New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman writes that by reducing our meat consumption, we also reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce pollution, and save land. He points out that these factors are often interrelated; for instance, when forests are cut down for grazing or feed crops, there are fewer trees to sequester greenhouse gases.
Bittman explains that compared to technological fixes, eating less meat is easy:
[W]e can begin eating less meat tomorrow. That’s something any of us can do, with no technological advances. If personal choice enacted on a large scale could literally save the world, maybe we have to talk about it that way. We could be heroes, like Bruce Willis in “Armageddon,” only maybe the sacrifice is on a more modest and easier scale.
One easy way to reduce meat consumption is to choose simple and tasty plant-based meals such as PB&J sandwiches, tofu stir-fries, and homemade veggie burgers.
The full article is here.
Kathy Freston, author of Veganist (a New York Times best-seller), The Lean, and other books, gave a nice plug for nuts the other day in her e-newsletter, “The Daily Lean”:
“Yes, nuts are packed with calories, but they are also packed with nutrition. And they fill you up, thereby ‘crowding out’ room in your belly for high-calorie, nutrient-poor foods. A body of research shows that eating nuts in moderation actually helps you lose weight…They also appear to boost our metabolism, meaning when we eat nuts we burn more of our own fat to compensate.”
Though technically a legume rather than a nut, from a dietary standpoint peanuts fall into this same group: they’re nutrient-dense and filling.
Although it’s possible to have too much of a good thing (and really, any healthy food eventually has upper limits), a PB&J sandwich, almonds with your green beans, or walnuts in your salad each each day is not only eco-friendly but waistline-friendly.
On Wednesday, near the Columbia Heights fountain in Washington, DC, in partnership with our parent organization, A Well-Fed World, we gave out free vegan peanut butter cookies in honor of another campaign we like, the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale.
The cookies went quickly. And nobody (except us) knew they were vegan, until we told them. We also passed out the PB&J Campaign brochure, which lets people know how they can save resources by choosing simple plant-based meals such as PB&J sandwiches.
In case you’re curious…an online search for “vegan peanut butter cookies recipe” yields enough recipes for a lifetime, and lots of interesting and tasty-looking variations.
This just in—Jamie McCluske, who is the Drama & Musical Publicity Manager and Junior/Senior Class Adviser at Kiski Area High School in Vandergrift, PA, who who also works with elementary school children, got some very cool things to happen for National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day. The elementary school cafeterias served PB&J sandwiches, and the high school cafeteria offered two vegetarian options.
Shout-out and great job!
For National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day–April 2, 2012–we held outreach events at Whole Foods stores in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia and Washington, DC.
At each store, we gave away PB&J mini-sandwiches (artfully cut into triangles) as well as coupons, squeeze packs of peanut butter, and the PB&J Campaign brochure , which touts the resource savings of simple plant-based meals such as PB&J. Major thank-you to Peanut Butter & Co. for their generous donation of peanut butter and coupons.
The customers at both stores were quite receptive. It’s great to find out that your favorite sandwich is also earth-friendly. Many shoppers took the brochures and some asked environmental or health questions about peanut butter.
We may be doing similar events for Earth Day later in the month.
If you or your group would like to do this type of PB&J outreach, we can probably help with supplies. Contact us and/or check out our newly-revised Event Toolkit.
Meanwhile, at the Texas VegFest, which drew 3500 people and had an impressive list of speakers and vendors, one of the festival organizers gave out hard-copy “Take the PB&J Pledge” forms as 
well as free peanut butter samples (thanks again to Peanut Butter & Co.). The crowd was very receptive here, too. We’ll have more details about this event soon…
In commemoration of National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day (rapidly approaching on April 2), the Texas VegFest, March 31, will be offering visitors a hard-copy version of the PB&J Pledge, which we just created for this event. The pledge forms will be at the Texas VegFest booth, along with lots of food samples.
Update: Peanut Butter & Co. will be giving away peanut butter squeeze packs and coupons to festival-goers who fill out the PB&J Pledge.
Soon, we’ll have an option on the web site to make it easy to access the hard-copy pledge form. For now, if you’d like to present the form at a festival, feed-in, or any other occasion, you can download it from the above link, or we can mail you a bunch of copies; email us at pbj@pbjcampaign.org if interested.
We’ll have more news about the PB&J pledge in the not-too-distant future.
On April 2 (National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day), from 5pm to 7pm, we’ll be giving away PB&J mini-sandwiches at two Whole Foods stores in the Washington, DC area: the Tysons Whole Foods in Falls Church, Virginia and the P Street Whole Foods in downtown DC. We’ll also be handing out the new PB&J Campaign brochures and letting people know how they can reduce their environmental footprint through simple, plant-based meals such as PB&Js.
We’re very appreciative of the staffs at both Whole Foods, which have been very supportive of the upcoming events.
If you’re in either of these neighborhoods, stop by, say hello, and have some PB&J on us!
There are a couple (or more) other activities in the works for the big day. We’ll have more details on everything soon.
Thank you to everyone who submitted a slogan for the back of the new PB&J Campaign tee shirts (which will be ready soon). There were a lot of good entries. After some deliberation, the voting committee selected a winner:
Easy on the earth and your budget
The judges liked its succinctness and simplicity. (The submitter of the slogan wishes to remain anonymous.)
Honorable mention goes to this one:
PB&J: A Plant-Based Journey to Save the Earth, One Meal at a Time!
We just created a new PB&J Campaign shirt logo, and we’re looking for a slogan for the back of the shirt.
Do you have an idea for a catchy slogan that sums up the PB&J sandwich, preferably with a reference to its low environmental footprint? If so, send it to pbj@pbjcampaign.org.
If you come up with the winning slogan, in addition to getting a free tee shirt, you’ll experience the pride of seeing your creativity in use far and wide.
Unfortunately, the deadline is tight. We’d like to start printing the shirts next week, so entries have to be received by the end of the day on Sunday, March 4. As long as it’s March 4 (or earlier) anywhere on earth when your submission shows up in our inbox, it’s valid.
In other news, we’re working on a couple of events for National PB&J Day in the Washington, DC area. More on that and other National PB&J Day activities in subsequent posts…
You may already be doing this, but in case you’re not… The two end slices on a loaf of bread work great for pb&j sandwiches (or toast, or croutons, or Italian bread salad). The average loaf of bread has roughly 20 slices, plus the two end pieces, aka the “heels.” So throwing away the ends of the bread wastes nine percent of the loaf.
