Big Hair, Big Cars, or Big Ag? (oh my)

I walked the halls of Hanover High School in the age of big hair. The late eighties was a time when the female gender valiantly fought gravity with industrial-sized cans of Aqua-Net. I joined their ranks for a short while, sporting an embarrassing Joan Jett spiky hairdo in eighth grade that unfortunately didn't deliver the coolness factor I longed for. (Neither did the fluorescent-everything phase. Dang it!)

After a short while, I realized my new do was not bringing in the social riches I'd anticipated. Also, I had fine hair which didn't take well to onslaughts of hairspray. To use Eddie Izzard's words, it "collapsed like a flan in a cupboard."

Around this time, though, I learned that AquaNet was responsible for a mysterious, invisible hole in the ozone layer, so it was just as well. And I felt better, knowing I was no longer contributing to worldwide destruction through my stubbornly cornsilky bangs. By the time graduation rolled 'round, I was one of about four girls without big hair. I'm not making this up. My friend Nancy and went through our yearbook and counted.

As the years went by, though, it became apparent that it was not, in fact, Aqua-Net that was ruining the earth, but our big, bouncy, gas-guzzling cars. (Even so, the big hair went away. I think we all got tired from the effort. Plus we had our midriffs to start working on.)

In the last few years, though, the real culprit has been found. Transportation doesn't hold a candle to it. And hairspray quakes in its presence.

Animal agriculture is the worst contributor to climate change. Its effect on global warming is monumental. But we're not hearing a lot about it.

It's not because the research hasn't been done. Back in 2006 the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released a report that blew our worries about big cars right out the window. Or it should have. But most people never heard about it. I certainly didn't. It was entitled Livestock's Long Shadow. The report contrasted the environmental effects of transport against those of animal agriculture. There was no contest. Here is a telling excerpt:

Says Henning Steinfeld, Chief of FAO’s Livestock Information and Policy Branch and senior author of the report: “Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation.” 

Here and there, you'd hear little blips of information, but it was mostly done in a joking manner. I found out about it -- and I'm being completely serious -- through NPR's funny show Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me when one of their quiz's correct answers focused on the alarming amount of methane in, well, cow farts. Which is funny, when you think about it, but still. Why weren't we all curbing our animal-eating habits? Small and efficient cars became the new thing, both for the environment and for our collective wallet. Reducing or eliminating animal products on our plates would have had the same double-whammy effect, but most of us didn't change a thing.

Four short years later, the United Nations again pulled our attention to the catastrophic results of animal agriculture, this time insisting that a drastic change in our diets was necessary. (The United Nations for crying out loud!) The UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) released "Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production,"  a rather lengthy report that cautioned us to go to a more plant-centric diet in order to slow down the deleterious effects of global warming.

Food production is the most significant influence on land use and therefore habitat change, water use, overexploitation of fisheries and pollution with nitrogen and phosphorus. In poorer countries, it is also the most important cause of emissions of greenhouse gases (CH4 and N2O). Both emissions and land use depend strongly on diets. Animal products, both meat and dairy, in general require more resources and cause higher emissions than plant-based alternatives.

And further along the report: 

 “Impacts from agriculture are expected to increase substantially due to population growth increasing consumption of animal products. Unlike fossil fuels, it is difficult to look for alternatives: people have to eat. A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products."

Did you catch that on the news? Probably not. I don't know anyone who saw it. But that's a pretty big deal. If we were indeed focused on halting climate change, it should have been shouted from the rooftops. Instead we heard crickets.

Last month, President Obama was sworn into his second term. Among many things, he addressed climate change, which was heartening. Not surprisingly, though, animal agriculture was not even mentioned by the more renowned talking heads following the speech.  I didn't hear one word said, and believe me, I was on the ever-hopeful lookout.

If the United Nations has made such a big deal about the harmful effects of animal agriculture, why isn't it even being discussed? 

While I'm no Rachel Maddow, I can say this: the lobbyists for animal agriculture are very, very powerful. Look at Oprah, one of the most influential women of our time. She had the ex-rancher Howard Lyman on her show in 1996. When she learned that cows were eating other ground-up cows, making Mad Cow Disease possible, she stated, "It has just stopped me cold from eating another hamburger." She was subsequently hit with a suit for defamation from The Texas Beef Group. Though Oprah and Howard ultimately won two years later, it scared many people from saying "boo" about this nefarious industry. (They're just plain old creepy!)

