is things staying the same for too long.  It is easy to fall into a pattern and just keep following it.  If I don’t break things up, I feel stuck.  So I guess I have one more thing to do to get ready before the morning.

Packaging

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I recently ordered some syrup. I’m talking flavored syrups to jazz up my espresso drinks. I like to add some flavors here and there, mix it up a little, go for something different. I know some folks are purists and just don’t like to add flavors. I can go with straight up but I also like to add some zing. I was out–I had been for a while–so I ordered some more from Amazon.

When you order from Amazon, as you may know if you have ordered from Amazon, you often have the choice of getting things from outside vendors. I had lots of options, and I went with the two syrups I wanted from two different sellers. I received them on the same day.

I received a bottle of Monin hazelnut syrup from CoffeeAM. It was just what I ordered and was shipped intact. It was packaged well, in fact. I can’t imagine it would have broken. The packaging was pretty cool, actually. It was a self-inflating tube of plastic. The problem is that it was all plastic. Plus it was packed in polystyrene peanuts–more plastic.  Here is what it looked like:

Glass in Plastic in Cardboard

Glass in Plastic in Cardboard

I received a bottle of Monin coconut syrup from Boba Tea Direct. It also was packed well enough that it would have taken a lot to have broken. Again, I was impressed by the packaging–even more so than the other shipment. This was all paper packaging. There was no plastic except the tape on the box. It looked like this:

Glass in Paper

Glass in Paper

The prices on the two bottles were about the same. I only ordered from two sellers because they were not both available from CoffeeAM and the hazelnut syrup at Boba Tea Direct was a lot more pricey (not sure what that was about). But because of the paper packaging, rather than plastic, I will order from Boba Tea Direct in the future. The bubble tube was cool, but I can’t toss that in the compost bin, or even recycle it. The world could use a little less plastic. It isn’t huge, but at least I can take one small action.  You?

Earth Day at Disney World

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We took a fairly last minute family trip down to Florida this week.  We had only planned it a week out.  This made for some good pricing for us.  We stayed at Disney World resorts.  I had never been there and, although I probably would not have picked that place to visit, with all the beautiful places in the world waiting to be visited, I am glad I went.  We happened to be there on Earth Day, which felt like living irony.  Disney World is one of the last places I might think of as embodying the spirit of Earth Day and I was on the lookout for how the two might meet.  I did find a few things.

Disney World promotes that the place offers lots of shopping.  On its constantly looping television channel a perky young woman asks “Like shopping and dining?  Well you’re in luck, cause there’s tons of it.”  Oy.  Our excessive consumer culture thrives there.  All that shopping means tons of one-use bags, of course, but Disney is trying hard on that front.   They really are pushing the cloth totes they have available at every check-out counter.  Apparently they have a goal of eliminating plastic bags altogether.  They still need to work on not selling lots of plastic crap, but getting rid of plastic bags is a good step.

We flew into Orlando.  From the airport we caught a bus to our resort/hotel.  We visited the Magic Kingdom theme park (I still can’t get used to calling it a “park” which to me means a green space to take a walk or to have a picnic) on Wednesday;  we took a bus to get there.  We checked out other sights by taking other buses or the monorail.  We didn’t get in a car until we got back to Burlington and drove home from there.  Granted, Disney could have worked to place more things closer together so walking is more of an option, but that buses transport visitors, rather than personal cars, is pretty big.  They have limited parking, and the bus system really is convenient (I was wishing that our own public transportation system in Vermont could be so easy and reliable), so they got that one right.

On Earth Day itself, there was some kind of Earth Day themed event, although I never saw what it was.  I did see the parade/street party which, I have to admit, was pretty spectacular.  It was a show of shows.  The announcer at one point reminded everyone that it was Earth Day.  It wasn’t much but at least it was an acknowledgment of the day.  “Who wants to be Green?” he shouted.  A limp cheer rose from the crowd.  It was better than nothing.

The Magic Kingdom does have recycling bins.  They sell too much bottled water, but at least those bottles can be recycled.  Since many places I visit simply don’t offer the option of a separate bin for recycling, it was good to see.  At one point while I was standing at a curb, a man passed me and said “excuse me I just need to toss this,” then reached over the popped his empty water bottle into the trash.  It is one thing to offer a recycling bin, and another to overcome the general apathy against using them.  People need to drink water, and lots of it on a hot day in Florida when they are walking far more than they typically walk, but bottled water just isn’t the answer.

