Comment by Kip Hansen — 23 March 2023
Now, you may think I’m trying to put one over on you. But I’m not, really. This advice comes from the Washington Post’s Climate Coach.
Say what? Climate Coach? Is that like a Life Coach? A Planet-Saving Life Coach? Well, sort of – the Post’s Climate Coach is Michael Coren. Oh, not the famous Canadian theologian, radio host and writer. A different Michael Coren, this one.
What does he do? He writes an advice column. He is the Dear Abby for the climate concerned. He (and other authors of the Green Living section) has advised readers of the Washington Post on home composting, how to buy Green Bonds, offered energy-saving tips for our home appliances, advised readers on green funeral options (from composting to natural burial to water cremation – NB: Those with weak stomachs should not follow the link on water cremation.), told us that we you should almost always wash our clothes with cold water and that we should be taking flights on planes burning re-processed French-fry oil. All in the service of saving the planet, of course.
His latest advice for the “Save the Planet®” crowd is: “eat lentils every day”.
“Lentils conceal their superpowers with a dowdy exterior. Pound for pound, raw lentils have more protein than steak. While not as protein-dense once cooked, they pack even more iron than meat, in addition to other vitamins and minerals…..Today, the lentil is again on the front lines. This time, against climate change. While start-ups scramble to engineer a sustainable protein, from lab-grown meat to fake burgers, lentils are a ready solution, one with a proven record…..When it comes to combating climate change, the lentil may be the perfect legume. They’re also, as the caviar mention implies, delicious. So why do Americans eat fewer lentils than almost everyone else?….There’s a good reason. While not as dense or digestible as meat once they are cooked, lentils become a complete protein similar to meat when combined with many grains. They’re also a slow burn, satiating hunger for hours.”
And, lentils have: “Climate impacts: What’s good for you is also good for the land. America’s most popular crops, like wheat and corn, often degrade the soil over time. Legumes like lentils rebuild it.”
One more thing — in the United states, the kids have a little ditty that goes:
♬ Beans, Beans, the musical fruit ♬
♬ The more you eat, the more you toot ♬
Lentils, being legumes, have the same ‘feature’ – which is what Coren is referring to when he says: “not as … digestible as meat”. Eating lentils causes “gas”, yes, the tooting of smelly methane gas. If all 8 billion or so of us humans begin to eat lentils at any large scale, we’ll have to be taxed, like New Zealand is taxing sheep. (For the same reason.)
So, friends, eating lentils may not actually save the planet (may cause an increase in atmospheric methane) – it may result in an infinitesimal decline in the eating of meat in the United States. It will not make the slightest difference in the overall emissions of CO2 and even if it did reduce CO2 emissions, it would not make the slightest difference …..well, in anything at all (well, maybe a bit of discomfort in crowded elevators and other confined spaces.).
But, hey, thanks for the advice, Mr. Coren.
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Author’s Comment:
Yet another, need I say, oddly cute column boosting absolutely silly and entirely ineffective ways people can make themselves feel better after being clubbed over the head, day after day, with climate scare stories in the Washington Post.
Full Disclosure: I eat lentils, lots of different types. I like lentils. We have five-gallon pails of lentils in our emergency food storage. My wife puts them in soups and other dishes. I just don’t think I’m saving the planet when I eat them.
Oh, just one more thing (h/t Columbo) – if your culture has a similar little ditty about eating beans, let’s hear it in comments.
Thanks for reading.
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Bill Gates, who takes frequent flights on private jets, is funding another venture to address the problem of methane emissions from cow burps.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded a $4.8 million grant this month to London-based Zelp, a company developing a face mask for cattle designed to capture the methane produced by animal burps and turn it into carbon dioxide.
.. methane to CO2 ?? is that a solution ??
Although I doubt face masks for cattle will be economically competitive (such as compared to. adding insulation to buildings) in terms of greenhouse gas effect decrease per amount of money spent, methane has greater greenhouse gas effect than CO2. With comparing a short term methane emission to a same quantity short term CO2 emission over the following 100 years (which exceeds average atmospheric lifetime of both of these), the usual figure is that methane causes 20-21 times as much cumulative GHG heating effect as CO2 does.