There's more -- much much more -- to say on the subject, and I will be devoting a post to the devastating effect of fishing on our climate. But I did want to get this out there. Because most of us are completely unaware of it. And the fact that it is being hidden from us is, in my mind, downright criminal on several levels.

This ain't no fad. Even if one could argue that animals go through no suffering [they do], and even if one could prove that eating animal products is healthier than eating plant products [it's not], the stubborn fact is that our diet is well on its way to destroying the world we love. Sounds melodramatic. Even as I type this, I'm a little anguished, thinking, "How can I say this without sounding like a tree-hugging alarmist?"

The truth is, I'm not sure how to communicate it so that others will take heed and not dismiss it as simply interesting food for thought before they eat their meatloaf tonight. The facts are there, though, as much as we might wish them away. And as John Adams once said, "Facts are stubborn things." Global warming is not going to go away because big hair is out. It just isn't.  

A Spoon Full of Sugar

Mary Poppins knew how to make chores fun. We all daydream of the time when a lovely nanny with perfect pitch can come take care of the less-than-desirable items on our list, all with efficiency and good humor.

One of those less-than-desirable items for me is planning the week's menu. This may sound surprising to some, but as much as I occasionally enjoy cooking, it's the planning part that just bugs me somehow. There are many other things I'd rather be doing!

We all know that it makes good economical and healthful sense to plan one's week of meals ahead of time, and to subsequently go to to the store with a prepared list of needed items in hand.

We also know we should go shopping on a full stomach.

I usually aim to do both of these. I really do. However, I failed on the latter this morning, and left Whole Foods with a bag of (vegan) sour gummy worms. As soon as I got back into the car, I mauled the bag open grizzly-style and ate the entire contents while listening to Ira Glass's rushed chatter on NPR's This American Life. What can I say? Things got a little crazy.

But back to the menu planning. This often takes me a while. I sit in a sunny spot on the floor of our front living room, surrounded by stacks of cookbooks, hemming and hawing about what I'm going to make that week. I skim the books, trying to recall what the past successes were and which books they are in. And being a cookbook whore, I have many recipes to muddle through. Plus the cats always show up pining for attention in the midst of all this, so some time is lost there as well.

Sergio, always pining for attention. :) Isn't he adorable?

I wondered if I could streamline this process a bit so that I could have more quality time for important things, like satisfying my online solitaire addiction.

The first step was pushing my meal-planning day from Sunday to Saturday. Sunday can be such a "meh" day and adding food shopping to that day's activities suddenly struck me as a very bad idea. It's a much more tolerable chore on a Saturday morning, as you get it out of the way and you still have the whole weekend of possibilities laying out before you.

So here is the system, if one can actually call it that. I opened a new document in my Google account and entitled it Winner Recipes We Love. I shared it with my beloved, so that we could both add recipes to it. (You could just use a word document or  -- gasp -- write in an actual honest-to-goodness notebook.)

Then I began listing my cookbooks and the winner recipes we've tried from each one. (This isn't to say that these are the only good recipes in each book. They're just the ones we happened to have tried and loved so far.) Here is an example of what I've started. (I've still got a many books to go through, but you get the idea...)

Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan
47 Chipotle Lime Two-Bean Hummus
84  Peanut Passion Sauce
94  Cocoa Coconut Chili
95  Lemon Chickpea Lentil Soup
102 Thai Coconut Corn Stew
122 Broccoli Cashew Teriyaaki Tofu Stir-fry
131 Lemony Cashew-Basil Pesto on Pasta (better fresh, not as good for leftovers)
148 Thai Chick-Un Pizza

Chloe’s Kitchen
41 Warm Spinach-Artichoke Dip
73 Coconut Mashed Yams with Currants
95 Avocado Toast
101 Chloe’s Award-Winning Mango Masala Panini
191 Tempeh Piccata
201 Ginger Nutmeg Spice Cupcakes

