What to Feed Your Vegetarian Son-in-Law this Thanksgiving: How to Eat Lower on the Food Chain and Love It!

As I scan the two folding tables assembled in an “L” formation and covered in a mouthwatering collection of savory dishes and sweet rolls, I see all kinds of opportunities to fill my plate with first and second helpings. Our extended family holds a big Thanksgiving gathering at a small church in central Ohio, where it’s easy for a vegetarian to find more than enough to satisfy. I’ll be passing on the turkey and gravy, despite how good it smells, but I will certainly not go hungry.

But what if it’s come down to you setting a more intimate table with fewer options.. and your daughter is bringing her new husband who doesn’t eat meat?  Don't panic!  Imagine your typical holiday dinner, and you’ll likely see plenty to offer anyone with fewer carnivorous leanings: mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green beans, rolls, and even stuffing can be made vegetarian if you don’t mind using veggie bouillon, and baking it outside of the bird.

Of course, you can easily supplement the turkey and gravy with some yummy and easy vegan and vegetarian options. Thanksgiving is about setting a grand table where we can all celebrate each other, and argue over politics like any other normal American family. Our very own “Veggie Holiday Wreath” recipe hits on all the same culinary notes, savory, sweet, fatty, and nap-inducing. Our family loves it so much you better not be at the end of the line or this is all that you’ll find!

Serving a more sustainable table during the holidays can be a delicious diversion from the norm and can lead to healthier habits for you and the planet. Here are some things to consider as you approach the holidays and resolutions for the new year, and even more importantly, why we make these food choices.


Eat Lower on the Food Chain

The evidence related to climate change points back to our food systems, production, harvest, transportation, etc. Much of what lines our grocery store shelves is produced on an industrial scale. Foods like meat, eggs, and dairy require vastly greater amounts of energy than basic vegetables, legumes, mushrooms and grains. Eating lower on the food chain (things that do not also eat other things) reduces our ecological food footprint. Less demand for those energy heavy foods means less energy used to produce them. A bi-product of lower demand is curbing deforestation; surprisingly, the biggest driver for clear cutting the rainforest is food production rather than harvesting for lumber, paper, or any other wood-product use.

We’ve been enjoying a vegetarian diet for nearly half of our lives. We consume eggs and dairy in small amounts and Hutch occasionally eats seafood (typically when in a fishing place and tries to follow sustainable guidelines), but overall, our diet is very plant-heavy.  And if you’ve been following us for awhile, you know that we like to make our meals an event.

According to a recent CNN interactive article, the second biggest impact toward reducing our greenhouse gas emissions with food is “Eating a Plant Heavy Diet.” It is the equivalent of taking 464 million cars off the road.  Wait...what?  Wow!  Notice, it doesn’t say eating a “vegetarian” diet; we only need to reduce our reliance on high energy foods to have this kind of impact -- good news for those who cannot imagine going without turkey smothered in gravy this Thursday.

But eating lower on the food chain has other benefits for us. As we mentioned in our last article on Food Waste, since we don’t have to store meat, we can get by with just a cooler and a few blocks of ice every week. We spend less money on food in two ways -- meat is generally more expensive than other foods and we waste less in our simple food storage situation.  More importantly, we are able to eat local, organic, and non-GMO on a very limited budget.


Eat Local

This summer, as we worked in the small town of Stonington on the coast of Maine, the weekly farmer’s market became part of our routine. In our travels, Hutch has found these to be the perfect venue for opening the guitar case and offering up his folky covers of familiar songs to market goers. It's a nice exchange, because the vendors seem to genuinely enjoy the live music, and we enjoy the fruits of their labors. He often makes enough in one sitting to cover the fruits, veggies, and eggs we purchase...and more.

Local food connects producers and consumers within one geographical region, in other words the kind of food system our grandparents grew up with. Eating local, like eating plant-heavy, doesn’t have to mean eschewing blueberries from Peru in December; it just means dialing it back a bit, and being intentional about what we choose to eat and when.

