I don’t understand how not eating meat at all would be less emotionally painful if you enjoy meat immensely. It seems like it would be much harder to actually change the habit, and that’s why you hear suggestions that are less drastic. Anyway, perhaps that is your point?

I tend to agree, in my own life anyway, it is easier for me to completely eliminate something rather than to say “I’ll do with less”. For example, the past 3 tax seasons (basically Feb 1st to April 15th) I’ve gone completely without soda. Yes, I know it’s a weird time to do without caffeine for a tax accountant. However, the rest of the year when I find myself drinking too much soda, I say I’ll limit it to 3 a week, or just weekends or something similar and I never stick to it. I find that interesting.

@PC – It’s not that it is no good at all. It’s just that there are better choices, even in terms of superior protein composition (1/3 egg + 2/3 potato for instance).

Try any of these arguments
http://www.vegsource.com/how_to_win.htm

@Janette – Consider this
http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/iron.htm

@gpjones –

I only checked the last source site you provided, but it uses good science to hype its own agenda.

For instance, the May 19 article about processed meats being bad says that up to 100g of red meat per day is okay… that’s only 3.5 oz, a far cry from the typical half pound or more that Americans like myself might eat! So instead of promoting a reduced red meat diet, the second-opinions.co.uk shouts “red meat is good” and “red meat is okay”. They do not responsibly add “red meat is okay only in moderation”.

Is that not the same as what you accuse Jacob of doing with his articles?

I have a friend who recently built a new home. This home has fourteen (14) foot ceilings in the living/dining/kitchen/family room. I asked why the ceilings were built to be so tall? The reply was a “sense of spaciousness”. I stated that no one lived above the first eight feet of wall height. I got a funny look from the friend.
Well, I said no one in the family was 7 feet or more tall. I could see I was getting nowhere fast on this. Additionally, the 14 foot ceilings made it necessary to have roof peaks that were 15 feet tall from the ceiling joists to the roof main rafters, creating an unused attic space of hundreds of cubic feet of wasted space. The material in the extra attic space would have been enough to build a comfortable sized living space in and of itself. The house is 2900 square feet of floor space X 14 foot walls in most of the house. If you downsized to say a 1600 square foot of floor space X 8 foot walls, your heated cubic feet of space would shrink immensely and the cost savings of heating and cooling would be tremendous.
The implied benefit seen by the home buyer was “A sense of spaciousness” inside the home, and the appearance of an extremely high peaked, although useless, roof line.
Go figure!!!!

one thing to note about meat — especially red meat, is there are not many (if any) studies that I know of that distinguish between quality red meat vs. the crap most consumers are willing to put into their body. Just something to think about.

@AJ – I’m thinking Fountainhead really was spot on. I think most of those houses look like a jumble of several buildings.

No offense, but many of these suggestions are utterly lacking in practicality.

The “no meat” argument is complete garbage if you want to build muscle. Check out any bodybuilding site and you’ll see the need for meat. Less meat is probably doable, but I’ll leave “no meat” to anorexic women and hippies.

Going car-less as a strategy would have been total failure in the last three cities I lived. My option would have been taking a bus route that ran about 5 times per day and was filled crackheads and people who probably would have stabbed me and taken my wallet. Visiting friends never would have happened since most lived too far away or required a highway to get to. And bikes aren’t allowed on highways. My grocery shopping options would have been limited to a dippy corner store at best. Visiting friends and relatives during three or four day weekends in nearby cities would have been impossible since traveling 150 miles by bike is pretty much impossible. And to top it all off, I would have probably frozen to death walking or biking for food in the -40 Midwestern winters.

As for the less house suggestion, I think it depends on the person and their situation. Having recently completed grad school I’m wanting more house. Having rooms serving triple duty sucks and makes you look bad when you have a girl over for dinner.

It seems that buying used conflicts with the idea of buying the best thing that you can and making sure it lasts a really long time. Personally, I’m more in favor of the latter.

@Josh – If you ever cooked with meat from Wal-mart, it is obvious where it came from by how it cooks. If you are going to cook meat get it from a reputable butcher. I’d rather go vegetarian than eat Wal-Mart meat.

My 90 y.o. (extremely healthy) dad is an uber-carnivore and always has been. The one thing that I think that he does differently than most (including his siblings half of whom have died with Alzheimers) is that he’s eaten grass fed beef his entire life (even during the 50 years that he smoked), eats absolutely no processed food and has no sweet tooth apart from fruit maybe once a day.

I believe I’ve read that during and after WWII, when people lived on rationed diets (including meat) that the general health of the society’s involved increased.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_Kingdom
I think we also forget that 50-100 years ago, fruits and vegetables just weren’t that widely available as they are today. Yet many of my own grand / great-grand parents lived into their 100’s. Luck of the genetic draw I guess.

Sigh… now to only put this in practice for myself. A WWII style ration would be more
palatable and doable for me than vegetarianism.

I do really, really want a tiny house and drive very little apart from work. Do I get bonus points for my RV being 10 feet shorter than Jacob’s?

😀 Very true… The post did get off to a tangent (I was guilty too).. P.S: You said exactly what I was going to say to vga.

As you mentioned in one of your previous posts… there is no point in investing in gym kit unless we do 5km runs and 30 pushups consistently for a month. How is that not a “baby step” approach? Can it not be argued that you are advocating a small but consistent change before taking the plunge to buy Kettlebells and other sundries? Of course with this there is costs associated that needs to be factored in the decision, but ignoring that… what is your thought?

