The vegetarian diet that purported to be a definitive choice for the Earth's well-being was dependent on long-distance shipping and refrigeration, plastic packaging and intensive processing.

Born-Again Carnivore

Kate Storm

t age 10, I had a spiritual experience with a cow and didn't eat meat for 17 years. Now, a year after including meat back in my diet, I am helping a rancher sell beef and pork at the farmers market. What happened?

As a child, I ate a standard midwestern American diet: instant rice, hot dogs, steak, chicken breast, steamed carrots and green beans. Healthy enough, easy to prepare, grown in confined spaces with hormones or in monocultures with pesticides, and shipped from afar to our supermarket shelves. One momentous summer day, I visited a friend in Wisconsin and her mom took us to a small dairy farm. I spent several moments in eye contact with a beautiful Holstein. She chewed cud and held my gaze. I felt compassion, I felt related.

After meeting that cow, I read about the meat industry in children's environmental books like 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth. The authors gently revealed that mass-produced cattle, chickens and pigs live in horrendous conditions and are often killed in even more gruesome and painful circumstances. I felt shocked that the animals were treated without care for their physical and emotional well-being, which I had so clearly connected to in my life, not just with the Holstein, but with cats, dogs, ferrets, even the goldfish that died from neglect in its filthy tank.

The books also advised that one of the biggest choices I could make to "save the planet" was to eat vegetarian. They taught me about McDonald's cattle ranging in the decimated Amazon rainforest and about ponds of refuse from animal farms polluting the water and airways. I was not willing to participate in a system of such cruelty and environmental destruction, and informed my family of such. For a few years I lived on side dishes — mashed potatoes, salad, bread — until I met others who did not eat animals and my parents cut back on their meat intake for health reasons. We all learned to cook balanced vegetarian meals. In college I lived with a group of environmentalists and got into the buying and growing of organics.

Then last year in Santa Fe, my partner and I set an intention to buy only foods grown in the Southwest. We hoped that we wouldn't have to choose between local and organic, and set the two factors as equally important. We shopped primarily at the Santa Fe Farmers Market, asked a lot of questions at the grocery stores, learned to can food, and supplemented with dumpster-dived produce (an avocado never received so much applause as when one of us proudly lifted it out of the stinky depths). There were a few wild foods available in the city — yellow dock greens, prickly pear fruit — that we harvested and dried or canned for winter.

The farmers market is a bustling, moneyed place, visited by some locals and a lot of tourists. Most of the vendors sell salad greens and root crops. There are also a goat dairy booth and several beef and buffalo meat sellers. But locally grown grains and legumes are scarce and organic locally grown grains and legumes are nonexistent. I searched the Internet hard: there was organic quinoa being grown in southern Colorado, some unprocessed nuts in southern New Mexico. I needed protein, fast. So I went back to buying black beans from China and corn from South America. Passing the bustling, yummy-smelling beef stalls every Saturday, I began to wonder, Is a locally grown and nutritive vegetarian diet possible?

Reading my vegetarian and vegan cookbooks for ideas, I was discouraged by recipe after recipe that called for exotic ingredients like tofu, miso, soy and rice milk, as well as heavily processed foods like Earth Balance margarine, soy cheese and vegan sausage. The authors recommended taking supplements of vitamin B6, iron and other essential nutrients available primarily, if not solely, from meat. I realized that vegan and vegetarian diets rely upon a global grocery and heavy processing.

We had begun buying locally to support our neighbors and curb our participation in the petroleum economy. Upon closer inspection, the vegetarian diet that purported to be a definitive choice for the environment was dependent on long-distance shipping and refrigeration, plastic packaging and intensive processing. When choosing between a diet that included industrial meat and one based solely on industrial agriculture, it had seemed fairly clear that eating industry legumes, grains, vegetables and their by-products was the lesser of two evils. I wasn't choosing between these anymore, though. I was choosing between industrial organic food and local organic food. And it was clear that a diet of fresh, whole foods from local sources was the deepest choice that I could make for my and the Earth's well-being.

