CleverRoot

4 | t h e c l e v e r r o o t In 2012, CHRISTINE HAVENS left a ten-year stint in production to write about wine full-time, her background in winegrowing and winemak- ing endowing her with technical knowledge and a deep apprecia- tion for the process. In addition to the reviews and features she posts on her website, christine-havens. com, she's a contributing writer at The Clever Root's sister publica- tions, The SOMM Journal and The Tasting Panel, as well as a member of The Circle of Wine Writers. She received an Editor's Choice Fellowship to attend the 2017 Symposium for Professional Wine Writers and has twice been nominated as a Millésima Wine Blog Awards finalist. Havens also serves as the Marketing Director at Cascadia Fine Wines, a U.S.-Canadian marketing firm representing select premium Pacific Northwest brands across Asia, India, Australia, and New Zealand. Featured Contributor AS THE THREAT of global warming increasingly invades the public consciousness and proposed methods of reducing greenhouse gases join a growing international conversation, many ideas have been proffered to aid in protecting our environment. Seattle will ban plastic straws and utensils starting July 1, and before our current administration rescinded regulations instated under Presi- dent Barack Obama, cars were required to average more than 50 miles per gallon by 2025 to reduce carbon emissions. Another issue often discussed is the effect of animal agriculture and meat consumption on our climate, as the methane produced by animals and the growing of grain for feed both contribute to global warming. As an avid carnivore who's also determined to reduce their carbon footprint, I struggle with this ethical dilemma: How do I pull my weight in saving the planet while still eating meat? It's a tricky question in which the answer is necessarily as simple as, "Become a vegetarian!" Don't get me wrong: Americans should absolutely reduce their consumption of meat—especially red meat—for both health and environmental reasons. Meat alternatives are improving by leaps and bounds in terms of taste: I would have been hard-pressed to tell the difference between In-N-Out and a Impossible burger I ate recently. But overall, I think it's unrealistic to ask all Americans to cut meat out of their diet entirely. It's become too ingrained to just quit cold turkey, and many people aren't familiar enough with nutrition to replace the protein they get from meat with a vegetarian source. That doesn't mean we should just ignore what's happening and go on our merry meat-eating way. There are ways to eat meat and still help the environment: #MeatlessMonday is an excellent cam- paign that encourages people to eat vegetarian at least one day a week, a small step toward reducing our consumption at a broader level. How an animal is raised also plays an important role in its environmental impact, as factory farm- ing is far worse for the environment than the practices small ranches generally follow. For example, Stemple Creek Ranch in Marin County, California, collaborates with a consortium called the Marin Carbon Project to sequester carbon by covering a portion of its pastureland with organic compost. (They also supply the pork for Santa Ana–based Electric City Butcher, which I visited for a recent butchery class: See the story on page 16.) Whether you stick with #MeatlessMondays or take the time to educate yourself on where your meat is coming from, you can have your meat and eat it, too—just know a little consciousness can go a long way. —Jesse Hom-Dawson Managing Editor LETTER FROM THE EDITOR The Meat We Eat: Striving for Conscious Consumption Contributing Editors Emily Coleman, Melissa Marrapese, Josh Reynolds, Alexander Rubin, Merrill Shindler, Deborah Parker Wong Contributors Karen Arango, Ryan Armbrust, Jeremy Ball, Michelle Ball, Randy Caparoso, Michael Cervin, Rachel Coward, Dustin Downing, Richard Carleton Hacker, Fred Minnick, Todd Westphal Electric City Butcher's Steve Sabicer watches as Clever Root Managing Editor Jesse Hom-Dawson practices butchering pork chops. ■cr PHOTO: DUSTIN DOWNING

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