I’m beginning to think, in light of recent accounts, that we should, on balance, eat a little less meat. … I don’t want animals stressed or crowded or treated cruelly or inhumanely because that makes them provably less delicious. And, often, less safe to eat. (Source)

Could this be true? Has the arch carnivore of the Western media – the man who notoriously ate the the still-beating heart of a cobra on television – finally turned the corner?

Let’s be clear about one thing: Bourdain’s concern isn’t to alleviate the suffering of any species apart from human beings. In his limited personal quest to raise the quality of human life, he does, however, care about the food we eat, and this raises a valuable point: even for a person with such narrow concerns, it makes sense to pursue a diet in which animal flesh is eaten only on the condition that its quality is high. And if that means eating less animal flesh, this is a price he’s prepared to pay.

One of the purposes of Lowmeat.org is to publicise common ground. The strapline here is, For you, for livestock, for the planet. The great thing about a low meat diet is that even if you only pursue it for the sake of one member of that triumvirate, the evidence suggests you’ll benefit the others as well. That, at the risk of sounding corny, is a win-win situation! So thank you, Anthony, for caring about our diets – and for writing about them – whatever you may think about the rest.

But what can you cook to replace some or all of the turkey, goose, pigs in blankets, or other traditional festive dishes you might usually eat? Well, you could spend a while searching your cookbooks and the Web for suggestions – and doubtless you’d find some good ones – or you could give yourself a head start by jumping straight to the recipes linked from this article by Adharanand Finn.

There, moderation isn’t so difficult after all. Happy holidays, folks!

Million Dead, Holloway Prison Blues

For the ethical consumer, shoes pose a problem. If one wants to buy shoes not made mostly of synthetics, one has two broad options: canvas shoes or leather ones. Canvas shoes are fine for some circumstances, but not for all.

The trouble with leather is that much of it comes from Indian cows that are treated rather badly (I know what you’re thinking: aren’t cows sacred in India? Well, not entirely…) and is then tanned in ways that create substantial water pollution. If you want to buy shoes made with leather from organically-reared cattle, tanned in a sustainable fashion, you’re out of luck.

That may be about to change in 2010. Organic leather company Natureally is working with manufacturers who are hoping to bring organic leather shoes to market. With any luck, this will open the door for more companies to start doing the same.

As for other items of clothing – belts, bags, jackets, hats and so on – it’s probably better to choose items made of sustainable non-leather materials like hemp, organically grown cotton, or wool.

The red meat industry is an intense emitter of greenhouse gases (GHGs), so reducing your red meat consumption is a great first step towards reducing your carbon footprint.

Reducing consumption of animal products generally has another advantage: it is more efficient. Because arable farming produces more calories per acre than meat or dairy farming, it means less land is needed to feed a given population. This reduces the risk of food shortages and could even allow surplus land to be reforested as carbon sinks, as explained in this video.

To read even more about the environmental benefits of low meat diets, have a look at this New Scientist article.