@Joannie - Just reducing our meat intake would make a huge difference - it's mostly the American Fast Food market (McDonalds, Burger King etc.) who are the impetus behind the South American push to 'grow' ever more beef cattle for export, and they are clearing the so important Amazon Rain forest for that - THIS HAS TO STOP - it affects us all. The live sheep trade has to stop - and it will - I rationalise it this way, that it is only an individual animal which suffers, the sheer mass is a lot of suffering, but it's only a single experience for each of them. (Yet, I even avoid driving behind a meat transport truck, If I can.) Maybe those 'feelings' experienced by many, will eventually result in some action - we need to lobby our politicians!
I manage on 1kg of meat per week, but do buy some meaty smallgoods, when I have guests - so maybe 1 1/2kgs per week - and I try and get free-range meat whenever possible. Have a lump of beef, resting on the kitchen counter right now, ready to be roasted (in the morning, when it's not so hot). Also: It is amazing how you can 'smuggle' vegetables into a 'Spaghetti Bolognaise' dish, without affecting the meat taste - - I, however do steam my carrots, then cut them fine and include in the sauce, as just frying and cooking them with the meat, keeps them hard - don't know why. When I'm done preparing the veggies (all finely cut: carrots, parsnips: fresh, they get a hard interior stalk when not fresh, onions, at lest 4 cloves of garlic, if you eat pork, fried in sunflower oil, with a bit of finely cut bacon, not too much oil and one hot red pepper, also finely cut) - plus the usual: tomatoe sauce, or concentrate, a fash of good red wine, a dash of sugar (according to taste) salt, I often end up with one third of the 'mass' being vegetables, but you would never know in the finished sauce - I think the veggies improve the flavour.
I have also found a source for Rye flour 20 minutes drive from here - and will be baking my own bread again - am tired of badly-baked so-called rye-bread (by Asian bakers, and just hot steam applied nilly-willy so they can get their bread product out in 20 minutes or less . . . . @NoBoDe I often feel I want to 'make a stand' with the bakers at Coles, like I did in the Veggie section of Woolworths . . . but know they are just dumb employees who no-one ever bothered to teach anything and all they want to do is earn a living.
