Category Archives: Environment

Celebrate, Environment

Salut April, Salut Earth Month

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April is finally here, and with all due respect to T.S. Eliot, it is not the cruelest month. Not by a long shot. In Maine, that honor goes to March, which, thank the weather gods, is behind us for another year.

For many reasons, April is one of my favorite months. The snow melts at a rate that can only be called astonishing. The sun is higher, the days are warmer, and Spring is definitely on its way. In April there is hope that at last Winter has released its bony grip on the land.

Another reason I love April is that our youngest daughter was born on April 22, and that day will always be a sweet day for me. (As will October 29, the birth of my eldest daughter.)

April 22 also happens to be Earth Day. As Earthday.org notes, “Each year, Earth Day—April 22—marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970….The idea for a national day to focus on the environment came to Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, after witnessing the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California.”

I came of age during the 1970s, and I was profoundly affected by the environmental movement. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to state that it has made me the person I am. Along with my family and my writing, my concerns and focus as an adult have always been on the environment.

My teenage self—foolish in too many ways—was not wrong to be concerned about the environment. Forty-nine years later, that concern has been upgraded to alarm as the ravages of climate change become more and more obvious.

Earth Day has now been expanded to Earth Month, where all of April is set aside for celebrating our beautiful planet. Some people scoff, proclaiming such things are gimmicky. They note that every day should be Earth Day, and that we shouldn’t need special designations. Maybe so, but we humans have a yen for symbols and stories, and focused in the right direction, this is a good thing.

Earth Day and Earth Month turn our attention to something of vital importance—Earth, our only home. So bring on the stories, the celebrations, the attention. May they bloom into something more.

I’ll end with a picture of the beautiful Kennebec River, nearly free of ice the beginning of April. I’ve told the following story before, but it bears repeating as it is an example of what we humans can do when we put our minds to it.

In the 1960s, when I was a child, the Kennebec River was so dirty that no one even wanted to stick their big toe in it. There were no eagles, no ospreys, no birds of prey. Nobody sat by the Kennebec River to admire the teeming wildlife. Dank and foul smelling, it was a river to be avoided.

Then came the Clean Water Act of 1972, and slowly the river came back to life. No longer a dumping ground for chemicals and other foul things, the river became, well, clean. Eagles have made a comeback. Ospreys hunt for fish. In the spring, sturgeon jump. In Hallowell and other places, people come to this river to watch the sparkling water and the creatures who live in and by it.

So salut April, Earth Day, and Earth Month!

 

Environment, Food

Part Three: Success!

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The other day, with a few containers in our bag, we made a trip to the Gardiner Co-op to check out their bulk food section. We wanted  to see how easy it would be to use our own containers. We considered this a scouting trip and only brought a couple of containers.

We found that the Co-op has a small but practical bulk food section, with items such as rice, beans, and lentils, among other things. These are staples in our house, and we eat them, in one form or another, every week.

We needed chickpeas and black beans, and the clerk cheerfully weighed our empty containers before we filled them. We didn’t feel at all odd or as though we were asking him to do something that was an imposition. In fact, he acted as though it were a normal request. So all in all, we felt bringing our own containers was a smashing success, and we will definitely return to the Co-op. Here is what we came home with.

The big container with the black beans once held peanuts. (Yes, we do love peanuts.) As it turns out, this container is the perfect size for getting bulk food out from the bins without spilling anything on the floor. The jar that we used for chickpeas was a little too small, although Clif did avoid any spillage.

Although the peanut container is made of plastic, it is sturdy and fits easily in our cupboards. For now, at least, we will continue to buy peanuts in that packaging as we will be reusing the containers for bulk purchases. When we have enough of those containers, we will have to reassess how we buy peanuts.

A day after we went to the Gardiner Co-op, we went to our local Hannaford grocery store to find out about their bulk food. Their selection is not as practical as the Co-op’s and runs more toward treats—chocolate-covered peanuts, granola, and sesame sticks, to name a few.

However, I am a person who, ahem, loves treats, and let’s just say that of all the food that comes in wasteful, non-recyclable packaging, treats are at the top of the list. So I am totally into bulk treats.

But there was a bit of a snag at Hannaford. When I asked a clerk whether it was all right to bring in our own containers for bulk food, he hesitated before saying, “Yes, but we don’t weigh the packaging.” This means that you have to pay for the cost of the containers when the food is weighed.  H-m-m-m, I’ll have to think more about that one.