One way Disney addresses this is by offering a plastic reusable mug.  We purchased a meal plan that included a mug for each of us.  We could fill it with hot or cold beverages as much as we wanted.  This included water, but also soft drinks, coffee, tea, juice.  It was a good deal, financially, and they must save tons (literally) of waste with those mugs.  They probably save a lot of money by hauling less trash and by purchasing fewer disposable cups.  That one seems a win win.  Even if one does not purchase a meal plan, the mug can be had for $15.  That would pay for itself with a few drinks.

There were a few other things, like the towel policy that most hotels have adopted these days, so I have some optimism.  Disney has a long way to go (do they need to leave all the doors open at the shops when it is 80 degrees and the air conditioner is running?) but they have made some visible steps to cleaning the place up.  Waste costs, in money, time, lost opportunities, clean air and water.  Disney has moved forward in reducing some of this waste.  I applaud that.  I hope they continue to move forward, as they have a large, captive audience.  If they can get millions of people to at least think about recycling and to stop using their cars, if only for a few days, they can make a difference.  Imagine what they could do if they leveraged themselves fully.  Solar panels on the Magic Kingdom castle anyone?

Dropping Electricity Use

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For a while we were pretty consistent with our electric bill.  We had a bump here or there, a jump in usage that we usually could not definitively explain, but we averaged 400 kilowatt hours per month.   Before we moved to this house two and a half years ago, I paid attention to how much our bill lowered  my checking account balance, but I paid little attention to how much electricity we used.  Not that we wasted electricity–we did what we could to minimize usage.  I just didn’t pay attention to the actual number.

Now I do pay attention.  Our last electric bill posted only 296 kilowatt hours of electricity.  I was pretty happy with that, especially since it was for most of March.  We use more electricity in the winter and March, in these parts, is definitely winter.  In the winter we keep lights on longer.  The heating system, although it is propane, kicks in and uses electricity.  We don’t use the clothesline but rely on the electric dryer.  We bake with our electric oven more.  We make coffee or tea more often.  We just use a lot more energy in the darker days of the year.

So I was proud that we managed to use less than 300 kilowatt hours for the month.  We haven’t changed our life dramatically, but we have made some changes.  The light bulb thing, although it has been drilled into us all so much we are becoming numb to it, makes a huge difference.  Incandescent bulbs waste a lot of energy–you can feel it in the form of heat.  Any incandescent bulb we fave feels to me like it is just spitting electricity into the air.  I feel the heat and I feel energy being wasted.  So we have changed most of our bulbs.  Why not all of them?  We have a bunch of those candle flame shaped fixtures and those bulbs are hard to find in a compact fluorescent version.  But we are slowly getting there.

Every time we change out a couple of light bulbs it seems to make a difference.  The other big difference has been turning down the dryer.  We used to always dry everything on the highest setting.  Once we turned it down to the medium heat setting we could see a difference on our electric bill right away.  We do wash lots of clothes.  We have a couple of small children in the house.  Once we can start using the clothesline again (soon!) we will use even less electricity.

We don’t have cable box on our television that sucks energy 24/7, and now that Vermont has switched to digital–and we still don’t have a converter box–we can’t watch any television at all.  We watch DVD’s but not as often as we might now that the weather is warmer and we are spending more time outside.  We will start grilling soon and use the stove less.  I am hoping that on one of these bills we be able to get it down under 200 kilowatt hours.  That may be tight but it is possible, I am sure.

I am glad we don’t have a 5,000 square foot home.  That would make our challenge even harder.  I still see people who leave light on all the time, even when they are not home.  That just seems like kind of a Duh!  I try to avoid the Duhs.  Next month–going for 280.

Earth Day? For Real?

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I got a flyer in the mail from Price Chopper yesterday.  Normally I just toss these.  They may have better prices on some things now and again, but it isn’t worth traveling extra distance to get there.  I save more in transportation costs by going somewhere closer.  But this flyer caught my eye.  At the top, on an extended page that stuck out of the middle, was a banner reading “Together, We Can do Our Part to Make Every Day Earth Day!”  Oh really?

First, Price Chopper, you are sending me a flyer that I do not want or need.  It requires paper, ink, transportation, labor, and I will not even look at it.  How does that make Earth Day every day?  Second, what exactly do you mean?  The small print says to “see pages 4 & 5.”  The first thing I see on those pages is an inset spread with “certified organic” produce.  That is a good start (although it is only USDA organic) but all three things listed are in plastic tubs.  Spring greens (two types) and strawberries, shipped across the country in plastic bins?  Earth Day?

