Sure, I'm Vegetarian. Just Not on Thanksgiving

A butcher, hunter, and rancher discuss the ethics of eating animals

(NEWSER) - For long stretches of their lives, Nicolette Niman, Tovar Cerulli and Joshua Applestone were all vegetarians or vegans. Now, they’re a rancher, a hunter, and a butcher, respectively, who “firmly believe food from animals can be healthful, environmentally appropriate, and ethical,” they write in the Atlantic . Their stories:

• Nicolette: She became vegan “after hearing that beef was deforesting the Amazon,” but eventually “learned that animals were essential to sustainable farms.” They increase soil fertility and convert otherwise inedible vegetation and uncultivated land into food.
• Tovar: He became a vegan after listening to Buddhist teachings, but eventually “realized that all food has its costs. From habitat destruction to combines that inadvertently mince rabbits … crop production is far from harmless.” What matters, he decided, “wasn’t what we ate, but how that food came to our plates.”
• Joshua: He was a vegetarian until he met his wife and opened a meat company. “Once I saw how the meat we were selling had been raised, and met the farmers who were striving to raise animals sustainably … I realized I didn’t have a problem with meat. I had a problem with the inhumane practices of the commercial meat industry."

NYT provides advice on changing your diet

(NEWSER) - Curbing the meat craving can be a challenge in a culture that sees it as the main course—so Mark Bittman offers seven ways to ease the shift in the New York Times:

1. Don’t worry about protein. By varying your veggies, you can get the amino acids you need.
2. Buy less meat. The USDA calls 4 ounces per person a serving.
3. Don’t let it define the dish. Design your meal around what you think of as side dishes, like vegetables and grains.

Former Beatle extols vegetarianism as cure for global warming

(NEWSER) - If you want to fight global warming, drop the hamburger, Sir Paul McCartney advises. “The biggest change anyone could make in their own lifestyle would be to become vegetarian,” said McCartney, himself a longtime herbivore. Livestock is a big contributor to global warming, the ex-Beatle says, because of the amount of land and water the meat industry uses. More»

It's no metaphor, just his new 'personal challenge'

(NEWSER) - Mark Zuckerberg says he's almost a vegetarian these days—but he’ll eat meat if the animal died at his own hands, Fortune reports. It’s just his latest challenge: Every year, the Facebook boss takes on some new hurdle in his time away from the website. Last year, it was learning Chinese. “This year, my personal challenge is around being thankful for the food I have to eat,” he writes in an email to the magazine. As part of that: "The only meat I'm eating is from animals I've killed myself." More»

...the Tempeh District, of course!

(NEWSER) - When it's not busy tempting the nation's men with free vasectomies , PETA is hard at work trying to right the country's lexical injustices. It's currently pushing San Francisco's city leaders to change the name of the Tenderloin District to something a little less meaty: the Tempeh District. In a letter sent to Mayor Edwin M. Lee on Tuesday that argues for the soy-based meat substitute switch, PETA writes that "the city deserves a neighborhood named after a delicious cruelty-free food instead of the flesh of an abused animal." More»