Thanksgiving is about food. Lots and lots of food. But while we loosen our belts, we are hopefully thinking about what we are thankful for. During this thoughtful and reflective time of year, I think we should also be thinking about where such bounty comes from. What steps preceded the turkey arriving on your plate? I’m not talking about your mother-in-law back seat cooking on Thursday afternoon. I mean before that. How did the turkey spend its life before it became headless and frozen?
Here is what Jonathon Safran Foer has to say about what it means to eat turkey on Thanksgiving (excerpt from his book Eating Animals):

At the center of our Thanksgiving tables is an animal that never breathed fresh air or saw the sky until it was packed away for slaughter. At the end of our forks is an animal that was incapable of reproducing sexually. In our bellies is an animal with antibiotics in its belly. The very genetics of our birds are radically different. If the pilgrims could have seen into the future, what would they have thought of the turkey on our table? Without exaggeration, it’s unlikely that they would recognize it as a turkey.

Almost 300 million turkeys are raised for slaughter each year in America. Most spend their days in windowless sheds with thousands of other birds. It is so crowded in there that turkeys cannot spread their wings even once in their lifetimes. They have to have their beaks and toes cut off to keep from killing each other in such close quarters. Many die of stress-related illnesses like heart failure at a young age or they lose the ability to walk because their legs do not support their body weight. Turkeys have been genetically modified and pumped with chemicals so that they fatten up faster and live shorter lives. Those chemicals and antibiotics are transferred to your body upon consumption.

If you can, try to find independent butcher shops near you by using this site: www.LocalHarvest.org. Talking to a farmer one-on-one at a local market about how your turkey was raised ensures that you are avoiding green washing, i.e. claims of humane conditions without proof. Avoid buying the Broad Breasted White brand of turkey because that is the type that is genetically modified. An alternative is the Heritage Turkey which is raised naturally.

Here are some recipes for side dishes, desserts, soups, and salads that are made with earth-friendly ingredients:

Carrot cake
Apple Bavarian Torte
Sweet Potato Biscuits
Butternut Squash Soup
French Onion Soup
Endive, Apple and Walnut Salad
Savory Cornbread Stuffing
Caramelized Apple-Pecan Cake

For more vegetarian holiday recipes, click here or here

Yesterday I got a chance to see my favorite author speak at a bookstore in Boston. Jonathon Safran Foer, the acclaimed novelist of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Everything is Illuminated, has recently turned toward nonfiction with his latest book, Eating Animals. At the risk of understating the importance of this book, I’ll say that it’s about being a vegetarian. But really it’s so much more. Eating Animals covers a wide array of issues focusing on factory farming and its subsequent environmental effects. Child obesity, greenhouse gas emissions, fatherhood, education reform…it’s all there.

For a Jewish vegetarian from New York, one might expect Foer to be one of those guys with a degree in pot-smoking from Berkeley. Actually, the way that he insists on an urgent shift from indifference to environmental action is moderate. He doesn’t go on any tirades and he isn’t beating the drum for veganism. The author explained how he has spent the last three years compiling data, visiting farmers and talking to experts about the links between the food we eat and the health of our bodies, our earth, and the future generation. The statistics he uses are from conservative estimates and he had two independent fact checkers editing the book. So he’s got enough unbiased facts to make even someone who eats steaks like a caveman re-think his lifestyle. Eating Animals is worth a read because it’s a way to understand one of the most important issues of our day—the environmentally unfriendly sources of our food—without feeling heckled by Chicken Little.