For only 20 years after a short term emission, methane is usually said to cause 80 times as much heating as CO2 does, because a methane emission has a shorter atmospheric lifetime than a CO2 emission has. However, I consider the 100 year figure as more relevant to how much the planet will warm.
Don ==> Will Happer, when answering that very int at the Heartland Climate Conference in Februrary, said “It (methane) is trivial. There is no reason to regulate methane.”
The reason fr that opinion has to do with the physics of energy transmission through the atmosphere. (On which, he is a or the world’s expert.)
Notice how lentils are harvested. Then ask yourself if you are willing to oppress minorities to save the earth.
https://youtu.be/gr3kHcAIG5c
doonman ==> That kind of harvesting is only done in poor countries basically practicing subsistence farming. Lentils, like all the beans harvested dry, are harvested by combines.
https://youtu.be/JSoaPrUQ_XE
I love Lentils
All food is good food and we should be at liberty to eat the food of our choice
The food religion people stink. They are constantly pitting one food type over another with wacko justifications.
If you want to get religious… think religious freedom in America. God tells Peter in Acts that all food is clean and everyone is free to eat as they wish. So any effort to ban a particular food violates my religious freedom as a Christian. Anyone who establishes a law that prohibits or limits production of any type of food violates my religious freedom. Billionaires who buy up land to limit a particular type of food production should take note of the basic rights of Americans. Trust busting is a thing.
BTW
Lentils and Dals are awesome. Lentil stew with sausage and smothered in Parmesan cheese is great. They used to be very inexpensive. I would end up hating them if I access to goat meat, lamb or beef kabobs was banned, which lentils are an excellent accompaniment.
I don’t eat lentils anymore because the PA climate is not suitable for gowning them and I produce all the beans I need…5 varieties. I save my own seed so I don’t have to buy the seed and the chickens provide all the fertilizer. So beans are a cheap crop for home production.
BTW Ethiopian Cuisine with lentils and dals is awesome. Dals and culinary pumpkins is also awesome. Add all the great Turkish eggplant dishes and lamb…… can’t beat it.
I have no problem with people choosing veganism and vegetarianism because they like the cuisine but often it becomes a religious affectation …and the actual cuisine of most vegan and vegetarians stinks.
.
JC ==> Luckily, we haven’t descended to the point where we have to put up with real Food Police….give it time.
Hey Kip,
Agreed, we are still only dealing with the theater of the absurd when it comes to food and climate. On the other hand, the battle ground over energy is very serious. At this point, the battleground of climate, food and land usage is as much about a dystopic narrative as it is about an actual climate initiative It’s a much deeper and longer dystopic propaganda program. Why all this yap about food (eating bugs, plant meat, how lentils are a great alternative,( to what lentils?)…and so on. There has to be an agenda to create crisis when none exists or needs to exist.
. I don’t think anyone other than a few billionaires are taking the meat/climate issue seriously…. I mean the billionaires that are buying up huge tracts of grazing land to allow to go wild. I am sure money is the ultimate goal, not climate but climate demonstrates the seriousness of their environmentalist zeal.. The former is about hedging wealth, the later is existential and political.(Billionaires solve for pattern and take actions that benefit them on multiple dimensions). I think one dimension is to demonstrate power and thereby, at least implicitly, instill anxiety in anyone who understands the long term consequences of our food producing land being controlled by people who do not have anyone’s best interests in mind.
JC ==> I give it a decade(maybe less) before the whole underlying rottenness is exposed in a bombshell book written by one of the conspirators themselves after a Road to Mananas moment.
“The cure to the Climate is lentils.
(But be sure to mix them with fennel!)
The more lentils you eat
The less you’ll eat meat!”
But I think that reasoning’s mental!
Gunga ==> A Fine Effort!
Beans! Beans! They make you dance
To escape your own flatulance!
Beans! Beans! You’d better run
To escape the climate-harm you’ve done
For sphincters in quite vegan asses
Produce stench whose harm surpasses
Several other greenhouse gasses.
Caleb ==> Taking a chance, I declare that the Best Original Fart Ditty of the day!
Thank you. I couldn’t resist the challenge.
I do wish these climate zealots would stop using foods I like as examples of “correct choices”. It just creates a bunch more demand and then I have to pay more LOL.
TR M ==> True of all foods that become fads. Take kale, for instance, please….