Finally, on a different but related subject, here is something that should go into the Green Hall of Fame. After going to the Gardiner Co-op, we met our friends Alice and Joel at a local Mexican Restaurant. They always order enough so that there is food leftover for a meal at home. And here is what they do.

They bring their own containers from home, including the cardboard ones for the condiments. And Alice assured me that she finds plenty of ways to use the little condiment containers.

Do we have awesome friends, or what?

Environment, Food for Thought

Part Two: It’s Not Easy Being Green

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The world is in transition—either burning or flooding. This summer has been especially bad in too many places. Clif and I have decided to take action in our own small way. Being two green beans for a long time, we have always aimed to live lightly, and by American standards, we have a modest lifestyle. For many years, we have been a one-car family, very unusual in this country.  We limit our driving.  We don’t fly. We recycle. We don’t use plastic straws, at least not most of the time.

But that’s the low-hanging fruit.

Chickens looking for low-hanging fruit

 

To continue with the metaphor, the higher up you go, the harder it gets.

Chicken jumping for fruit higher up

 

In short, it’s not easy being green, and it would be remiss of me not to write about this issue. Every person has a different situation, and what’s hard for us might not be hard for you, but I suspect there is enough overlap so that our problems are common to many.

But never fear, I have also included possible solutions to our problems.

Item One: Being green is more expensive. Local, organic food costs more, and ditto for electric cars and bikes. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Clif and I have a budget that’s as big as a minute, and we have to be careful not only with our nickles and dimes, but also with our pennies. For us, this is a large obstacle that must be dealt with creatively.

Solution: Lucky for me, I can cook. I am not a gourmet chef by any means, but I’m a good home cook who has mastered the basics. My immediate plan is to bake from scratch—even more than I do now—so that most of our bread and other goodies come from my kitchen.

Item Two: We live in a world of packaging. The next time you go grocery shopping, take a good look at what’s in your  cart. Note the boxes, the plastic, the foil, and various other wrappings. Cereal, milk, cheese, butter, eggs. Shampoo. Laundry detergent.  Everything comes in a package and must either be discarded or recycled. And now that China is no longer accepting much of our plastic trash, recycling has gotten more difficult.

Possible solution: We will be making a greater effort to buy food  that isn’t packaged. Not too far from where we live is the Gardiner Co-op. They sell bulk items and will let customers bring in their own containers. We will be giving this a shot very soon. I also plan to check with Hannaford to see if they will let us use our own containers for bulk items.

Item Three: Being green is not convenient. Or, we want to go where we want to go,  and in this country, for most of us, that involves driving. You want to go to a movie? Get in your car. Visit with friends and family? Get in your car. Go shopping? Travel? Get in your car, or even worse, fly.  This is a very tough nut for Clif and I to crack. The town we live in—Winthrop—is beautiful but not exactly dynamic when it comes to anything cultural. We do have museums, cinemas, and theaters in nearby towns, but going to any of things involves driving as we don’t have much in the way of public transportation.

Short term solution: Bike as much as we can and limit our driving. Longer term solution: We would like to buy an electric car, and every year, the technology improves. But even then, we need to be mindful about how much energy we use.

There. That’s enough for now. I’d love to hear from all of you about your problems with being green and  your solutions.

Environment, Food for Thought

Part One: Climate Change Is Here

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Today, It was 90° outside, and the air was so heavy that it seemed as though I could feel it press against me. Because of this, I set up a temporary office in our basement—or down cellar, as we would say in Maine. Once we had a family room in part of the basement, but when the kids left it became a sort of catchall, a jumble of castoffs that we aren’t ready to part with. Let’s just say that this room has zero ambiance, especially when you add the litter box for the cats.

But it was cool down cellar. I was not sweating as I typed on my laptop, and man oh man, was that a good feeling. To heck with ambience.

We have lived in this house in the woods for thirty-four years, and in the past the trees and the shade have protected us from the worst heat of summer. A fan in the attic was enough to cool the house down at night. For the most part, no air conditioner was wanted or needed.

How things have changed in thirty-four years. Our once pleasant Maine summers have become brutally hot, and there have been ozone alerts on the coast. Extreme fires are burning in this country and in other countries, too. In California, one fire was so hot and so large that it had its own weather pattern. There was even a fire tornado, something that sounds like it came straight from hell.

At least there are no fire tornadoes in Maine, and we have had enough moisture to keep us out of a drought.

But it is beyond my comprehension how anyone can deny that climate change is real and is happening right now. Some people do, but it seems to me that most folks, whether liberal or conservative, understand that a big change has come to this planet, and it’s not especially good for us humans.

