Beans Are Better Than Steak!

It was Saturday night and I was in the kitchen cooking. “Can’t we have beans for dinner. Beans are better than steak!” It’s not quite the words I expected to hear as I tossed a couple of KC Strip Steaks under the broiler. It was even more surprising to me that these words were coming from the lips of my teenage son. I mean, just a few months back, he told me he didn’t like beans. This is absolute definite proof that a little of something can make all the difference. How on Earth did this happen?

You might very well have read somewhere about the bad effects of cattle when it comes to greenhouse gases. They produce methane, a worse greenhouse gas than CO2. They are fed with intensively farmed corn, which consumes chemicals, fertilizers, and petrochemical fuels. Even when you live in the cattle state of Kansas, beef just isn’t at the top of the list when it comes to an environmentally friendly diet. There’s a fair bit of debate too on whether grass fed cattle are better or worse in terms of overall impact. Who could figure it all out? I certainly couldn’t.

I was thinking about this a lot at the end of 2008 and I wasn’t sure what to do. I’ve tried removing meat from my diet before. I didn’t last long. I decided on a compromise. “What about if we have one meat-free meal a day,” I proposed to my family back in January. I just had this feeling that food familiarity is a really significant thing. Also, I don’t like to take a recipe book out twice a day to get lunch and dinner on the table; my mental list of memorized, meat-free meals just wasn’t going to hack it. But one meat-free meal a day seemed workable, achievable, a good goal.

Well, they say that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Apparently the proof of beans as something tasty works too. Just about three weeks ago I got a little grumpy about making one more pot of bean soup. “I’m so tired of bean soup,” I pronounced at lunchtime. “We’re not, ” came the chorus of replies from my three family members around the lunch table, “it never tastes the same way twice.” “Maybe it’s you that’s tired of making bean soup,” they told me, “we’re fine with it!” Who was I to argue with them? I continued with the daily helpings of bean soup. And, you know what, I’m glad that I did. Because when I heard, “Beans are better than steak,” I was surprised, maybe even a little shocked, but I was really, thoroughly, pleased

What do you feed yourself and your family? Are you meat free, have you tried it, would you like to?

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