What Scientists Say about Reducing Meat and Dairy

Here's a link to the October 10, 2018 article in The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/10/huge-reduction-in-meat-eating-essential-to-avoid-climate-breakdown?CMP=share_btn_fb

I'm taking this directly from  One Green Planet:

According to a comprehensive new analysis on the ways in which our food system impacts the environment, global meat consumption needs to be cut enormously if we hope to limit global warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F) and prevent seriously dangerous climate change effects as our world population skyrockets to 10 billion people in the coming decades.

By just how much does meat-eating need to be reduced, you ask? This latest research, which was published in the journal Nature, estimates that the average world citizen needs to eat 75 percent less beef, 90 percent less pork and half the number of eggs they currently consume in order for us to avoid a climate catastrophe.

And here in the U.S. as well as in other wealthy Western countries like the U.K., the necessary cuts need to be even greater since people in these nations currently consume more animal-sourced foods on average than those in developing countries. To be specific, U.K. and U.S. citizens need to begin eating 90 percent less beef and drinking 60 percent less dairy milkwhile increasing their consumption of beans and pulses between four and six times, the research team concluded.

In the words of one of the researchers, Professor Johan Rockström at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, “Feeding a world population of 10 billion is possible, but only if we change the way we eat and the way we produce food. Greening the food sector or eating up our planet: this is what is on the menu today.”

Even Mel's, Our Old 1960's favorite, Has Evolved

A friend and colleague at CARA took me to lunch at Mel's Diner yesterday, October 11, and I saw that even Mel's has evolved and is now indicating on its menu what's vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, etc.

I had the avocado toast, from which she'd removed an egg and added a side dish of ground peanuts.  

May Mel's continue to evolve.

Eating for the Climate Week in NYC, Day 2

Mothers Out Front Omits Diet

There was a very pleasant gathering of SF's small group of Mothers Out Front and kids in Precita Park today, Sunday, October 7.

There were several dishes that were, perhaps accidentally, plant-based, and I understood that the cake was not.  What shocked me was that on the list of 'What Should Mothers Out Front SF Tackle Next?"
there was no mention of eating for the climate!

I think there may even be a resistance! 

Look at this:

I gave our two leaders Kathie Piccagli and her daughter Maia a copy of Nil Zacharias' book Eat for the Planet, and after talking to Anya Deepak of Women's Environmental Network and SF Department of the Environment, I thought she was the perfect one to get the third copy.  She told me that the city workers were advised not to vote meat and to go easy on the cheese, but they weren't really willing to follow this directive.  Experts in the field were brought in to educate them, and they became a bit more convinced.

Eat for the Climate Week in NYC My day 1

Jonathan met me at the airport and led me through Port Authority and back to his neighborhood, where we left my suitcase and went to Spring Natural Kitchen 474 Columbus Ave, New York, NY 10024!

Vegan NYC Eat for the Climate Week, September 24-30

It was "Eat for the Climate Week" in NYC for several of the days I was there!  I'm going to post photos of dishes and a tiny bit of commentary on the places I ate them--just, of course, to help the climate along.

Vegan Exchanges between "The Saint of the Tenderloin" and Commonplace Me

I was so thrilled to find out that OWL's dynamic president was (and is) vegan.  She's originally from the South and still speaks with a Southern Accent, but she's a "steel magnolia" in the best sense of the term--someone who's strong and feisty.  In fact, Kevin Fagan of the SF Chronicle did a feature on her when she retired from her Presbyterian ministry in the Tenderloin after 40 years, and he said she was called "The Saint of the Tenderloin."

Now we exchange all the good news we hear or read--action furthering the vegan cause.

Today she wrote to me right after eating at Cybelle's Front Room, the one on 9th near Judah.  She was thrilled to find the enormous vegan menu and to hear from a server that the vegan items are "very popular."  She said she went there to try out the Impossible Burger and "was just blow away by all the other choices--even a Beyond Sausage corn dog!"  She said the sweet potato fries were the best she'd ever eaten.

She also told me that right across the street the Holey Gelato--vegan gelato--also gives 10% discount to anyone over 60!

I responded right away!

Dear Glenda,

At this very moment I was getting ready to send you two links for very good news on the vegan theme.

I LOVE Cybelle's, which I first learned about first-hand when our San Francisco Veg Society met there in June!  I was enraptured.  (Would you like to join our group?  You'd be a wonderful asset!)

Since then I've taken two meat-eating friends there and given them the vegan menu.   Their dessert is good too (beignets), but we wanted ice cream, so Lennie (the owner whose daughter Christa has gone vegan and created the menu) suggested the 12-vegan ice cream place across the street. I think YOU told me about Holey Gelato a while back, but I didn't know about the discount for the people over 60!  They were closed until 1:00 PM, so we went down to the ice cream shop between Irving and Lincoln and had their chocolate vegan ice cream--delicious!

Here's something that bothers me:  The SF Chronicle didn't have anything in their food section during Climate Week to acknowledge the connection between what we eat and how the climate is changing.  As far as I know, they didn't report on The World Resources Institute's Cool Food Pledge either.  But in one of the articles I'm sending you, it says "First announced at the Global Climate Action Summit in September 2018..."  

I'm about to write another letter to the editor because what the SF Chronicle DID do is oppose Proposition 12, the Farm Animal Confinement Initiative, because since Prop 2's passage "California egg production has dropped significantly and egg prices have risen by 33 percent."  I always feel for the people who are making a living from selling eggs, but I also think its' good the California egg production has dropped.  

Here are the two articles I read today--NOT in the SF Chronicle!

23 New York City Restaurants Are Serving Meatless Meals in Honor of Climate Week!

23 New York City Restaurants Are Serving Meatless Meals in Honor of Climate... Today, September 24th, marks the beginning of the 2018 Eat for Climate Week, an annual event designed to raise a...

WeWork, Morgan Stanley, and University Campuses Join Pledge to Offer More Vegan Meals to Reduce Climate Impact

WeWork, Morgan Stanley, and University Campuses Join Pledge to Offer More V... To help facilitate the planet-benefiting trend towards more plant-based foods in dining centers, a new initiativ...

---