This week, Meat Neutral would like to bring special attention to Amy Standen and Sasha Wizansky who are fellow supporters of the world of meat. Amy and Sasha, who once upon a time were committed vegetarians themselves, are the creators of the magazine “Meatpaper.”

Meatpaper, recently featured in the New York Times, is a print magazine of art and ideas about meat. The term fleishgeist most appropriately describes the movement:

Fleisch-geist (flish’gist’) n. From the German, Fleisch “meat” + Geist “spirit.” Spirit of the meat. From Zeitgeist, “spirit of the times.”

Meatpaper goes beyond recipes and food, striving to capture the essence or spirit of meat. As Standen states: “Meatpaper is about every way of looking at meat. I think of it as a magazine that’s just as intended for vegetarians as it is for meat eaters.”

Some of our favorite articles included those that strive to examine people’s relation to the meat they eat. Our personal favorite: “Chris Cosentino doesn’t want to eat penis but if he has to, he will” is an interview of head chef Chris Cosentino who specializes in Offal meats. The interview touches on some important issues about how disconnected we are in urban settings from the meat we eat the animals it comes from, as Chris puts it (describing his more exotic dishes): “People say, “oh a tongue, I have one.” Or, “a heart, I can’t eat that.” What I try to do is make people understand a whole-animal ethic.”

The thing we liked best about Meatpaper is that it creates the space for an appreciation of meat that goes beyond the traditional “meat and potatoes” ethos. Meatpaper, like Meat Neutral endeavors to positively embrace our connection to meat. Eating meat is not something to be guilty of, nor should it be a divisive factor limiting our appreciation of vegetarian cuisine.

And finally a parting quote: “We find over and over again that bacon is the conversion meat,” Ms. Standen said. “Bacon is how vegetarians change their minds.” (related see Meat Neutral post: Bacon the Gateway Meat).

No. [digg=http://digg.com/food_drink/Is_This_A_Joke_2]

Its not. Meat Neutral may sound to good to be true, but it is a living, breathing, reality. We are writing a cookbook and the people from the Woodstock Collective are going to help. This week, the Meat Neutral blog celebrates its 1000th visitor and the momentum continues to build.

Already we have received several recipes our reader’s favorite Meat Neutral creations. Some of our favorites so far include Lovely Laura White’s scrumptious creation, Yummy Yummy Squash Curry (with Chicken) and our European correspondent, Nicole Porteous’ Speck Lasagna. These foreign fusions keep raising the bar higher and higher.

Our goal is to collect at least one recipe per week over the next year, so that we can put them together into a cookbook — with each recipe profiling the creator chief.

So take this as a call out to all you closet vegetarians. Start exploring your pantry and think of the frying pan as your canvas. Send your recipes to meagan@gomeatneutral.com

Help us take back vegetarianism!

PS: “…Meat is fine if you like it.”

Recently, an astute Meat Neutral reader pointed out that Mollie Katzen (author of one of the best selling cookbooks of all time, the Moosewood Cookbook) has been endorsing the Meat Neutral concept.

Ms. Katzen who holds a charter seat at the Harvard School of Public Health Nutrition Roundtable recently commented: “Vegetarianism is a negative statement about meat. My cooking is a meat-neutral positive statement about the joys (for everyone, no matter where they get their protein) of eating plant-based foods. I don’t like to draw lines in the sand with meat eaters in one category and vegetarians across the border in another club. I just want everyone to eat a lot of vegetables, whole grains, fruit, nuts and legumes. Meat is fine it you like it. Eggs are fine if you like them.”

Woodstock. Moosewood. Its all Meat Neutral.

[digg=http://digg.com/food_drink/Fish_Are_Animals_Too]
Over the past few weeks we have begun to articulate the Meat Neutral “manifesto” in each successive post. Some of the key tenets which we have covered include:

• Vegetarian food is good… its just missing meat
• Meat Neutral = Balance (like yoga)
• We promote culinary creativity
• Meat Neutral is about promoting vegetarian cuisine
• Meat Neutral can reduce your carbon footprint

Another pillar of the Meat Neutral lifestyle/philosophy is that we do not condone or support fishism.

What is fishism? For those of you not familiar with the term, fishism (\ˈfi-ˌshi-zəm), is a phenomenon quite common in the “vegetarian” world. It is a situation where an individual has made a strong political statement about their beliefs and ethical code that is reflected through dietary habits. (i.e. “It is morally wrong (and cruel) to kill sentinent beings to sustain our lifestyle”). This is a respectful choice that people have a right to make. However, more often than not, the fishist, does not extend this moral framework to the aquatic species. They bend the rules for when it comes to fish. Haven’t you ever heard the phrase: “I’m vegetarian, but sometimes I eat sushi.”

In essence, this statement entrenches the prejudice that our scaled friends endure on a constant basis. The fishist, acting as if they were nature’s omnipotent anthropocentric judge, grants freedom and rights to certain animals whilst taking them away from others.

Meat Neutral would officially like to state that we do not judge animals by their scales (so as we may not be judged by theirs). Instead we strive to spread and reduce our inevitable impact on the living world due to our perpetual need of victuals.

And remember:

Fish are animals too.

In addition to the obvious health and tastiness benefits of a Meat Neutral diet, this week we are going to explore another bonus. Reducing your carbon footprint.

