The ethical carnivore; eating the entire animal

Maybe not THE ENTIRE animal but if you choose to eat meat, consuming most of the edible parts from the animal. What could be greener? This means eating the organs/offal, utilising the bones and other remnants. Put simply, the parts considered unpleasant in North America.

Travelling and eating in many developing countries has opened my eyes to the “waste not want not” principle. A walk through a food market in Asia will reveal some delicious gems from various parts of the animal (those euphemistically called “variety meat” in North America). Crunchy chicken gizzards charcoal roasted with spicy dips, beef tripe with salad and stewed ox tendons are just some of my highlights. Some not-so-memorable dishes include chicken rear ends on skewers and chewy pig entrails soup. In the Mediterranean, parts such as ox tail, pig trotters, brain and testicles are eaten regularly. Even the not-so-gastronomic British can pull off a good steak and kidney pie. Here is an article from the Bangkok Post – a Thai’s perspective on Westerners’ approach to offal.

Why is eating innards better for the environment?
We can’t deny that meat production takes its toll on the environment. It takes land, feed, water, transportation and production to get the meat to the consumer’s table. As it takes 10 kg of cereal to produce one kilo of beef, then we should not be wasting any part of the animal. Unless you deliberately avoid meat, eating offal is more environmentally friendly.

Is eating offal safe?
People are worried about contamination and organs being storage tanks for harmful pathogens. There’s probably some truths to this as we saw during the BSE/Mad Cow crisis in the UK during the 1990s. In order to reduce the probability of BSE contaminated meats entering the system, there was a ban on beef on the bone and certain types of offal. We are well aware that industrial farming methods gave rise to BSE. If the entire animal has been raised in factory conditions with low hygiene and upkeep, then the organs are bound to contain harmful substances in increased amounts. Therefore, if the animal is raised in humane conditions in an organic setting, the organs are bound to be safer – as well as the muscle meat. Also, a Swedish study conducted in 2003 claimed that raising organic beef on grass rather than feed, reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 40% and consumed 85% less energy.

Better late than never – join the glorious gut eating masses!
There may be a change amongst those who’d originally turned their noses up at offal. I’ve been seeing calves’ brains and various other organs at the more posh delis around town. Perhaps more people are asking themselves why it’s perfectly OK to eat one piece of an animal and not another. And essentially, that is what meat is – a piece of what was once a living animal, muscle and organs. It’s good to look at the animal and its parts and see our food for what it really is rather than as neatly trimmed pieces wrapped in plastic.

Chris Cosentino is a US-based chef who has given offal a central role in his cooking. His “head to tail” cooking approach is an eye-opener as he is a well-known high-end chef – with numerous appearances on popular television programmes. The sight of this man with a handful of entrails and organs may be strange – or even revolting – for some but the importance of such an approach can’t be missed.



A quick glance through google will yield a rich picking in offal recipes. They really are worth a try as there’s more to life than just pork chops and chicken breasts.

More Sushi - the sustainable kind - please

Being a metropolitan city with a sushi restaurant on nearly every street corner, why is Vancouver not full of greener sushi restaurants? Last week, the news about a Seattle sushi restaurant going fully sustainable started a buzz in Twitterland and in blog space. Mashiko has a wonderful looking menu and if they’re doing their bit for the ocean, I would not hesitate to choose this place when I’m next in Seattle. But I have to ask why the sustainable sushi restaurant is not the norm?

What am I REALLY eating?
First, see what’s good and what’s bad. A guide or suggestion list of sustainable seafood is a useful tool to take to the restaurant. In Canada, the Sea Choice Guide is an excellent source of information. In the US, the Monterey Bay aquarium has a well-established Seafood Watch guide. For the UK, there is the Marine Conservation Society information. For Continental Europe WWF has a listing of guides.

Is a tuna a tuna? The confusing issue of labelling
It’s not only the species and types of fish we have to watch but there is a big problem around labelling. According to Ocean Wise, Canada has a rather weak seafood labelling law. A name such as “snapper” is utterly useless as it covers thousands of different types of fish (some may be perfectly good to eat while others may be endangered). The Bluefin Tuna, a species in the news recently, is just one of many types of tuna. When a diner orders “toro” at the sushi restaurant, s/he doesn’t know if it contains Bluefin or another type of tuna. The David Suzuki Foundation is spearheading a campaign to change the law.

Time and again, the customer is always right
The movement is consumer-driven. The Ocean Wise programme by the Vancouver Aquarium is an example of a marine conservation organisation working with restaurants to promote sustainable fish. The programme helps restaurants in making sustainable options available to their clientele. Approved items will have the Ocean Wise logo displayed on the menu and this allows clientele to easily identify the most sustainable options.
Customers/diners enquiring what they’re eating leads to restaurants demanding sustainable fish from their suppliers. This in turn leads to suppliers changing their stock priorities. Diners see positive choices, avoid the non-approved ones and the restaurants don’t find it worth their while to have the unsustainable options. This alters their purchasing choices from their suppliers.

More positive choices please
So what about the lower-end places (the takeaways, eat-all-you-cans and the everyday hole-in-the-wall operations)? Ocean Wise is anticipating a first big mid-cost sushi restaurant on the major massive sushi hub of Robson Street to get on board. Although the programme started with the more high-end restaurants, there is greater demand by the wider sushi-eating public and surely, the restaurants must be taking note.

Below is a video of a demonstration by a famous Japanese sushi chef, very much a fixture here in Vancouver. Chef Tojo shows how to make a sushi that looks mouthwatering but the concept is simple – using fresh, local and sustainable fish.