Color Me Vegan
32 Quick Curried Swiss Chard
34 Beet burgers
37 Cajun Red Beans and Rice
38 Watermelon Granita
41 Raspberry Lemon Muffins
46 Citrus Salad
50 Peach Salsa
59 Carrot Fries
62 Sweet Potato Tacos (K likes)
76 Lemon Basil Vinaigrette
99 Frozen Banana Dessert
117 Kale Chips
129 Green Smoothies
152 Linguine with Purple Cabbage
176 Coconut Rice
179 Lemony Pan-Fried Chickpeas with Chard
180 Salt and Pepper Tofu
195 Black Olive Bruschetta
212 Nori Wraps with Orange Cashew Cream (K likes)
219 Chocolate Cherry Cookies
228 Carrot and Avocado Salad
229 Thai Coconut Soup
238 Indian-Style Black Bean and Veggie Burritos

The Vegan Slow Cooker
62 Soy Chorizo Black Bean Stew
74 Thai Red Curry Tofu and Veggies
110 Risotto
121 Tempeh and Veggies in Spicy Peanut Sauce

A few of these I've marked "K likes" because Ry is not a huge fan. So I plan these recipes for those nights when he is out on a gig. The numbers next to each recipe, you've probably guessed, are the page numbers in the book.

This has cut down significantly on menu planning time, since I can quickly peruse the list and see the winners. I'm not listlessly flipping through cookbooks anymore. And while I continue to try new recipes, the frequency depends on the week ahead. Some weeks are just about the quick-and-easy standards when I know I'll have very little energy or patience for experimenting.

So that's my little trick. Not Julie Andrews-worthy by any means, but it helps get the job done quicker.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have some solitaire to play. And kitties to pat.

See? As soon as those cookbooks land on the floor, Kaci appears ready to be admired. It never fails.

Abby Normal

What's normal?

Ask anyone who's lived or traveled away from home for a spell and, as much as she may have enjoyed her time, she'll probably admit that there is something very comforting about returning to one's own culture where the rules and language are a given. This can be true for cultures in distant lands, and it can be equally true for a culture a mere fifty miles away from your front doorstep. Ryan and I trek to Pennsylvania each December and I love our time there. But there is an undeniable thrill in seeing the familiar green Massachusetts Turnpike signs and other visual markers announce that we are almost home. My favorite stations reemerge on the radio. Even the obnoxious Boston drivers are somehow endearing. Our wonderful known world comes back into focus.

Life has so many forced surprises in store for each of us, that framing our lives in "normal" gives us a wonderful sense of stability. It's an anchor that keeps us safely tethered in a world that manages to occasionally make us feel blown off course.

Like everyone, I have my normal, and I love it. It might be a bit bland for some, but it makes me happy. One example: I can read all day. Get me hooked on a good author, and I'll snuggle in bed with a tank of coffee and some salted dark chocolate, completely content. (The Sookie Stackhouse series is my current drug of choice.) That might be torture to someone else whose normal is training for a triathalon. But it makes my little world lovely.

Another cornerstone of my normal is going to the movies. I can go by myself, with one friend, or with eight. Just as long as I have my homemade berbere popcorn and a cherry Coke (it's my one naughty movie allowance and one of the few occasions when I crave soda.) I'm completely sold into the movie producer's vision. You know the AMC thing they show after the trailers with the two gals and the guy watching the movie? The one where all the seats start turning into plants and stuff as they stare at the movie screen, smiling as only models can and sipping their sodas in a sweet yet sexy way? That's me, minus the sexy part. (I'm the one enveloped in cozy clothes with spilled pieces of popcorn in her lap.) I disappear blissfully into the movie's world. It's heaven.

Occasionally we all veer off slightly from our normal and try something different. A new restaurant. An undiscovered road to walk or run on. I recently started taking art classes again, which was initially intimidating. But like all small changes, it quickly got absorbed into my slow evolution of normal. Small changes to our normal are whimsical and nonthreatening.

Normal has its dark side, though. It can hypnotize us from seeing what we'd rather not see. We get so wrapped up in our view of the world, that we often fail to connect the dots because our normal creates a rather comfortable haze around us.

For years I viewed veganism as decidedly "abby normal," to quote Mel Brooks. It was extreme. It didn't jive with what I'd been taught. Vegetarianism was cute and acceptable. But veganism? Egads.