In my heat-induced stupor, I accidentally published this before I was ready, and I know some of you have received the email notice. So consider this to be Part One, with more coming later this week.

In the next post, I’ll write about changes we are planning to make in our lives so that we are living more lightly, more minimally, more sustainably, whatever you want to call it. Because we are all responsible, at some level, for climate change, and while big corporations certainly must play a larger role in addressing the problem, I feel I must play my part, too.

Onward, ho!

 

 

Environment, Food for Thought, Movies

In Transition

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Yesterday, Clif and I went to the Winthrop Center Friends Church to see In Transition 2.0, a movie about Transition, a movement celebrating community and the environment. It also re-imagines a different economy, based on supporting local stores, farmers, and artisans. Transition began in the United Kingdom, and some of you have perhaps heard of Rob Hopkins, one of the founders of Transition. (Transition Network.org provides a more detailed account of the movement and its various aspects.)

Released in 2012, In Transition 2.0 follows the usual rah-rah trajectory common to upbeat documentaries about the environment and social change. The gist of the movement is explained, and then big and small examples of action from around the world are featured—community gardens (relatively easy); a group that focuses on personal action (again, relatively easy); local currency (a little harder but manageable); and starting a small power company that is based on renewable energy (very hard).

I’m aware that the above paragraph makes me sound like a cynic when it comes to movements such as Transition, but nothing could be further from the truth. As a Mainer, I am very much aware of the problems addressed by Transition, especially climate change and the decline of small communities. I’ve already written about the weird winter we’ve been having and how this seems to be the new normal. Climate change is here, no two ways about it.

However, I haven’t written about how Winthrop, the small town where we live, has gone from having a vibrant downtown with clothing stores, a craft store, a five and dime store, and a little grocery store to having a few sandwich shops, some thrift shops, and not much else.  It’s been sad to witness this decline. There are many reasons for this, including the closing of major businesses and poor leadership. I could go into great detail about this, but I’ll stop here.

Therefore, my sympathies are with Transition, but having once been a part of a failed Green Committee, I am also aware of how difficult it is for people to come together to make a change.  And, to be fair to In Transition 2.0, the movie does acknowledge that groups do fail and even highlights one that has.

After the movie, the handful of us that came discussed what we had seen.  Maggie Edmondson, the Friends pastor, did a fine job of leading the discussion. However, because most everyone came from a different community, there was really no possibility of starting anything in Winthrop.

And yet. The movie and the discussion made me think more about what I can do to live a greener life, about how I should use less of everything, throw away less, buy more local food, and drive less. (This is very difficult in central Maine as there is not much in the way of public transportation). In fact, I grapple with these issues on a daily basis, and seeing this film has made me resolve to do better, do more.

The title of the movie, In Transition, aptly catches what we are experiencing regularly in this country and, I think, around the world. Fires and mud on the West Coast. Dreadful hurricanes in the South. Twelve inches of snow and frozen alligators in North Carolina. Flash floods in Maine in January.

We are, indeed, in transition. Now it’s up to us to decide what to do about it.

The Kennebec River in Augusta, Maine, on January 22, 2018. More rain, more ice dams are predicted tonight and tomorrow, and these, in turn, could lead to more flooding. Good times.

 

Environment, Food for Thought

What Can You Do Without?

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Earth Day was on Saturday, but as I mentioned in my previous post, I make every effort to “honor Earth Day in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”

By American standards, Clif and I live modest lives. We eat little meat, we only have one car,  and we put a lot of thought into our purchases. We don’t buy willy-nilly. (I also realize that we are blessed with many things—running water, electricity, toilets—that other people don’t have, and I am very, very grateful for these conveniences.)

However, as I discovered when reading a current piece by Melissa Breyer in TreeHugger, there is plenty more we could be doing to lead a more Earth-friendly life. The title of Breyer’s piece is “10 Things Not to Replace Once They’re Used Up or Broken.”

Here is the list:

  1. Microwave Oven
  2. Ziploc Bags
  3. Liquid Soap
  4. Keurig Coffee Maker
  5. Plastic Food Storage Containers
  6. Wet Wipes
  7. Non-Stick Pans
  8. Scented Cleaning Products or Air Fresheners
  9. Toxic Personal Care Products
  10. Disposable Plates, Cups, and Utensils

For some of these items, Clif and I pass with flying colors (Numbers 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10). Others, not so much. But it is all food for thought, so to speak, and throughout the year I will be considering the other items on the list, one at a time, so that it is less daunting to make the change. Baby steps. And I’m going to be honest about Number 1—I really like my microwave, and I use it for all sorts of things. Therefore that suggestion has a big “maybe” beside it on my own personal list.

