The Washington Post has a very interesting article today on the increasing popularity of Meatless Mondays (We have a Meatless Monday action right here on Climate Crossroads, as well as two meatless groups, too).

The article, entitled "Meatless Mondays, A Movement That Has Legs," covers all the angles of why people are doing it, as well as the meat industry's paranoid response. An excerpt:

It's enough to make the meat industry nervous. Over the past year, lobbying groups including the American Meat Institute, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the National Pork Board and the Farm Bureau have launched a quiet campaign to try to reverse the momentum.

They have fired off missives to institutions that embrace the call to reduce meat consumption, and they have posted talking points for meat producers on the Internet. They are also making a final push to ensure that the government recommendation of two servings of meat per day remains enshrined in the new dietary guidelines that the Department of Agriculture will release this fall....

In response, the meat industry has stressed science...To environmentalists, they point to new research that challenges widely publicized statistics that livestock production creates more greenhouse gases than forms of automated transportation.

Nervous meat producers! Could be a good band name. Are you into Meatless Mondays?

Join the I Love to Garden group here on Climate Crossroads, share your own tips, and post pictures!

Does one quit meat or does one become a vegetarian? They're the same, right? But the question points to the way in which we frame things. By closing the door on bacon and sausage, I've opened other doors to pasta, salad, Mexican dishes, etc. This point popped into my head after I read this article that British bishops are advocating a "carbon fast" for Lent.

Asceticism is part of a lot of religions in some way, shape, or form. Lent is about sacrifice -- and giving up meat and your own personal carbon emissions are admirable feats. But I think the messages that better resonate are the ones that encourage people to do things, not just temporarily quit things.

I've found that I prefer to say "I've become a vegetarian" rather than "I've quit meat." (Perhaps I should've re-thought the title of these posts.) Likewise, advocating bicycling and public transit; purchasing solar panels; encouraging air-drying laundry are better ways of making sure the message sinks in.

(I've become a vegetarian and I'm writing about it. Read Part 6 here. Join the Green Cuisine group here on Climate Crossroads.)

Have you ever been to the Ecological Farming Associations annual conference called EcoFarm?

People have a lot of cooking questions around the holidays. Lately, the usual “what’s your favorite way to cook a turkey?” and “how do you peel a chestnut?” inquiries have been replaced with a trickier and modernized holiday conundrum, “Any idea what the carbon footprint (or "foodprint" as we refer to it in my book Cool Cuisine - Taking the Bite Out of Global Warming) of my holiday meal is?”

Welcome to Cool Cuisine, a new blog looking at the connections between food, environment and cooking. As a private chef and culinary health educator for Kaiser Permenente, I've found that a great way to teach people about these connections is not by the use of words, but pictures. If we really want to change the world with great tasting food - we need to stop reading about it and start spending more time learning how to shop for, and cook with, the foods. So this blog tells stories and shares lessons through pictures taken during my classes and events.

SPECIAL NOTE: Unfortunately many people don't know a lot about food and cooking. So - if you want to change the way anyone (or society) eats - don't talk to them about what NOT to eat. Teach them what TO eat. Give them options.

This first blog is about a seasonal cooking class taught at the San Francisco Ferry Building Farmers Market. The market is a wonderful place to spend a Saturday - if you're around San Francisco and haven't gone yet - make a date to visit soon. The market is run by the nonprofit group - The Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA) See CUESA.org.

On October 31, 2009, chef Rick Debeaord of Berkeley's Cafe Rouge and myself taught a community cooking class and the San Francisco Ferry Building Farmers Market.

The theme of the class (and the recipe) came from my recent book, Cool Cuisine - Taking the Bite Out of Global Warming.

The day started with a market trip shopping for the freshest, local ingredients around. All farms at the Ferry building are a 150 miles to the market or closer. What a dramatic improvement from the 1,500 mile trip that the average meal travels to get to your dinner plate.

Today's recipe is Autumn Tempeh Salad (recipe at the end of blog). It starts with Kabocha squash, known to be one of the sweetest winter squashes.