Besides, the animal cruelty couldn't be that bad, could it? After all, my parents ate animal products and they taught me so much about being kind and fair to everyone. I have a vivid memory of my father trying to dissuade my younger brother from buying Nike sneakers because he'd heard the company used child labor to make the shoes. He lost that particular battle, but his words stayed with me. My paternal grandparents were phenomenal humanitarians and early environmentalists. When I'd sleep over, we'd take early morning walks in the woods behind their house, always with a plastic bag in hand to pick up trash. Gramma taught me to cut the plastic 6-pack soda and beer holders into small pieces, lest a creature get strangled in the plastic rings. She also scolded me once when I was nine or so when I shared with her how I'd learned to fish during a camping trip. "But I throw them back in the water!" I explained. She emphatically asked, "Well how would you like it if someone stuck a long hook through your mouth?" And yet she enjoyed the occasional dinner of fish, a thought that did not enter my mind until recently. My mother would care for wounded animals that got hurt in our yard, as did my father. And friends and family were equally thoughtful and kind. I was surrounded by wonderful examples of compassion.

But we all ate meat and eggs, wore leather, and drank milk. It was never presented as a choice, really. We all just did this. It was normal.

Flip that coin, though, and see the results of this normal from the animals' perspective? Quite a different story. And though I may be wrong about this, I believe that if these same lovely people saw and heard what happens to the animals used for these products, their reactions would be similar to my own. If they actually saw the journey of the cattle in India and China and what workers will do to a collapsed animal to get it back on its feet on its way to slaughter. If they saw the harvesting of the leather and realized that, dear God, that animal is still alive. If they saw what people did to those cute male chicks in hatcheries, the same ones we go gaga over in Easter commercials. If they saw animals destined for "humane slaughter," legs roped together and their bodies shaking from fear so badly that the sides of the pickup truck they are lying in rattle. How could any of us possibly support it once we knew? Once we saw? Once we heard?

And this is why we resist learning what happens. Why so many of us (me included) have said, "I can't bear to know," as we eat our bacon. We know, deep inside, that we couldn't support it. And that we'd have to divorce ourselves from our normal and be cast adrift from our beloved anchor.

The initial challenges of such break from normal are twofold.

One: The people in your life your hold dear may try to coax you back to normal, no matter how diplomatic you try to be. They may try to reason with you, debate with you, scare you, even roll their eyes at you. But, most fascinating, all but a rare few will not want to hear a word of what happens to the animals. Because it will threaten their normal. And nobody wants their normal threatened. I speak from experience because, while I never disagreed with people about animal rights, I was your classic example of "don't tell me." I knew that knowing the truth would be a game changer.

Two: While small changes are fun and playful, a large paradigm shift in one's normal is very intimidating. Cooking without animal products seems loony at first. It's a complete upheaval of so many dimensions of our lives. We worry about the health consequences. Losing our anchor is unsettling to say the least.

But here's what I discovered. I didn't go adrift. I still had the anchor. I had just pulled it up into the boat and then cast the sails to explore new ports. It was, in fact, actually kind of fun! The food I was trying out was surprisingly tasty. Sure there were some culinary disasters, but that had happened plenty of times when I ate animal products. We used WAY less trash, as most of our refuse went into the compost. And what did go into the trash didn't rot or smell. After a while and some experimentation the food got -- damn -- really good.

The salty old harbor I had long anchored in paled in comparison to the new places I was exploring. And there was an unexpected beauty to creating a new normal. A normal that finally matched the Golden Rule touted by so many.  Only a month after going vegan, I found it laughable that I'd ever considered it a big deal. My old normal seemed kind of pathetic and out of date. It smelled of mothballs. I loved my new normal.

In Young Frankenstein, Igor picked the abnormal (abby normal) brain by accident. But the resulting person ended up being a pretty cool guy. (And pretty good in the sack, if you remember Madeline Kahn's reaction to his overtures ...)

Because when you get down to it, normal is not all it's cracked up to be. Abby normal can be cooler. Healthier. More fun. And way more in line with your own ideas of what kindness and empathy really mean. 

Pull up the anchor. See what happens.

I triple dog dare you.

 ***

What are some fun sides of your normal?