"1. During your weekly shopping, substitute chicken, pork, or fish for beef. Better yet: beans, pasta, or veg."

Shouldn't this be the other way around? Substitute beef for chicken, pork, or fish?

As a veggie, I'll chime in with recommendations here.  Purely vegetarian meals often leave omnivores (and me, for that matter) feeling like there's something missing - that protein their meal is normally based around.  So I encourage them to start with manufactured veggie protein before you switch completely.  My favorite is a product called Veat, although there are plenty of great products out there.

Of course, eventually you can switch to tofu or beans.  But I've heard more than one omnivore say "eeew, tofu", so it's better to start slow.

You forgot the other obvious benefit: you'll be less annoying.

The more electronic gadgets you have, the more you "have to" buy, and the more energy you use.

I think Adam has it the right way round, assuming that he wishes us to choose chicken, pork or fish instead of beef.  Although Angelsnecropolis' inversion is an increasingly common usage I believe it is incorrect, and like "irregardless" or "I could care less" has the opposite of the intended meaning.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

We've got to stop making the argument that people eat less meat because it reduces their CO2 footprint, even though it is true. How many people would actually do that? We have to encourage them to  do something positive, something that is enjoyable.  A Veg/Vegan/Raw food lifestyle is about abundant health, not about giving up something. Just like how, having switched to Tom's Toothpaste, now Colgate and Crest taste disgustingly chemmy, when you eat a diet lower on the food chain, heavy animals based foods lose their appeal when you experience the differience in your body.

Grist has got to get integral! We are humans - we have exteriors AND interiors. Speak to people's interiors (how these choices make you feel in body and mind). That is how you move people.

As in "environmental news & commentary."  Grist is not a veg/vegan website, nor a yoga website, nor an alternative lifestyle website, nor even a food or diet website.

Clearly food, or the growing or raising of our nation's food supply, has significant impact on our environment, and hence is a natural topic on Gristmill.  And since we all eat, we all tend to have fairly strong feelings on the subject of what to eat and what not to eat.

But let me reiterate: Grist is an environmental website.  Therefore, the suggestion that an individual should modify his or her diet in order to decrease the overall environmental impact (i.e. lower his/her carbon footprint) of said diet seems perfectly logical, and in fact, more relevant, than any other reason for making modifications to one's diet, in this particular blog.

I'm all for discussing food; it's one of my favorite topics.  I can debate the relative merits of one diet vs. another until the cows come home (ha!) but there can be no denying that any discussion of food or diet here on Gristmill that does not focus on the environmental impact of said diet would seem out of place.

Well Matt,

Like most Americans who consider unfermented soy products as a protein replacement when they dissavow meat, you're poisoning yourself and taking decades off your natural lifespan.

The soy industry has scammed the public for decades just like the aluminum industry scammed us on the alleged benefits of flouride.

Like fluoride, soy in the unfermented form, is a powerful nuerotoxin and hard to detoxify from our bodies.  

Even if one stipulates that unfermented soy is a healthy source of protein, vegan and veggitarian diets are very low in the folates we need and get from red meat, as well as the lipposuction omega six fat, CLA.

Even DR Gittleman, author of the fat flush plan recommends four ounce servings of meat at least daily.  Egg and milk protein is another good source for the amino acids we need, but these are debunked by many vegan diets.

scott

for an inspiring piece.

May I add to your #2 recommendations the book "Full Moon Feast" by Jessica Prentice.  A woman who tried a myriad of "wholesome" diets that just did not work for her, she finally hit upon an omnivorous diet that seems truly inspiring.  (Eat local; eat seasonally; eat high-quality, truly free-range animal products).  I am a rabid fan of all of the Michael Pollan books, but this may be the one that finally gets me off my duff and into the kitchen.