The flyer lists three things I can do (“You Can Help!”).  The first suggestion is to recycle my plastic bags at the store.  How about not taking them at all?  The second tells me to use compact fluorescent light bulbs.  Done.  The third:  “Shop locally to save gas and the environment.”  That is why I do not need the flyer and do not shop there.  Thanks.

Then they list three things they can do (We Can Help!).  First they tell me they recycle 1,700 tons of plastic each year.  That is good, but reducing plastic in the first place would make a bigger difference.  Second: “Price Chopper installed low energy LED Lighting in new and recycled stores.  Other than not having much clue what a “recycled” store is (turning an old building into one of their stores?) this is great.  I believe that one day we will leave compact fluorescent bulbs behind and use only LED lights.  They use way less energy.  Finally, they note that “Price Chopper uses local farmers each year for produce.”  On that one I am curious just how much local produce they use.  A few pumpkins in the fall hardly will make a difference, but as much as possible would make a difference.

The flyer seems like one more feel-good marketing gimmick.  Inside the flyer are:

  • Cut flowers, probably shipped thousands of miles and grown with bundles of pesticides
  • A variety of ham products from pigs raised, I am sure, on nasty factory farms
  • Lemons sold in plastic mesh bags
  • Plastic tubs of margarine
  • Cans of whipped cream
  • Bottled water
  • Plastic “candles”
  • Aluminum foil baking pans
  • Paper napkins wrapped in plastic

Earth Day every day?  I will buy some of these things at some point in the future, I am sure, even though I try to avoid them.  But let’s cut down on the Earth Day crap.  If every day were Earth Day we would not be buying any of the items listed above, and Price Chopper would not be selling them.  Maybe someday we will get there, but it ain’t happening this year. Price Chopper is making some good progress. Cutting down on flyers that don’t get read would be another step in the right direction.

Hypocrite

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The last day of the conference I attended in New Hampshire was yesterday.  My roommate–let’s call him Bob–and I had a morning run together, a short and slow four miles, then we each packed up to leave later in the day.  By the time I got down to where things were happening, I had missed the “coffee and snacks” listed on the agenda.  I was hoping to grab something (anything after a run, even a short run, to refuel) and then head one level down to the meeting I was going to attend.  The only thing still out was the coffee and tea.

So far I had been using the dinky little cups with saucers to drink coffee.  They would always put out foam cups and lids along with these ceramic cups but I boycotted them, even though almost everyone else used the disposable vessels.  I just couldn’t do it.  The one-use cups are too much to bear at times–use it and toss it.  Stupid.  But yesterday morning I wanted more than the meager amount that would fill the mini washable jobber.  I would not be able to refill for the hour plus meeting.  So I hesitated, bit my pride, and filled a wasteful foam cup.

Back up to morning one of three.  Bob and I had a conversation about one-use beverage containers, including bottled water and coffee mugs.  That first breakfast he took the initiative to bring a pitcher of water to the table, rather than use the plentiful bottled water available.  This was a gesture aimed largely at me, and served to send an unspoken message to others at the table as well.  I was happy to see it.  No bottle water, no paper cups.  We were on the same page.

Jump back to morning three, as I grudgingly fill the tossable cup, all too aware that my stainless steel travel mug is sitting on top of my packed bag, ready for the trip home, but too far to retrieve in my haste to get to the meeting for which I was already late.  Hot coffee pours from the spout into that evil container and this comment floats down into the steaming brown liquid:  “Paper cup, huh?”

It was Bob, of course.  He then fills his own re-usable travel mug with coffee.  He did not need to say more.  I was busted.  I was, and am, a hypocrite.  I make decisions like everyone else, and sometimes I make poor ones.  That was a poor one.  Perhaps my brain was addled from too little food.  Perhaps a sense of laziness, or even urgency, came over me at that moment.  Perhaps I needed to decide too quickly.  In any case, my principles lost out.