A note about Number 10—Disposable Plates, Cups, and Utensils. Clif and I rarely eat out, and when we do, we usually go to restaurants that have reusable cutlery and plates. We always say no thank-you to straws, and we seldom order more than what we can eat in a setting. However, we have friends who love taking home leftovers from restaurants, and they bring their own reusable containers to eliminate waste.  What a great idea!

That particular tip wasn’t mentioned on Breyer’s list, but no list will be complete.

Also missing was the suggestion to give up a clothes dryer. When ours broke, several years ago, we decided not to fix it, to see if we could do without. As it turned out, we could do without just fine. There are only two of us, and from spring through fall, I hang laundry on the line outside. In the winter, I have racks in the basement, where everything, including sheets, goes to dry. Clif teases me about my Rube Goldberg arrangement of racks, but I suspect that he’s secretly impressed with the set-up.

When the girls were little, I’m not sure we could have managed without a clothes dryer. However, as now there are only two of us, we don’t miss the clothes dryer at all and have no plans to buy a new one.

How about you, readers? What have you given up? What could you give up?

 

 

Environment, Food

Beyond Meat: A New Meatless Product

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IMG_8365About a year ago, for environmental reasons, Clif and I decided to stop eating beef and pork. In addition, we don’t eat much fish or seafood—even though we love it—because we have come to believe that there is no way the oceans can sustainably feed so many people on this planet. (For more on this, watch Mission Blue, the terrific documentary about the oceanographer Sylvia Earle.) We do eat some chicken, often organic but at the very least antibiotic free.

We also eat some dairy and eggs, but mostly what we eat are plants, many of which are grown by our own Farmer Kev. Because I have long been interested in a plant-based diet, I have a repertoire of vegetarian dishes, some that I’ve developed on my own and some that come from other sources, including the inimitable Mark Bittman and his How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. (America‘s Test Kitchen, the polar opposite of Mark Bittman but excellent in its own way, has recently come out with The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook. I don’t have it, but this book is on my wish list.)

Most of the time Clif and I are more than happy with our plant-based diet. He could eat my vegetarian fried rice once a week, and my bean burgers, based on a Mark Bittman recipe, are pretty darned good if I do say so myself. Nevertheless, at times we do miss the texture and taste that ground beef brings to such dishes as chili, spaghetti sauce, or tacos. We could certainly use ground turkey or chicken, but we don’t want to eat too much poultry, either. Besides, nothing can really compare with the umami of ground beef.

We’ve tried texturized vegetable protein (TVP), and it’s about as appealing as the name suggests. TVP has a blah flavor, and it brings nothing but, well, texture to chili and spaghetti sauce. We scratched that one from our list long ago.

More promising have been MorningStar Farms crumbles. While they don’t have the smooth and mellow taste of ground beef, these crumbles aren’t as tasteless as TVP. They are fairly expensive, and for those who live on a modest budget, the crumbles would have to be a once in a while kind of thing. Unless, of course, you can find coupons for them.

Not long ago, I learned about other meatless meat products made by a company called Beyond Meat. On a recent show, Tom Ashbrook, of On Point radio, featured Ethan Brown, the CEO and founder of Beyond Meat, which manufactures fake chicken and beef  made from pea protein and soy.  While doing the show, Tom Ashbrook munched on one of Beyond Meat’s burgers, and he indicated that he liked it pretty well.

Naturally, Clif and I were curious about Beyond Meat, and we were eager to try it, too. We had a coupon for the product and a very good thing as Beyond Meat is not cheap—an 11 ounce package costs $4.99 at Target. Therefore, with coupon in hand, Clif duly picked up a package of Beefy Crumble, and last night I used it with a jar of spaghetti sauce.

The results? So-so as far as I was concerned, and I thought the MorningStar Farms crumbles had a better flavor. While the Beefy Crumble wasn’t as bland as the TVP, it was certainly bland enough. The texture was good—I’ll give it that—and the Beefy Crumble had a satisfying chew. But other than that, it didn’t bring much to the sauce, and I would rather have mushrooms, peppers, and zucchini to add taste and texture. Clif understood my point of view, but, to him, the pleasing texture more than compensated for the bland taste, which he said he liked.

