Skip meat once a week, veg out and live better

MAYBE WE should have seen this coming. The National Restaurant Association listed "locally grown produce" as the hottest trend in 2010. Then last November, New York Magazine boldly proclaimed "Vegetables Are the New Meat" and published several more articles expanding on that theme.

A vegevore movement appears to be under way.

Granted, most Americans still look for some animal protein on every plate; ours is, after all, a meat-centered cuisine. But more and more, folks are steering away from eating meat at every meal. It's not that people have stopped liking the stuff; it's just become increasingly apparent that eating less meat might be good for us and for the world.

The trouble with eating animals is threefold: environmental issues, negative impact on human health and ethical problems associated with inhumane treatment of animals. Each of those issues is thoroughly dissected in "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer, whose solid reporting based on three years of field research leaves no doubt that eating meat — which means anything with a face but especially animals from factory farms, which constitute 99 percent of the animals raised for food in this country — is a bad deal. Foer empathizes so thoroughly with the meat-eating reader that his argument is compelling.

Factory farmers, PETA activists and food reformers all speak in their own words for extended passages, and we come away with a better understanding of why it's so difficult to consider, let alone respond to, these things. In short, "We eat as sons and daughters, as families, as communities, as generations, as nations, and increasingly as a globe." So, giving up meat in a culture where almost everyone else is eating it can be disconcerting. What's more, an individual giving up meat alone cannot have a discernible influence on the market forces that keep Big Meat in production.

But it seems to this reader that a large number of people giving up meat at least part of the time could effect some serious change.

The single biggest push for building 21st-century meals around plant-based foods might have come from the Meatless Monday campaign. A nonprofit launched by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2003, Meatless Monday is a public-health-awareness program that has been embraced by more than 50 colleges and universities, dozens of restaurants and a handful of municipalities. Among the movement's champions are entities as diverse as "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell, Lance Armstrong's Livestrong foundation and the nation of South Korea. Celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson's website features meatless recipes on Mondays, and Mario Batali's 14 restaurants feature meatless main dishes on Mondays.

In her book, "The Meatlover's Meatless Cookbook," Seattle-based author Kim O'Donnel points out that skipping meat for one out of seven meals would reduce emissions from animal farming by more than 14 percent. But O'Donnel's cookbook focuses more on the how than the why of eating less meat. When she was writing a cooking blog for The Washington Post, she invited readers to join her in going without meat on Mondays.

"When I asked readers what they would need to stick to the plan," she writes, the unanimous answer was 'recipes. We need tools, not talk.' " So O'Donnel, in 2008, started posting a recipe every week for a main dish "with nary a bone, feather or fin." The best of those recipes came together in "The Meatlover's Meatless Cookbook," published this past fall.

If you ask this cook how to go about eating less meat, I'd say eat more vegetables. They are the most interesting part of most meals anyway. For inspiration, look to traditional cuisines like those of the Middle East and India, where meatless meals are common.

Greg Atkinson is a Seattle-area chef, author and consultant. He can be reached at greg@westcoastcooking.com. John Lok is a Seattle Times staff photographer.

21st-Century Caponata

Makes about 4 cups

With its jewel-toned vegetables and sparkling flavors, this Sicilian-style eggplant appetizer can be the centerpiece of a full meal. Serve it with sesame crackers and round out the platter with hummus, dolmades, olives and cheese.

1 medium-large eggplant

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1 medium-size red onion

2 stalks celery

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tablespoon chopped garlic

1 tablespoon dried oregano leaves

1/4 cup white balsamic vinegar

1/4 cup capers, drained

1 cup julienne-cut strips of sun-dried tomatoes in oil

Sesame crackers or Spanish torta bread as an accompaniment

1. Cut the eggplant into 1-inch cubes. Toss the eggplant with the salt, allow it to stand at room temperature for 10 minutes, then steam it in a steamer basket over a cup or two of rapidly boiling water just until tender, about 5 minutes. Lift the eggplant in the steamer basket out of the pan and spread it out on a cookie sheet in single layer to cool off.

2. Peel and chop onion, and dice celery. Preheat a large skillet over high heat and warm the olive oil. Immediately add onion and celery, and cook until the onions are soft and just beginning to brown. Add garlic and oregano and cook 1 minute longer.

3. Transfer sautéed vegetables to a large bowl and add balsamic vinegar, capers and sun-dried tomatoes. Allow mixture to stand at room temperature for at least 10 minutes before serving. Refrigerated, the caponata will keep for up to a week.

Greg Atkinson, 2011