The Family Dinner — Meatless Meals for Families

by Laurie David

The overconsumption of meat in the United States is a relatively new problem. American’s now eat 150 times more chicken than we did only eighty years ago. When our grandparents were our age, meat was harder to come by, and was considered a luxury. They didn’t have steak every night. They had soups and pastas and vegetable stews. Meat was used to add flavor or as a side ingredient, more an embellishment than the center of attention. Today we are doing something that was unheard of not too long ago: eating meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The average American is consuming about eight ounces of met every single day – which is 45 percent more meat than the USDA recommends!

Today we challenge you to step back and take a look at what and how you eat. The first thing you need to conquer is the belief that eating vegetarian doesn’t mean that you are doing without. Whip up this meatless dish (without saying a word about its contents) and start the vegetarian conversation. After they wipe the plates clean and ask for seconds, you might be surprised at how well they receive the idea of meatless meals!

So… what’s for dinner tonight?

Oven Grains, Greens and Cheese, Please

This week’s dinner game requires just a touch of planning. It’s called Likes and Dislikes.
Ask everyone to write down three of their likes and dislikes on scrap paper. Help the younger ones by writing for them. Try to come up with things that won’t be too obvious to your group. Read the cards one at a time and have everyone try and guess which family member the information belongs to.

Laurie David is an environmentalist, author, and producer of the Academy Award–winning film An Inconvenient Truth and the HBO documentary Too Hot Not to Handle. Laurie, a regular blogger on the Huffington Post, has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Martha Stewart Show, Good Morning America, The Today Show, CNN, and MSNBC and was named a 2006 Glamour Woman of the Year. The purpose of her new book “The Family Dinner” is to help America’s overwhelmed families sit down to a Family Dinner, and she provides all the reasons, recipes, and fun tools to do so.

Photos courtesy of Maryellen Baker and Grand Central Publishing
Thanks to our partner Foodily.com