Meatless Mondays in 2023

I’m old enough to remember when Chipotle workers asked what meat you wanted with your meal, not what protein.

Calling meat “protein” makes people aware of other ways to get it than just from red meat. For example, black beans, eggs and nuts, to name only a few.

Excessive consumption of red meat and processed meat is linked to many health concerns, including increased risks of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer death, according to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Then there’s the environmental impact. Production of red meat is a major contributor to climate change, since methane is a potent greenhouse gas. (The National Dairy Council notes ways that methane can be captured on farms and used in environmentally sustainable ways, so there’s that.)

All this was eye-opening to me, even though I’d heard it dozens if not hundreds of times before. But, as the old saying goes, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. And I was ready to learn more about cutting back on red meat, just in time for a New Year’s resolution.

A recent study started me thinking more seriously about a change. Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic linked higher levels of a specific stomach byproduct — phenylacetylglutamine, or PAG — in people with heart failure.

PAG is created when the gut breaks down protein. The more protein, the higher the PAG.

A conclusion from the research is that PAG blood tests would be a good weapon in a cardiologist’s arsenal for diagnosing heart disease, not that people should necessarily go vegetarian or vegan.

However, one of the suggestions from the study was to cut back on red meat, possibly through a plan that has already gained traction in other circles: Meatless Mondays.

My wife and I had one of our usual deep discussions before agreeing to implement Meatless Mondays in the New Year.

Me: Hey, you wanna go meatless on Mondays? I hear it’d be good for us.

Her: Sure.

Long-time readers may remember our disastrous attempt to go completely vegetarian in 2013. My wife broke her resolution during Carnation Days in the Park, when the Methodists lured her away with their delicious steak burgers, like the Pied Piper leading all the children out of town.

I held on for the entire year, breaking my meat sabbatical with an Arnold-the-Pig-sized pork roast at 12:01 a.m. on New Year’s Day 2014. I freely admit to being a garbage vegetarian who survived on frozen cheese pizzas and snack foods, gaining about 15 pounds over the year.

Despite my previous lack of success with a vegetarian lifestyle and the lackadaisical way I’m backing into Meatless Mondays, I am sincere about it, and about making better food choices overall.

Maybe I can’t abandon meat entirely because of my love affair with the All-American hamburger, but I can try to do better on the days when I’m not gorging on one of those.

So, the next time a Chipotle worker asks me what protein I want, I may answer, “Black beans.” And shed a tiny tear.

chris.schillig@yahoo.com

@cschillig on Twitter