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.

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.

[digg=http://digg.com/food_drink/This_Neutral_thing_is_really_catching_onh]This past week, the BC Liberals unveiled the budget for British Columbia. At the forefront of discussion surrounding the budget is the government’s new carbon-tax, which, luckily is “revenue-neutral”.

Phew, thanks for that.

But wait… before we hop on the BC Liberal bandwagon there is a little more to this. We decided to do a little analysis of our own and it seems that there is room for arbitrary manipulation within the tax rebate process (see below). Arbitrary manipulation is not very “neutral” is it?

Tax rebates are nice, but stopping climate change is of a mutual benefit to us all. So the jury is out for now while we wait to see how well the BC Liberal’s “revenue-neutral” carbon-tax is implemented to meet this end. We at Woodstock do very little that is not “neutral” (like Switzerland) and we applaud the Liberals for embracing the “neutral” concept — because really when it comes down to it neutrality is the way of the future.

All genuinely “neutral” concepts are rooted in achieving balance (just like Yoga). Meat Neutral does this in two ways.

At a smaller scale we offset our meat consumption with vegetables. A true Meat Neutral dish will leave you with an unmistakable sense of balance between meat, vegetable, and all things food.

At the macro scale Meat Neutral balances lifestyles. It entices an equal number of people from each of the other diets. It fits in an important place amongst other lifestyles to close the “Meat Neutral Loop” (see below). Meat Neutral is an alternative to vegan and vegetarian lifestyles in the same way it is an alternative to a meat and potatoes lifestyle. Do you feel the balance?

Of course, the “neutral” concept has been applied many different things. For more on neutrality, see Cheat Neutral and Switzerland.

Lobby for tax incentives for meat neutrality!

– the woodstock collective