In our home state, the North Carolina 10% Campaign attempts to boost local economies and establish robust food security by asking consumers to spend at least 10% of their food budge on local food. The Center for Environmental Farming Systems claims that if every North Carolinian did this, it would add an additional $3.5 Billion to the state’s economy. For a population of 10.4 million, that's no small boost. 
There is some controversy over the environmental benefits of local food in reducing emissions that contribute to climate change. Several studies demonstrate that the efficiency of factory farming concentrates emissions which offset those created by longer range transportation networks (i.e., local production is more energy intensive than longer distance transportation). These studies only looked at meat and egg production, giving another boost to the effectiveness of a “plant-heavy diet” plan.

What these studies fail to consider, however, are broader definitions of sustainability, let alone animal welfare. Curbing greenhouse gas emissions is only one way to define what will sustain us as a healthy species on this planet. Farmer’s markets or CSA’s create community events where people gather and linger, share good food, and engage in conversation between producers and fellow consumers.  In our former hometown of Boone, our weekly trip to the farmer's market became a social event where we could catch up with friends, colleagues, and local officials. 

In addition to adding local jobs, farmer’s markets create a place where local folks can raise awareness on local issues. Across the country, we’ve seen booths occupied by groups educating and involving the community in local decision making. As more and more local newspapers close, this might be one solution for community engagement.

At every farm we’ve volunteered, from Maine to Kauai’i we ate as much local food as possible -- it was part of the deal. And what could be more local than walking out into the back plot and plucking ripe fruit off the tree for a morning smoothie? But as we’ve traveled in our rig, we’ve had to be more intentional in planning our farmer’s market stops. But we stop at roadside stands as often as we can, and traveling the back roads in America (and off the interstate) certainly helps us find them.


Eat Organic & Non-GMO

While many farmer’s markets promote eating organic, it’s made the cross-over into every grocery store in America, at least in the produce section. While more pricey than conventional food, producing organic food is more labor intensive and doesn’t rely on the heavy use of industrial fertilizers, pesticides, and hormones. Organic farming methods create a healthier ecosystem starting with the soil. Healthier soil leads to a healthier plant which may be more resistant to disease and pests, and hopefully better tasting. Many studies have shown that organic farms are less energy intensive than conventional farms and actually sequester carbon emissions, by increasing soil CO2 capacity.

Organic practices also focus on increased plant & species diversity and don’t use Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s). These trademarked plants developed and owned by big agribusiness companies are genetically altered to be pesticide and herbicide resistant. The use of these crops increases the amount of chemicals in our food supply. This has also contributed to the creation of super weeds and bugs which have themselves become more resistant.  This requires additional applications of chemicals, many of which have been labeled as carcinogens by the World Health Organization.  And, there are many species of pollinators that are suffering as a result of GMO's.

While the labeling of GMO ingredients in food is not mandatory until 2022, we can choose to eat food specifically labeled “Non-GMO” or “organic" right now.  The Non-GMO Project offers a third-party evaluation of any product or retailer making the claim. Go to the website to find retailers or look for this label on any products meeting the criteria.  “Organic” status has to meet the current rigorous standards outlined by the USDA. 

As consumers in a capitalist society, we vote with our dollars.  Since millions have started filling their reusable shipping bags with more sustainable choices, there has been significant growth in the variety of products and size of shelf space over the past two decades.  You can even find products like Beyond Burger or Impossible Burger at fast food joints which used to be the vanguard of GMO products.  Things have changed since our childhood where the height of food culture was Tang and Iceberg lettuce.
    

This Thanksgiving we are lucky enough to be with extended family we've not seen in many years.  Let's see if we can steer the conversation away from.politics and toward good sustainable food.  We'll let our cooking do the talking, our yummy Veggie Holiday Wreath should be the perfect conversation starter.  However you celebrate it, enjoy your Thanksgiving and please pass the Portobello Mushroom Gravy!