happy world vegetarian day!

today, october 1st, is world vegetarian day and is the annual kickoff of vegetarian awareness month.
i'm not suggesting you all eschew your meat eating ways completely but consider how every meatless meal can help:

- reduce your risk of heart disease, strokes, and cancers
- reduce your risk of exposure to foodborne pathogens
- save animals from suffering in factory-farm conditions
- conserve vital and limited freshwater, fertile topsoil, and other natural resources
- preserve irreplaceable ecosystems like rainforests and other wildlife habitats
- decrease greenhouse gases that accelerate global warming
- mitigate the ever-expanding environmental pollution of animal agriculture

i'll spare the lecture, but there are so many good reasons to reduce or stop consuming meat. there are tons of great sources of information out there and i compiled a lot of them in my "unplug yourself: part one" for your edification.

try this month to replace even one meal where you'd normally use meat with a vegetarian meal. get reacquainted with vegetables and perhaps the tons of great faux meats from burgers, to ribs, to meatballs, to "chicken" nuggets, to (i swear it exists), vegetarian haggis. most of these things can be found at your local heath food store and some are surprisingly convincing analogues. try it for a month...consider it an investment in your health.

~thorns