At the same time, I was studying yoga intensively and often felt dizzy and light-headed when moving quickly on the mat. A friend suggested that I might be protein deficient and asked whether I also suffered from frequent mood swings, fatigue and low energy. "You mean that's not my personality?" I asked. I had been feeling this way for so long I couldn't remember any other way of being. Truth was, I had been salivating over meat for a year or two, and my friend's opinion that I might not be getting what I needed from just legumes and grains was a strong encouragement for me to fess up: I was hungry.

About a week later, I got myself a roasted chicken (I had no idea how to cook meat), grown in nearby Socorro, and a bottle of not-local barbeque sauce — because that's what I wanted and this was a big deal. My partner and I sat down outside La Monta ñita Co-op and said a lot of prayers over that bird, expressing our gratitude and hope that this animal food would be healing for our bodies and the planet. Then he tore pieces of meat off the bone for me while I looked the other way — it was too graphic — and I ate it slowly, cautiously and with a lot of deep breaths. Walking home from lunch (and dinner — I wasn't hungry until the next day), I felt a peculiar and wild energy running through my body; I kind of felt like clucking.

It's been a year. Recently I decided to eat meat more frequently than once a month, which just wasn't enough. The light-headedness and fatigue have diminished, and my strength is still returning. I buy beef and chicken as locally as I can get it — down the road, upstate, Arizona. This summer I'm helping a local rancher and friend, Joe Hollister, sell his grass-fed, free-range beef and pork at the farmers market. I am promoting access to local, small-scale meat.

A rancher with thousands of head of cattle doesn't have the energy, time or connection to pray to every animal who dies by his hand, as my neighbor Joe does. That said, I have not been able to participate in slaughtering — it's just too rough for my heart. I still have a hard time cutting meat off the bone. And every time I bike past Joe's cows, I say a little mantra: "I love you sweet cows, and it's OK that I eat you."

Resources

• www.farmersmarketnm.org: Information on farmers markets throughout New Mexico, including their hours and locations.

• www.eatwild.com: A resource guide for finding small-scale meat producers nationwide. Not always up-to-date, but a good jumping-off place for tracking down someone nearby.

• The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan: The best book I've read on the issue of global versus local food economies. Pollan writes with a refreshing degree of nonbias and self-awareness.





