Eating less beef

(image credit: https://magnoliagrassfed.com/)

There is nothing more controversial among climate activists than the sources of protein in your diet. I am wholeheartedly in support of those who choose to be vegan. I've tried several times to become vegetarian and it hasn't worked well for me, because my body doesn't tolerate either beans or wheat, which are both primary protein sources in most vegetarian diets. Ota's body doesn't tolerate either beans or dairy, so she also has trouble being vegetarian. We certainly do eat a "plant-rich" diet, including plenty of fresh, local fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, and gluten-free grains like oatmeal, quinoa, and corn, but we also eat meat, including beef, lamb, poultry, and fish.

Beyond our personal health needs, there is also something to be said for using livestock management as a tool to sequester carbon in the soil. Managed grazing is one of the climate solutions touted by Project Drawdown -- their research indicates that it can sequester up to 3 metric tons per acre per year, and be more profitable than the intensive livestock management practices used in North America today.

I believe that it is important for all of us to take the steps we can take to reduce our climate impact. In our situation, it is easier for us to reduce our use of fuel-based electric power to zero than it is to adopt a purely vegan diet for the sake of the climate. But that doesn't get us off the hook, as omnivores, to reduce the climate impact of our diet.

Our first climate step in this area was to move toward reducing the amount of meat that we eat, and source it from local farmers who use holistic land management tools that sequester carbon in the soil and respect the animals, including rotational grazing, grass finishing, and limiting the number of cattle to those that can live a healthy life on the land, as opposed to the shocking conditions feedlot-finished cattle are subjected to.

Update 2/2024: Upon digesting this article and several journalistic opinion pieces by George Monbiot based upon this and similar research, as well as some new health information that indicated we would be better off not eating beef at all, we've decided to phase out beef almost entirely. Why? The problem is that there is a limit to how much carbon can be sequestered by grazing cattle, and in many situations, no way for raising beef to overcome the methane emissions of the cattle AND the opportunity cost of the natural ecosystem that the cattle ranch replaced. Since grass-finishing beef takes more land than grain-finishing beef, in some cases it is even worse for the climate because it displaces more natural ecosystem.

And eating beef increases risk of colon cancer, while eating fish (and maybe chicken as well) is protective, and both have lower climate footprints than beef. Beef is also associated with other health conditions, such as gout.

Turns out, reducing the amount of land spent on animal agriculture and rewilding it is the best way to sequester carbon. And eating more plants and less red meat is the best way to be a healthy flexitarian. With our allergies to legumes, dairy, and wheat, we may never be vegetarian, but we can contribute to reducing the climate impact of our diet by eating no red meat or dairy, and small amounts of fish and chicken, in addition to more vegetables and fruit.

Creating a garden

We hired a neighbor to build several raised beds for us, with hardware cloth fastened to the bottom to exclude the pocket gophers, and to fill them with organic horse manure compost mixed with our native soil.

We've been experimenting with which vegetables and herbs grow best at our altitude, and so far we have had great results with short-season varieties of

• Potatoes

• Carrots (Yaya)

• Summer squash (pattypan, zephyr, and zucchini)

• Cool-climate herbs like parsley, tarragon, winter savory, dill, and borage

• French beans and snap peas

• Beets

• Greens, including leaf cabbage, chard, arugula, kale, and a variety of lettuces

We grow some shorter-season tomatoes (Stupice and cherry tomatoes) and basil in our greenhouse. We also have access to an organic farm only half an hour away (at much lower elevation) that grows amazing sweet peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes, so we pick those at the end of the summer and don't bother to grow them in the mountains. And we supplement our produce all summer with additional varieties from the nearby farmer's market.

We've planted some berry bushes, rhubarb, and asparagus as well, but since it takes a few years for them to establish well enough for harvesting, we haven't gotten to try them yet!

4WD electric SUV

We live where it is a matter of safety to have a 4WD vehicle, not just a preference, and we like to free camp. We are determined that our current vehicles will be our last gasoline vehicles. We have been looking forward to the advent of 4WD electric trucks for the past two years and have had reservations for two different models to consider. And our turn finally came!

In preparation, we bought an inexpensive old 4wd truck to serve as backup on the rare occasions when we need two vehicles and to haul manure or large items. We sold our two city commute cars for the downpayment on the EV (they aren't well suited for mountain roads anyway, although they've done their best). With the federal and state incentives for the EV and the fact that charging with renewable electricity will be free, we have gotten the cost of ownership of our two 4wd vehicles down to near what we had before with two sensible commuter ICE cars.

We are looking forward to having two cars that can make it up the snowy, icy mountain roads and our steep driveway so that we can drive all the way to our house in the winter rather than having to walk a distance in bad weather.

We've found that hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles we've owned in the past were peppier than gasoline-only vehicles, so we're looking forward to our BEV giving better performance than the cars we have been driving. And its high clearance will be a huge benefit with the amount of off-roading we do. We expect to have a learning curve negotiating DC fast chargers on road trips, but we are already comfortable with charging our plug-in hybrid while shopping, working, staying overnight, or eating at a restaurant.

I'll update this article as we gain experience with our new EV!