In far too short a time, I tossed that cup.  The lid cracked within a half hour.  I ended up using my travel mug after all, sipping through the next event and again on my way home, as I mulled how I can make a difference in the world.  It was a good lesson for me.  Laziness is not an option if I want to live by what I believe.  It is easy to be lazy.  Our culture is one of ease, or leisure.  We are not ones to give up a cup of coffee because we forgot to bring a mug.  Bringing a mug, or a cloth grocery bag, or a water bottle, are easy to forget;  and if we do forget, it is easy to find a disposable alternative.

We are a throwaway society.  I am not proud of that, but I am a part of that.  If I want, I can work to change that of which I am a part.  That is not easy, and it may mean I sometimes give up that cup of coffee, but it is the right thing to do.  I will be a hypocrite again.  I will forget my travel mug or my bags or my water bottle.  But getting busted has its benefits.  It highlights my hypocrisy, and it helps me to keep trying.  From now on, most of the time at least, I will turn down the foam cup.  If it means I can avoid using a cup once and then tossing it, I can get by waiting a little while for my jolt of joe.

Things I Don’t Buy

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There are a few things that I pretty much don’t ever buy.  They seem wasteful or unnecessary or I just don’t need them.  I am not perfect about these, so I suppose I am somewhat of a hypocrite but I do try.  Here is a short list:

1. Bottled water.  There was a time when I did not think all that much about bottled water.  When I did think about it, it seemed a little silly.  Why pay for water?  The stuff is free.  But when I started to learn about how wasteful it is when one considers the larger consequences, it became a full on boycott.  I won’t even drink bottled water if it is given to me, unless I am desperate.  Think about it simply:  instead of energy to extract and treat the water, you’ve got those same concerns plus energy and resources to make bottles, fill the bottles, transport the full bottles and then deal with disposal.

2. Drinking straws.  We have them around but I will not purchase them myself.  They are fun, sure, but they are way too wasteful.  Sip slowly and maybe they get used for one hour.  And then they last forever in a landfill.  That seems a little unbalanced.  Our glass straws work pretty well so far.

3. Paper towels or napkins.  These seem a little excessive.  Paper towels?  Real cloth towels and napkins work way better, last longer and are cheaper over their lifetime.  A no brainer in my book.

4. Incandescent light bulbs.  Considering how much more energy they use, I won’t ever buy one again.  Feeling the heat from one is tangibly soaking in wasted electricity.  One of the these days we will switch to all LED light bulbs and we will wonder how we ever wasted so much energy on compact fluorescents.

5. DVD’s.  With Netflix, video stores, the library and random freebies, I can’t justify buying them.  I rarely watch a movie more than once so purchasing one seems too much.

6. Television.  Now that things have gone digital, we really don’t get television at all.  We get information and entertainment from other sources–the internet, magazines, radio.  I have considered satellite television, but I just can’t fork over cash every month for something I either won’t watch or will regret wasting time on.  One of these days we will get around to getting a converter box so we can at least watch the bad news if we want to.

7. Bar soap.  It isn’t that I don’t use bar soap, but I haven’t purchased it in years.  I have gotten free samples and random bars in gift bags and soap from who knows where.  I still have plenty waiting in the wings when the currently in-use bars are exhausted.  I have purchased shampoo and dish soap and some liquid hand soap but bar soap?  No need to buy.

8. Pencils. With the stock we have collected over the years, as well as the ones that manage to filter into our household from all kinds of sources (school events, conferences, holidays, what have you), we have enough to last pretty much forever.  I even try to keep them sharp at all times when I use them.  Plus, I do lots of crossword and similar puzzles.  Nonetheless, buying a pencil would be like buying air.  I can always find them when I need them.

There are others, of course.  But these come to mind at the moment.  I would love to say that I don’t ever purchase electricity, but that day seems far off.  Someday, I hope.  Someday.

Mud and Plastic

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My daughter had the idea over dinner that we take a family walk down the road.  When your kid asks to do something outside as a family, it is awfully hard to say no, even if you have your pajamas on unaccountably early and the hour has crept beyond the usual one for dinner.  So I donned the jeans once more, slipped on mud boots with my children, and off we went.

A month ago, the ditch lining the road was deep with ice.  We would walk across with nary a step down.  Now it is muddy, running with melted snow.  The children tossed rocks, some of which made the hoped for splash, some of which stuck impressively into the mud.  They stomped and squished.  The shouted and laughed.  We had a hard time getting them to turn around so we could get home for bed.

