In the past couple of years, I have stopped eating red meat (except for the occasional Five Guys' cheeseburger), so I was familiar with meat substitutes before I began this experiment. (In fact, I think Gimme Lean breakfast sausage tastes better than the real deal and have sneaked it into my meat-loving brother's breakfast tacos without detection). I eat soy-based "chikin," drink soy milk, and I love TDR's barbeque seitan. I feel like I am making a more ethical and healthy decision when I consume these products over their animal-based alternatives. However, when I was reading New York Magazine's "Eat Good," a guide to ethical eating, I was a little caught offguard by their inclusion of soy on their list of suspect foods.
The guide's authors, Beth Shapouri & Christine Whitney, label soy as having a big carbon footprint, being overfarmed, creating corporate monopolies, and being genetically modified. While not all soy products are guilty of these infractions, I realized I wasn't sure how ethical my purchases had been. "You thought it was healthy. Soy is overgrown, generally highly sprayed, and the USDA reports that it has more acreage dedicated to genetically modified plants than any other crop." The fix Shapouri and Whitney suggest? Buy certified organic; this guarantees your soy is not genetically modified.
What I ate today: cereal, (leftover) half of veggie burger and onion rings, a calzone with pineapple, mozarella, onions, and olives
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