Best,
Surio.
—

I have heard this distinction between types of change as “first order change” vs. “second order change”.

As I understand it, first order change involves changing the amount of something you are already doing. First order change also has the disadvantage of being easily undone in times of stress or distraction.

Second order change is a fundemental shift into doing something completely differently, & as such is less likely to unconsciously revert in times of stress.

@HSpencer — I have never understood the appeal of so called “two story great rooms.” In my area, the open, wasted part on the second floor of the house is treated as if it actually DOES have floor, with square footage of the second floor being figured as equal to the first floor. Thus the “great room” is greatly taxed, as twice the amount of square footage that is actually usable. That’s on top of the issue of paying to heat/cool all that empty air. In my limited experience with such things, they also cause noise from the first floor to echo up to the second, which defeats part of the point of having a house big enough to do separate things in separate areas of the house.

I thought the whole point of eating vegetarian instead of meat based was an environmental and financial one, not a health one. I think that meat and vegetarian diets can both be healthy. A healthful diet depends more on the quality of food and variety than the type of food. (My family consumes one pound of meat a week total.)

As to changing a habit, it depends on the personality of the person. Some people, me included, rebel at the idea of “not allowed” and will do something more because of this. I know the majority of people don’t work this way, but I need to know I can if I really want to. When I quit smoking, I carried a pack of cigarettes around with me all the time and kept telling myself that if I really needed one, I had them right there, but I’d skip one for now. The result was that I smoked 1 cigarette a day for a week and then one a week for a month and then quit. I carried that last pack around with me for 6 months before throwing it away. I wouldn’t recommend this method for everyone, but my point is that there is not a one-size-fits all cure for habits. Some do better with “forbidden,” and some do better with reduction.

Burgers you can replace with veggie burgers, but grilled chicken? Nothing better 🙂

For Evening workout: Breakfast 2 eggs, 1 piece toast, mid-morning: apple or orange, lunch: ceasar grilled chicken salad, afternoon: a thing of grain, :workout hard, Dinner: Red meat with steamed vegetables, or one veggie burger. Water throughout entire day. Sleep well and for 9-10 hours. Dreams are more realistic entertainment then books (though books become the constructs of cooler dreams 🙂

For most things, small steps don’t work for me either. I’ve found that positive steps work much better for me.

•Eat less meat.
Always have lots of beans available. With black beans around, I cna’t justify buying meat in the first place.

•Turn down the thermostat.
Wear a sweater. I have an amazing lounge sweater that I use in the house and since I like it so much, I would rather wear it than heat. I can’t wait for winter.

•Turn off the light when you leave the room.
Turn on a light only when you need it – you’d be surprised how easy it is to read by a window on even a cloudy day (in the summer).
Live primarily in one room. Then you never have to turn off the light!

•Drive less.
Walk more.

•Recycle.
I find this incredibly easy, but avoiding buying things helps more than all recycling.

Jacob. I agree with you that eating meat is absolutely more expensive than having a vegetarian diet. Especially if you are buying grass fed/organic.

I am currently pursuing my MS in Nutrition and I research this topic a lot. I have not seen any good scientific evidence regarding good clean sources of meat causing higher rates of cancer or heart disease. The cholesterol myth was started by Ancel Keyes who cherry picked his data when he was looking at red meat and heart disease. And regarding cancer, I have only seen the studies that show meat(that wasn’t grass fed organic) along with a “Western Diet” consisting of refined carbohydrates, rancid cooking oils and sugar in regular consumption correlating with certain forms of cancer. The cancer studies done in European countries with better sources of meat accompanied by a non-Western style diet showed little evidence of causing the same cancers. The French Paradox is another example. As well as the Inuit or the Messai Tribe who are cultures that consume mainly saturate fat/protein from animal sources.

But like you said, this shouldn’t be about a “to eat meat” or “not to eat meat” debate. Eating this way for me takes a little more effort but I still try to be thrifty when making my choices. For instance, I will buy a 1/4 cow which will easily last me for a year or more and is from a trusted local/grass fed/organic source. I will also visit farmer’s markets to take advantage of their deals especially when they do their fire sale during the last 30 minutes before the market closes. Whole Foods will send me emails when there is a sale on meat which I will also buy in bulk if a good deal is being sent out. Wild caught salmon could be bought in bulk at Costco and stored in your freezer. It defiitely takes more work but my health and happiness is worth it.

IMO those who say small changes are easier haven’t learned to use replacement correctly. Your behaviors are a product of the environment you create for yourself.

You don’t say “I’m not going to use my car anymore” then leave it in the garage. You move someplace you don’t need it and sell the thing.

You don’t say “I’m going to exercise more” then buy a pair of running shoes. You make a public comittment by entering a race, telling all your friends and family, finding people to train with and getting everyone you know who is willing on board.

To make real change, you have to become the type of person who does what you want. That means living like them.

Like electricity, we tend to take the path of least resistance which has led to what I think are some of my worst habits.

Good idea and a great mindset to have.

I have been parring down expenses lately in order to save and invest more for retirement and passive income.

I tend to be an incrementalist too finding it easier on the psyche, though I can understand that for some people jumping in completely is the way to go.

Going vegetarian did cut my food bills by 30%. However it did nothing for my health and I discovered that vegetarians can only claim it improves health if they are very selective about the research they are prepared to accept. The latest research I’ve read very clearly shows the opposite of what you claim not to mention that the southern Indians have one of the worst health statuses of any community in the world.