We picked up a crazy amount of trash a few weeks ago, but there is more now.  Some of it has peeked out from the ice or snow, but some of it is new.  I can’t get over the amount of new litter to be found in those few weeks.  I want to believe it is just an accident, that each new piece bounced from a truck bed my mistake, but there is too much of it.  People are tossing that crap out the window.  It can bring one down, seeing how someone cares little enough that they will leave it to others to pick up their empties.

We generate enough trash as it is.  Americans generate about 4.6 pounds of solid waste per day, per person, and only about a quarter of it gets recycled, even though we could recycle about 3/4 of it.  A large percentage of that 4.6 pounds seems to wind up along the road.  I picked up two aluminum cans this evening–one whole and filled with mud, the other squashed flat–and one flattened plastic bottle.  I will recycle them.  At least, I will take them to the transfer station to be recycled by someone else, but that is more than my untidy neighbor, whoever he or she might be.

The kids are happy to help me clean things up.  I guess they do understand the importance of cleaning up, even though they left a huge mess on the floor this evening before they went to bed (it got too late to push that one).  They were dirty enough that I told them to leave the rest of the plastic bottles, half buried in the winter’s layer of sand, where they were.  I can go get those later at some point.

I had to do some boot rinsing when we got home.  We were a tad muddy.  I tossed what I was carrying into a blue recycling bin, cleaned some footwear, washed my hands, and headed to the kitchen to clean up that mess.  Sometimes it feels like I spend my whole day cleaning up messes.  But what fun would life be without messes, right?  As soon as I am done here, I think I will pick up all the toys on the floor.  I should probably make the kids clean up their own mess, but I need to be a nice guy once in a while.  Maybe tonight will be that once.

Sausages and Tofu

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We don’t eat meat in our house.  I guess that isn’t totally true but almost 100% true.  My daughter is pretty good at counting but she can count way higher than she needs to in order to count the number of times she has eaten meat.  I have cooked meat in our house exactly twice, and when I did so it had been many years since I had cooked meat at all.  Tonight for dinner we had cheese quesadillas and salad.  It was light fare but was just what we needed.

My daughter likes breakfast sausages.  She has eaten them only a few times.  The last time was at a community breakfast at her school.  There were many families there.  It was a fund raiser for the local pre-school.  We had tons of fun and my daughter wanted some sausage, like many of the other children there.  I hate to be the parent who says no all the time, especially when I don’t have the best of explanations.  I didn’t want to eat it, and this particular sausage wasn’t exactly of the highest quality, but why the heck not let her have it?  She’ll try to some time anyway.  And it won’t kill her.

I hear people talk about how they could never be a vegetarian.  As if they would have to jump right into eating tofu and beans and kale at every meal if they decided to stop eating meat.  I think most people eat plenty of meals that don’t contain meat without even thinking about it.  Peanut butter and jelly?  Macaroni and cheese?  Breakfast cereal?  Who eats meat at every meal?

Anyway, I am currently of the mind that we won’t have meat much in our house at all.  My wife and I are on the same page with that one.  But if the kids want it once in a while when it is offered, I will let them try it, as long as it isn’t too nasty.  I made them fried chicken a couple of times here at home, at my daughter’s request to have chicken.  She thought it was OK and my son just said no thanks.  I have cooked up chicken many a time and this was, and I’m not just saying this, really good fried chicken.  I ate it right up.  The second try provided the same results.  Salad is a bigger hit.

We do eat tofu occasionally.  It is good stuff if you prepare it right.  Kind of like cauliflower.  That stuff isn’t exactly great plain, if you ask me, but in a gratin, oh baby oh.  I can whip up some tofu into a tasty meal.  We even eat meat substitutes.  For me, it isn’t that I don’t like meat as a food.   It just seems irresponsible to eat it.  Eat it if you want but, knowing what I know about where it comes from, I don’t want to support such a destructive and unhealthy system.

We have talked about trying to eat meat that is locally and responsibly grown.  That is where the chicken I fried came from, a local farm.  At this point that is hard to do, more because we are in the habit of not eating meat than anything else, but meat still has a larger ecological footprint, even if it is raised in the best way possible, and that factors in as well.

For now we don’t buy it, don’t prepare it and don’t really eat it.  I won’t be a hindrance to my children experimenting with it if they want to do that. Maybe if they experiment with that they will be more careful experiementing with things like smoking banana peels.  And we will likely cook up something fleshy again at some point.  But for now I will toss that fake sausage on the pizza and bake the tofu pot pie.  That will do me more than just fine.