The world’s food system is highly stressed. And it’s unhealthy for people. And cruel to livestock. Over the holidays while on vacation with my family I read Michael Pollan’s incredible book An Ominivore’s Dilemma. It was nformative and inspiring. The general thesis is that human beings in the 21st century have lost track of our food chain – we really don’t know what we’re eating most of the time. Where does it come from, who produces it, who processes it, at what cost?

It being the holidays, the subject of food was on my mind when it came time to formulate my 2008 resolutions. I’d never seriously confronted the idea of vegetarianism before. Lots of friends and family members are vegetarians, but seriously? In the words of Vincent Vega “Yeah, but pork chops taste good. And bacon tastes good“. I’m a foodie. Some of my favorite places and things are…. meaty. Making the leap all the way to vegetarianism just wasn’t realistic.

But I did want to do something. So I came up with 2 things that I thought could be personally meaningful.

1. Give up fast food. Pretty easy – sort of a no-brainer. Those places are really bad on so many levels. Hasn’t been hard.
2. Practice vegetarianism on Mondays.

I haven’t told too many people about the second one, and when I do, the usual reaction is nervous laughter. Like I’ve just told a not too funny joke that doesn’t really make sense. In fact for the first few months I didn’t really tell anyone – even Jen – probably because I thought it was somewhat nonsensical myself. My semi-coherent rationalization(s):

• If everyone in the US cut out 1/7 of their meat consumption, the environmental and societal impact would be radical.
• I’d probably enjoy the foodie challenge of learning to cook meatless.
• Most importantly, what I was searching for was a way to make a lifestyle change. Not to change the world, but to change my own personal behavior. Sometimes that requires baby steps.

After 4.5 months of keeping these resolutions, I have to report that I’m really, really, happy with the results. The biggest unintended consequence of the Monday plan is that I eat way less meat now every day of the week. Fewer meals contain meat, and the portions I eat are smaller. I crossed some psychological barrier I didn’t even know was there – every meal doesn’t have to have meat as a focus. Another outcome is that I have become a lot more curious about the provenance of the meat I do eat. Researching the food chain, buying the $15 chicken at the farmer’s market instead of the $5 Purdue broiler. Now the goat-cheese guy sells eggs and ducks too, not produced ag-biz style. And Candido the butcher is getting pasture-raised beeves from the Central Valley and calling me to see if he can put anything aside for me. It costs more, but I eat less. Changing the lifestyle.

Maybe “Meatless Monday” isn’t right for you. But read the books and articles, and find a realistic change. See where it takes you.

photo from Flickr by phitar