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	The vegetarian diet that purported to be a definitive choice for the Earth's well-being was dependent on long-distance shipping and refrigeration, plastic packaging and intensive processing. Born-Again Carnivore Kate Storm t age 10, I had a spiritual experience with a cow and didn't eat meat for 17 years. Now, a year after including meat back in my diet, I am helping a rancher sell beef and pork at the farmers market. What happened? As a child, I ate a standard midwestern American diet: instant rice, hot dogs, steak, chicken breast, steamed carrots and green beans. Healthy enough, easy to prepare, grown in confined spaces with hormones or in monocultures with pesticides, and shipped from afar to our supermarket shelves. One momentous summer day, I visited a friend in Wisconsin and her mom took us to a small dairy farm. I spent several moments in eye contact with a beautiful Holstein. She chewed cud and held my gaze. I felt compassion, I felt related. After meeting that cow, I read about the meat industry in children's environmental books like 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth. The authors gently revealed that mass-produced cattle, chickens and pigs live in horrendous conditions and are often killed in even more gruesome and painful circumstances. I felt shocked that the animals were treated without care for their physical and emotional well-being, which I had so clearly connected to in my life, not just with the Holstein, but with cats, dogs, ferrets, even the goldfish that died from neglect in its filthy tank. The books also advised that one of the biggest choices I could make to "save the planet" was to eat vegetarian. They taught me about McDonald's cattle ranging in the decimated Amazon rainforest and about ponds of refuse from animal farms polluting the water and airways. I was not willing to participate in a system of such cruelty and environmental destruction, and informed my family of such. For a few years I lived on side dishes — mashed potatoes, salad, bread — until I met others who did not eat animals and my parents cut back on their meat intake for health reasons. We all learned to cook balanced vegetarian meals. In college I lived with a group of environmentalists and got into the buying and growing of organics. Then last year in Santa Fe, my partner and I set an intention to buy only foods grown in the Southwest. We hoped that we wouldn't have to choose between local and organic, and set the two factors as equally important. We shopped primarily at the Santa Fe Farmers Market, asked a lot of questions at the grocery stores, learned to can food, and supplemented with dumpster-dived produce (an avocado never received so much applause as when one of us proudly lifted it out of the stinky depths). There were a few wild foods available in the city — yellow dock greens, prickly pear fruit — that we harvested and dried or canned for winter. The farmers market is a bustling, moneyed place, visited by some locals and a lot of tourists. Most of the vendors sell salad greens and root crops. There are also a goat dairy booth and several beef and buffalo meat sellers. But locally grown grains and legumes are scarce and organic locally grown grains and legumes are nonexistent. I searched the Internet hard: there was organic quinoa being grown in southern Colorado, some unprocessed nuts in southern New Mexico. I needed protein, fast. So I went back to buying black beans from China and corn from South America. Passing the bustling, yummy-smelling beef stalls every Saturday, I began to wonder, Is a locally grown and nutritive vegetarian diet possible? Reading my vegetarian and vegan cookbooks for ideas, I was discouraged by recipe after recipe that called for exotic ingredients like tofu, miso, soy and rice milk, as well as heavily processed foods like Earth Balance margarine, soy cheese and vegan sausage. The authors recommended taking supplements of vitamin B6, iron and other essential nutrients available primarily, if not solely, from meat. I realized that vegan and vegetarian diets rely upon a global grocery and heavy processing. We had begun buying locally to support our neighbors and curb our participation in the petroleum economy. Upon closer inspection, the vegetarian diet that purported to be a definitive choice for the environment was dependent on long-distance shipping and refrigeration, plastic packaging and intensive processing. When choosing between a diet that included industrial meat and one based solely on industrial agriculture, it had seemed fairly clear that eating industry legumes, grains, vegetables and their by-products was the lesser of two evils. I wasn't choosing between these anymore, though. I was choosing between industrial organic food and local organic food. And it was clear that a diet of fresh, whole foods from local sources was the deepest choice that I could make for my and the Earth's well-being. At the same time, I was studying yoga intensively and often felt dizzy and light-headed when moving quickly on the mat. A friend suggested that I might be protein deficient and asked whether I also suffered from frequent mood swings, fatigue and low energy. "You mean that's not my personality?" I asked. I had been feeling this way for so long I couldn't remember any other way of being. Truth was, I had been salivating over meat for a year or two, and my friend's opinion that I might not be getting what I needed from just legumes and grains was a strong encouragement for me to fess up: I was hungry. About a week later, I got myself a roasted chicken (I had no idea how to cook meat), grown in nearby Socorro, and a bottle of not-local barbeque sauce — because that's what I wanted and this was a big deal. My partner and I sat down outside La Monta ñita Co-op and said a lot of prayers over that bird, expressing our gratitude and hope that this animal food would be healing for our bodies and the planet. Then he tore pieces of meat off the bone for me while I looked the other way — it was too graphic — and I ate it slowly, cautiously and with a lot of deep breaths. Walking home from lunch (and dinner — I wasn't hungry until the next day), I felt a peculiar and wild energy running through my body; I kind of felt like clucking. It's been a year. Recently I decided to eat meat more frequently than once a month, which just wasn't enough. The light-headedness and fatigue have diminished, and my strength is still returning. I buy beef and chicken as locally as I can get it — down the road, upstate, Arizona. This summer I'm helping a local rancher and friend, Joe Hollister, sell his grass-fed, free-range beef and pork at the farmers market. I am promoting access to local, small-scale meat. A rancher with thousands of head of cattle doesn't have the energy, time or connection to pray to every animal who dies by his hand, as my neighbor Joe does. That said, I have not been able to participate in slaughtering — it's just too rough for my heart. I still have a hard time cutting meat off the bone. And every time I bike past Joe's cows, I say a little mantra: "I love you sweet cows, and it's OK that I eat you." Resources • www.farmersmarketnm.org: Information on farmers markets throughout New Mexico, including their hours and locations. • www.eatwild.com: A resource guide for finding small-scale meat producers nationwide. Not always up-to-date, but a good jumping-off place for tracking down someone nearby. • The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan: The best book I've read on the issue of global versus local food economies. Pollan writes with a refreshing degree of nonbias and self-awareness.