What next? As long as I have some coupons, which I do, I would be willing to try some of Beyond Meat’s other products—the chicken, the meatballs, maybe even the Feisty Crumble. However, after eating the Beefy Crumble, my expectations are not high.

In the end, I expect Clif and I will stick with our simple homemade meals made directly from vegetables.

 

Environment

A Quiet but Nice Easter: On the Rail Trail in Augusta

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Clif and I had hope to host an Easter brunch for our family, but for various reasons this didn’t happen. Therefore, we were on our own. We had planned to go to the ocean if the weather was warm enough, but, alas, it wasn’t. When the temperature is a brisk 39 degrees in central Maine, there is no telling what it will be like on the beach, where the wind can blow hard and cold. As it is a three-hour round trip to the ocean and back, we just didn’t dare risk it.

Time to move on to Plan C—a walk on the Rail Trail in Augusta, a fifteen-minute drive from where we live. Although the day was brisk, it was sunny. Because of the cold weather we’ve had this winter and spring, the ice still isn’t out on the Kennebec River.

IMG_8122As we walked on the Rail Trail, we met many other walkers who were enjoying this fine, chilly day by the river.  I grew up by the Kennebec, in Waterville, when the river was dark and dirty and used primarily for dumping. In the I960s, nobody would have thought to walk by the river on Easter Day. But the Clean Water Act, passed in 1972, changed all that, and slowly, slowly the Kennebec came back to life. Now there are eagles and ducks and fish. And walkers.

“This just shows how the right kind of regulation can be a very good thing,” I said to Clif as we caught glimmers of the Kennebec on the Rail Trail. He agreed. He, too, is old enough to remember how dirty and polluted rivers were in Maine.

A glimpse of the blue Kennebec
A glimpse of the blue Kennebec

Liam loves walking on the Rail Trail. So many things to sniff and explore.

Liam on the trail
Liam on the trail

It is not a lovely time of year, but there were some visually interesting things to notice.

A bench in need of repair.

IMG_8131

A rusty bridge.

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A purple fence through the trees.

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After our walk, we treated ourselves to ice cream at the Dairy Queen, just down the road from the Rail Trail. As we seldom go out for ice cream, it truly was a treat for us. (We had hoped to go to Fielder’s Choice in Manchester, but they were closed for Easter.)

That night for supper, Clif made pancakes, and I cooked home fries. We might not have been able to host brunch, but we could still enjoy Clif’s delicious pancakes.

Have I ever mentioned that Clif’s pancakes are the best? I think I have.

Environment

From the Green-Bean Weirdo Files: Our Carbon Footprint

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IMG_7848Clif and I are proud to admit that we are a couple of green-bean weirdos who love to talk about things like our carbon footprint, global warming, resource depletion, and overpopulation. While these topics might be a tad grim, we generally maintain an optimistic attitude as we work to align our lives with our environmental values.

Clif loves to figure out what our carbon foot print is, and this is the time of year for him to do so. As a sideline, he is a computer consultant, and the tax information we need for his business overlaps with what he needs to calculate our carbon footprint. Therefore, as is his wont, after finishing our taxes this year, Clif then moved on to figure out our carbon footprint. I must admit we were pretty pleased with the results. Last year, our CO2 emissions were  6.7 metric tons per capita. (A 13.4 total for our household divided by the number of people who live here, which in our case is two.)

To put this in perspective, in the average United States CO2 emissions (metric tons per capita) are 17. 56. This means our emissions are half that of the average American.  In Australia, they are 16.93; the United Kingdom—7.86. But to keep Clif and I from feeling too puffed up, we have Sweden (5.6) and France (5.6) to show us that it is possible to live in a modern society and go even lower than the 6.7 Clif and I are each responsible for.

How do we keep our carbon footprint relatively small? Here’s a short list.

  • We only have one car—something we can do because I stay at home. Our car is a Honda Fit, which is very fuel efficient.
  • We severely limit our travel. For the most part, we stay close to home and bike whenever we can. When we travel to visit Dee, we go by train or bus. We always combine errands. I never fly, and Clif flies only very occasionally, for his work.
  • We heat with wood and electricity. Our wood is local and sustainably harvested. In Maine, electricity production is fairly clean, with more generated by wind and falling water than the national average. We also have signed up for a carbon offset.
  • When we heat with electricity, we keep the house at a cool 60 degrees if we are not using a room and between 66 and 68 if we are.
  • We eat a lot of local food—by a rough estimate at least 50 percent.
  • We eat mostly vegetarian, which means some chicken but no beef, pork, or lamb.
  • We don’t produce much trash. We reuse and recycle. We don’t buy a lot of new things.

