Lately the news is full of reports of the rapidly rising cost of food and projected food shortages in some countries. One way I markedly lowered my family's food bill years ago was to decease the amount of meat I purchased and prepared. Now, I discover that cutting back on meat not only saves money and is good for your health, it also helps fight global warming.

For the most part, I am a vegetarian. It kind of crept up on me. It started in the 1970s as an economy move. My husband was a graduate student, and I was home with two babies. I decided not to buy any meat that cost over $1/pound.

Little by little cuts of meat dropped off the shopping list. Then, after I joined the Sierra Club, I saw the famous photograph of the veal calf looking with sad eyes at the camera, separated from its mother, and unable even to turn around in the tiny pen where it was confined. Who could eat veal after learning that it came from torturing baby calves?

By the time the 1980s rolled around, I was eating only fish, a little chicken, and turkey at Thanksgiving. In the 90s I learned about the cruelty to chickens, jammed into cages like prisoners in a concentration camp, with much of their beaks cut off so they didn't destroy each other.

Meanwhile, I had become a fan of Molly Katzen. When I was living in Ithaca, New York in the early 70s, Katzen and others opened the now-famous Moosewood restaurant. I was already using recipes from Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe. Lappe's point was that there would be a lot more food to go around in a hungry world if we cut back on eating meat. Then John Robbins took up the torch with his 1987 book, Diet for a New America.

In 2006 the landmark U.N. report, Livestock's Long Shadow pointed out that meat production is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissionsÑmore than transportation!

While I still eat fish occasionally (from the list approved by the Monterey Bay Aquarium), even in these times of expensive groceries, I am still astounded by how far my grocery dollars go when I buy mostly fresh fruits and vegetables in season and few processed foods.

Eat your way to health and help save the earth at the same time. Bon appétit!

—Debbie Bulger

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