The Great Food Challenge

I love food. Good food probably accounts for 47% of my happiness in life. There’s nothing like sitting down with a group of friends at a barbeque and digging into a huge rack of baby back ribs. Or going out with my family to a local restaurant back home with a bowl of gumbo to you right and a heap of steaming jambalaya to your left. Or going out for coffee with that girl you’ve been eyeing and having her be completely ok with the fact that you just stuffed half of a cinnamon roll in your mouth...Pure bliss.

No more

But when we were in Cape Town a few weeks back, I probably ate over 10 lbs of red meat in the span of 4 days…no joke. My carnivorous ways had gotten the best of me. AJ wasn’t much better. So with the ever so wise Tizzy shaking her head and explaining how we both probably took away a few weeks of our life and also just pumped a bunch more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, AJ and I decided we had to do something.

So, taking both of our competitive spirits into account, we made a bet. Whoever could go the longest without eating meat, would get R250 (about $35). We also bet R100 over who could go the longest without drinking soda, just for kicks. More at stake than the money however, was our pride. I was sure that my natural desire and will to be better than AJ at everything in life would push me to victory. And so began, The Great Food Challenge.

Throughout the bet, we have both been educating ourselves of the intricacies of the modern day world of meat processing, and have been pretty disturbed by all of the things we’ve learned, from both a personal health and environmental perspective.

One excerpt from an article in TIME magazine really struck a nerve with me:

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) concluded that worldwide livestock farming generates 18% of the planet's greenhouse gas emissions — by comparison, all the world's cars, trains, planes and boats account for a combined 13% of greenhouse gas emissions.

Damn.

For someone who really cares about Global Warming and its implications for the future, I have to admit I had no idea that the meat industry could be so environmentally destructive, at least not to the extent shown above.

At Tizzy’s suggestion, I’ve also started reading Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan and it’s already proven to be extremely informative with regards to educating me on the way I eat and all of the implications it has.

With all that being said…I still love meat. And after 12 days, 7 hours, and 12 minutes I succumbed to the savory smell of braii steak and chicken flowing through the air outside the Nike Center during lunch time. I gave AJ his money, and ate this barbequed meat in a way I’ve never eaten a meal before. For about 20 minutes it was just me, my fingers, and the meat. Great Food Challenge: 1-0 to AJ.

Now to some of you, that may seem pathetic. You could only go 12 days without meat, Clint? That’s pitiful. And I’ll admit, maybe it is. But these two weeks have been some of the longest ever. I think I’m just meant to eat meat, its ingrained in my DNA and I can’t do anything about it. And considering that my last attempt at vegetarianism lasted 2 days, I’m pretty proud of myself.

AJ however, also succumbed. But to temptation of carbonated drinks. He claims he “forgot” the soda bet, and as I watched him put a can of Sprite to his lips, I stuck out my hand and received my R100 with and smile on my face and dougied out the store. Great Food Challenege: Tied 1-1.

I pray to God this is waiting for me when I get to heaven

These past two weeks, however, haven’t been a waste by any means. We learned and are continuing to learn about ins and outs of everything we put into our bodies and I think that my eating habits have changed for the better because of it.

I’ll always keep this in mind:

According to Environmental Defense, if every American were to replace one meal of meat per week with a vegetarian meal, it would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by the same amount as taking more than a half-million cars off U.S. roads.

So I don’t necessarily have to give up meat cold turkey. I figure as long as I eat meat in moderation, and not like I had before. I can do my part in positively affecting my own health and the environment.

Now that the vegetarian bet is over, AJ and I are trying to decided whether to try “weekday vegetarianism” or the experiment of only eating one meal with meat per day. We’ll see how it goes, but I definitely know that if you had asked me a month ago if I would have even considered any of these, I would have laughed in your face.

Next up in the Great Food Challenge is giving up fried food. No French Fries?!?! its ridiculous!!! French fries was actually the first words to ever come out of my mouth. No joke, ask my mom. But with the challenge tied at 1-1, my will to defeat AJ will inevitably lead me to victory.