As a case study, we are going to see how this week’s featured recipe, Stuffed Italian Sausage Portabella Burgers, actually decreases the meat consumption (and CO2 emissions) of your average BBQ.

Lets do a brief analysis and see how:

As we can clearly see, the Meat Neutral version actually decreases the meat consumption of your average BBQ by 500g.

Jamais Cascio, former editor of Worldchanging.com determined that 2.85 to 3.1 kg of carbon emissions (see Treehugger.com article) can be contributed to the average hamburger. As we normally eat large burgers at Woodstock, we’ll assume the CO2 emission for each burger is on the high end, around 3.1kg.

Lets calculate the total amount of CO2 equivalent emissions of four burgers:

Let us then calculate the CO2 reduction for the 500g decrease in meat consumption:

We can see that by eating Stuffed Italian Sausage Portabella Burgers we actually reduce the carbon footprint of an average BBQ by 8.86kg or 71%.

–Put that in your salad and toss it.

Over the course of writing this cookbook, we have embarked on a journey pushing the boundaries of traditional cuisine. Quite often we begin our explorations with “traditional vegetarian” cuisine and attempt to capture of the essence of what is missing… (meat). To recall one anecdote, a couple of weeks ago I was investigating new combinations of food, trying out new recipe ideas. One of my creations was Tofu Fajitas.

Tofu Fajitas?? Sounds crazy — I know. Maybe in all reality we are a little crazy.

To give our readers a background, I have spent considerable time in Mexico and toured throughout the different gastronomic regions, from the dry northern deserts of Tamaulipas where baby goat is a delicacy, the rainforests of Veracruz home of the Jalapeno pepper, ridden horseback through the avocado ranches of Michocan, and eaten the succulent pollo asados of the Yucatan – all the while taking notes, wafting the aromas, and savoring the culinary creativity.

In all my Mexican travels, I have never come across a Tofu Fajita, which reaffirms the “meat culture” of the land. But sitting there in my Victorian kitchen, my adventurous side overtook me and I decided to try it. I sliced the tofu with ease, all 16 layers of my Shun knife effortlessly manipulating the firm soy. The onions, the chiles, the tomatoes and the capsicum blending and fusing to create an experience going beyond the sum of its parts. The Woodstock Collective seated ourselves around the table, and dolloped the ingredients of the pan on to the maize tortillas, and brought the creation to our lips.

The result – well sometimes you can only go so far. I learned an important lesson that day, while it is important to explore and to innovate, we must also stay true to our roots. Because without our roots we have no balance. The tofu fajitas were just missing something…

Meat.

Okay, so we’ve thrown the term around somewhat, but what is this Meat Neutral thing really all about?

To put it simply, Meat Neutral is a lifestyle.

Fusion. Innovation. Dialogue.

These are a few adjectives that come to mind. Essentially it’s about being open minded, and pushing our comfort zones to try new things and expose ourselves to new ideas.

The Meat Neutral Formula is simple: Vegan food + Meat = Enlightened Vegetarianism (i.e. Goodness)

Now some of you might say, well that’s nothing new, that’s just regular food. Well yes, to those of us at the Woodstock Collective, it is just regular food. But we would like to expose others to the wonders of enlightened vegetarianism.

Some of the critics are appalled by such a notion: “In this day and age, with such pressing environmental issues as scare resources and expanded animal rights, how can they actually be encouraging and promoting the consumption of meat? … Who are these Meat Neutral guys anyways… are they a right-wing propaganda machine from Alberta!?”

To respond to this valid “vegetarian” critique, I must state once and for all that Meat Neutral is not about promoting an increase in beef (Albertan or not), rather its about neutrality – kind of like Switzerland.

It’s about bringing a balance to your eating habits and offsetting your meat consumption with vegetables. Its about exploring the wonders of the vegan world, something often overlooked in our burger and fries, steak and potato food culture.

Our goal is to throw the carnivores a tofu bone. To introduce people to new vegetarian cuisine while staying true to our meat roots.

Meat Neutral… the eve of a renaissance is upon us.

[digg=http://digg.com/food_drink/Bacon_The_Gateway_Meat/]
While fantastic, the Meat Neutral Concept, seems to step on some toes, especially in the presence of “traditional vegetarians.” This is because quite often the choice to not eat meat is grounded in the desire to reduce one’s ecological footprint. The idea being that deriving our diet from meat sources is an inefficient way to make up our diet.

This is a valid reason for being a vegetarian and we respect those choices, however, we would like to point out a reality … many vegetarian dishes (which are delectable cuisines on their own) quite often are better with meat. This is not to say that vegetarianism is inherently flawed or an inferior culinary persuasion – after all it was our love of a particular vegetarian dish that founded the Meat Neutral concept (Bacon Cheese Falafel Burgers). You will be happy to know that vegetarianism was the spawn of this work of gastronomic fusion.

After all we like veggies too!

Welcome to Go Meat Neutral — body, breath, burger, beer, bacon, balance… yoga.

This is the official blog of Go Meat Neutral, a concept that will take the world by storm. Vegetarianism for the rest of us.

Now, there are many things that Meat Neutral is but that will become evident with time. Instead of articulating what we are, lets take a moment to look at what we are not: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfbTO0GlONU]