The Wordsmith's Forge

For my current set of tips, I'm using the list "101 Small Ways You Can Improve Your City.

63. Don’t eat so much meat. A 2016 Oxford University study showed reducing the amount of meat in Western diets by half could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save over $31 trillion (trillion, with a T) in healthcare costs. The MeatlessMonday movement has gotten governments and schools all over the world pledging to stick to veggies one day of the week. (If you already don’t eat meat the rest of the days of the week, you’re ahead of the game.)

First, consider your budget.  Can you afford a healthy diet if you drop meat?  Vegetarian and vegan diets are more expensive, because even though meat is pricey, it efficiently provides nutrients that are harder to get elsewhere.

Second, consider how much meat you currently eat.  If it's a lot, cutting the amount has high value; but if you already eat less than average, cutting it further may not have much impact.

More importantly, consider the kind  of meat you eat.  Beef is by far the most destructive.  Chicken, rabbit, and fish/shellfish are all much smaller and lower impact.  Pork, lamb, and mutton are in between.  Bison and venison have the advantage of being native species and can thrive in territory not well suited to domestic breeds.  Just dropping your beef consumption gives you a lot of bang for your buck.

You can also explore more vegetarian recipes.  Consider Chinese and Indian cuisine among others.  However, bear in mind that this can increase your food costs, as we've seen with my Wok Study project. While things like beans and rice are super cheap, fresh produce is pricey.

Today is mild and clear.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a small flock of sparrows, a small flock of doves, and a Bewick's wren.  I heard a woodpecker drumming but couldn't spot it.

I hauled 3 buckets of mulch to dump under the maple tree by the south lot.

This poem is spillover from the March 2, 2021 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from nsfwords. It also fills the "Marigold - Grief" square in my 2-1-21 "The Language of Flowers" card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by janetmiles. It belongs to the series Eloquent Souls.

WARNING: This poem touches on historic horrors that may disturb some readers. Hankie warning! It also makes people cry. Highlight to read the warnings, some of which are spoilers and possibly also triggers. It includes the Holocaust, because the Holocaust is always a warning, Adolf Hitler, and his questionable orientation(s), extreme self-mutilation, possible boomerang bigots, Nazis, Nazis everywhere, soul marks across ideological lines, sometimes leading to murder or other mayhem, soul violence, concentration camps, and their tattooed numbers, suicide, human experimentation, evil Nazi mad scientists, effects of pervasive surveillance, loss of soul marks, traumatic grief, forced separation, acts of genocide, assassination, mutilation of human remains, taking of human trophies, self-destruction, and other mayhem. While the overall severity is somewhat reduced compared to historic records, it is still horrible. Please consider your tastes and headspace before deciding whether this is something you want to read. People with historic trauma relating to World War II may wish to take extra caution.

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