Make a Difference – Vegetarian Meals Once a Week

People tend to look at the idea of “making a difference” from one of two different sides. Either it’s “I’m just one person, what difference can I make?” or it’s “Every vote counts.” The former is of course just a defeatist mindset talking; it’s become of more and more crucial importance for each of us to take the time to educate ourselves on all the different “elections” that are out there, so to speak, the ones in which we vote every day. When more and more individuals become aware of their options and the small ways in which a single person can contribute I have no doubt that the votes with inevitably start to pile up in favor of issues like environmental conservation, awareness and sustainability.

Is Our Food Killing Us?

One amazingly simple way to help make a difference has to do-as many seem to these days-with the food that you eat. In this country, the main considerations when dealing with food have evolved from simply “whether or not there’s enough of it.” (In fact, as in the case of genetically modified corn, sometimes there’s too much.) Now we must consider the methods of production, whether or not they’re sustainable, what types of energy are being used, and how much unnecessary shipping is taking place resulting in wasted fuel and tons upon tons of harmful emissions.

Vegetarianism – At Least Once in a While

This isn’t even about “whether or not to eat organic food” as you might expect. That’s always good, but for those people who can’t or won’t there are smaller, subtler ways that still have a positive impact. According to some people’s research, the beef industry is actually a great contributor to environmental decline than the use of automobiles, which is a little mind boggling. When you factor in all the energy spent housing, feeding, slaughtering and shipping cows, in addition to all the energy spent planting, harvesting and shipping the corn that they eat (which, as we know, fosters the presence of harmful E. coli in their stomachs – really struck out on that one, Agriculture Industry.) And that’s just beef.

The bottom line is that eating a non-meat based meal, and even better avoiding anything meat altogether, as little as one day a week is going to start adding up to a lot of savings for you and also the environment. When you tally up the results with the other couple million people who are doing it, now you’ve got a measurable reduction in the demand for meat products which is inevitably going to yield a reduction in supply. It’s one of the most fundamental business practices we as humans known: the law of supply and demand.

The Choice is Yours

We tend to think that we as individuals are essentially powerless, and yet in a society and world that increasingly revolves around consumerism we actually have enormous power. Our greatest weakness is in the lack of cohesion. If, for example, a large number of people in a certain city, region or even state coordinated somehow, via the internet or something like it, and all resolved to eat vegetarian one night a week and really stick with it, the meat industry for that area would be able to chart the reduced demand, and proportionally reduce the amount of meat produced and shipped to that area.

Every little thing counts, and it’s high time we start taking responsibility for the things we do rather than releasing ourselves personally from blame with the blanket phrase “it won’t make a difference” and essentially sweeping the challenges facing humanity under the rug. Well, space under the rug is starting to run out – and what will we do once it does?

This article is part of the ongoing series entitled “Make a Difference” which discusses a variety of small, easy changes you can apply to your life for personal, environmental and global betterment. Act now, and make a difference.

Will Peanut Butter Make You Fat?

Critics point out that peanut butter is rich is fat that could lead to obesity and a host of diseases. How true is this?

Admittedly, most nuts and nut butters are loaded with fat. Four-point five tablespoons of peanut butter will give you a whooping 422 calories. A tablespoon has 100 calories.

But don’t let the fear of fat spoil your appetite. The good news is that the fat in many nuts – including peanut butter – is largely monosaturated. That’s the kind that cleans your blood of cholesterol.

Furthermore, “defatted” roasted peanuts are now available for those who value their waistline. This variety, invented by Department of Agriculture researcher Joseph Pominski, has fewer calories than the regular oil-roasted brands.

Not all supermarkets, however, carry the defatted version. For one, US regulations state that peanut butter must be made up of 90 percent peanuts. Replacing the peanut oil with something less fattening may appeal to dieters and the health-conscious, but the concoction wouldn’t taste like peanut butter at all.

So moderation is in order, especially if you’re concerned about those extra pounds. Many processed brands are also high in sugar and salt so read the labels before purchasing a product.

“More than 80 percent of the fat in peanut oil is unsaturated, a kind that’s known not to raise blood cholesterol levels. All the same, peanut oil has received considerable scrutiny since researchers in 1970 concluded it somehow caused cholesterol to build up on artery walls. As it turned out, the researchers seem to have misinterpreted the nature of the artery damage they’d seen,” explained Mary Roach in Hippocrates magazine.

If you don’t consume the jar of peanut butter you bought, there’s no need to worry. Unopened jars can last up to a year in a cool, dry place according to Janet Bailey in Keeping Food Fresh. Refrigeration extends the shelf life of peanut butter. But before keeping yours in the fridge, use a good spoon to mix the peanut oil in natural products.

Indeed, all appears well with peanut butter – until the aflatoxin scare witch rocked the United States and some Asian countries a few years ago. After reading about it in the newspapers, my world and those of other passionate peanut butter lovers suddenly came tumbling down.

Is there sufficient reason to be concerned about this aspect? Should we abandon our love for the gooey stuff in view of published reports that some brands contain high levels of aflatoxin – a possible carcinogen? Find out in the third part of this series.