Here is what we could do to lower our carbon footprint even more, and in the upcoming years, we plan to do as many of these things as we can.

  • Install more insulation in our house.
  • Replace all the windows.
  • Further reduce our trash.
  • Replace the Honda Fit with an electric car.
  • Bike more.
  • Use LED lights.
  • Buy even more local food—flour, dried beans, corn meal. Unfortunately, right now these items are just too pricey for our modest budget.

Many years ago, it dawned on Clif and me that we could no longer pretend that it was perfectly all right for us to consume heedlessly and drive or fly wherever we wanted. As the climate changed and resources were ever more depleted, we knew that we were part of the problem and that our little actions mattered.

Therefore, we strive to live as lightly as we can while still living a good life. It is not easy. It requires effort and mindfulness and restraint. But never for one moment have we doubted that we are on the right path.

(If you want to figure out your carbon footprint, then there are a number of online options. Clif has used this spreadsheet, originally from the University of Maine at Orono, for a number of years.  2014 carbon calculator annual.)

Environment, Food for Thought, Recipes

A “Baked Bean” Lentil Dish

IMG_6746One of my favorite cooking and food websites is Food52, where the emphasis is on unfussy food made with inexpensive ingredients that most home cooks have in their kitchens. There are also many vegan and vegetarian dishes, and this goes in the direction in which Clif and I are heading with food. We are both very much concerned with overpopulation, limited resources on our finite planet, and living lightly. (I plan to explore the living lightly concept in future posts, and I am currently reading a book with the apt title Living Lightly.)

Lately, I have become enamoured with red lentils, which are not as, ahem, earthy as the brown lentils. (I have uncharitably referred to the flavor of brown lentils as “muddy,” and Clif is not a fan of them, either.) For our Labor Day get together, I made curried red lentils in my slow cooker—thanks, Susan Poulin, for the terrific recipe!—and they were a big hit. It was the first time I had used red lentils, rather than brown, and I was hooked by their smooth, subtle flavor. Red lentils, I knew, would become a staple at the little house in the big woods as we turn to a plant-based diet.

Therefore when Joe Beef’s Lentils Like Baked Beans recipe was featured on Food52, and I saw the primary ingredient was red lentils, I decided to try it.  I did make some changes. I did not use bacon. No explanation needed, I think. Rather than cooking the lentils on the stove, I cooked them in a slow cooker, which thanks to Shari Burke’s encouragement has become my favorite little appliance. I just tossed everything into the slow cooker, let it come to boil on high, and then turned it down to low so that it could simmer until supper time. I also added more cider vinegar, maple syrup, and ketchup.

Finally, I served it over rice, which is the way I prefer most bean and lentil dishes. While I like lentils and beans, they can set heavy, especially at night, and I find rice lightens the dish. I also sprinkled ground peanuts on top, because, well, nuts and lentils go together like apple and pie.

The results? The lentils did taste a little baked beans, although nobody would ever confuse the two. “Pretty good,” Clif said, going back for seconds. Perhaps not company good—somehow the dish lacked the pizazz I look for when cooking for a gathering—but certainly good enough for a Tuesday night supper. And good enough to make again.

Then there is the price. I figured I used about $2.50 worth of lentils, which were organic. The other ingredients—maple syrup, cider vinegar, dried mustard, oil, onion, garlic, and ketchup—I had on hand, and the small amounts I used certainly didn’t come to more than a dollar or two. There were rice and ground peanuts—again, no more than a dollar or two, and I expect I am estimating on the high side. Even erring on the high side, say, $6 or $7 dollars for the whole meal, which would easily feed six, makes this an extremely economical dish that would fit in with most people’s budgets, even when they are tiny, like ours.

Among foodies, nutritionists, and activists, there has been much talk about the cost of healthy eating in the U.S. , and rightly so. According to the American Institute for Economic Research, food prices have risen 44 percent over the past fourteen years. And salaries? Well, not so much. Nevertheless, in comparison with beef and pork, lentils and other legumes are a great bargain.

For confirmed carnivores, making the transition from meat to legumes is probably not an easy one. However, for those of us with more flexible palates, eating more beans and lentils is a tasty way to eat lower on the food chain. Right now, I have a good supply of black beans, kidney beans, chickpeas, and lentils. I will be adding other beans to my stockpile, and I’ll be experimenting with various meatless recipes so that our diet is varied and satisfying.

Stay tuned!