Less Meat, More Meat

I love meat. I do. One of my greatest food adventures brought me to a sheep farm, where we met the farmers, toured the barns, and watched a sheepdog herding demonstration while enjoying an amazing lamb cookout. The farmers were grilling several lamb legs over hardwood and rosemary sprigs as we were looking out over the green pastures that fed these tasty animals.

We drank red wine from plastic cups. And it was divine.

These were no ordinary sheep. They were a part of Niman Ranch, a business whose animal husbandry practices were superb. There was no doubt in my mind that these were very happy animals.

Regrettably, in the world of meat production today this is the exception rather than the rule. And I recently decided that I’d prefer to avoid conventionally raised meat as much as possible. This is why I started logging my daily meat consumption on The Meat Sheet. The goal was to have a baseline understanding of how much unhappy meat I was eating. With that knowledge, I could then try and do better.

How did I do in January?

I really have no idea. There were seventeen days last month when I didn’t consume any meat at all. That sounds like a lot. When there is an ongoing campaign to encourage people to go meatless one day of the week (Monday to be precise) my number is over 400% of their goal. But still, most of the meat I did eat wasn’t very happy.

The unhappy meat that I ate last month really fell into three categories.
1)    Meals that used meat purchased before this plan
2)    Meals that included perishable meat gifts
3)    Meals that I ate out of the house

Despite my love for the stuff, we don’t actually eat a lot of meat. Almost everyone suggests that we should be eating less overall, and certainly less animal protein. Most of the times that means we use meat as a seasoning in a dish. The natural result of this is that it takes us a long time to go through a little bit of meat.

This problem was compounded recently with a gift from my in-laws of delicious porky products from their local butcher, Holland Bros. Meats. They came with four smoked pork chops and several rounds of kielbasa. I think the plan was that we would have a family meal, but you know how I feel about plans.

Anyway, they got called away for a medical emergency (don’t worry, everything is now fine). Given the cold, we just left the wrapped meat in the garage. But it got crazy cold, the meat froze, and I got complacent. By the time I noticed the temperature had warmed up to a balmy thirty-something, the meat had defrosted.

Crap. That meant that it had to be used.

Mrs. Fussy can’t stand kielbasa and Little Miss Fussy doesn’t seem to be a big fan either. So Young Master Fussy and I enjoyed the hell out of it. Holland Bros. does some very good work. In fact, their meat is certainly several cuts above what is available from even the better supermarkets, but I’m still not sure it qualifies as “happy.”

The smoked pork chops got divided up into two separate dishes: black eyed peas and a white bean and carrot stew. When I make bean dishes, I generally start with at least two pounds of dried beans. So those four smoked pork chops were used to season approximately six dinners worth of food for the family.

What I’m trying to say is even though there are many days that include unhappy meat on the meat sheet at the end of January, most of those meals contained very little of the stuff. Still, its presence in our diet can’t be ignored.

For the meat consumed out of the house, there are a few places where I could have made better decisions. The unhappy meat at the reception in NYC and the dinner that followed on January 17 could have been avoided. There were plenty of non-meat options that would have been satisfying, but in the excitement of the affair I forgot myself.

Then on January 27 I was confronted with a make-your-own sandwich platter. I instinctively made myself a turkey and cheese sandwich, even though I don’t even like sliced deli turkey. It only occurred to me after the fact that I could have simply made a cheese sandwich. But at the time a cheese sandwich just didn’t feel much like dinner.

I could have skipped the beef tteokbokki at Kinnaree, but it was so delicious that I have no regrets. The same goes for the meat of my people at the Carnegie Deli.

What I find to be particularly interesting is the lack of actual “happy meat” on The Meat Sheet. There is the carnitas from Chipotle, but there wasn’t even a Nature’s Place roast chicken. The stuff from Holland Bros. may turn out to qualify, but I haven’t had the chance to call them and ask about where they get their pork.

Largely this is a function of eating through the rest of the sad meat we have on hand. I do have a few nice pieces of happy beef in the freezer, awaiting consumption. But I expect to see more happy meat appear on The Meat Sheet once we’ve eaten through the stockpile of meat purchased before this whole crazy thing started.

All of this is to say, I think I did okay, but I can do better.