Gack Yack

It took long enough.

Environmentally Conscious Organization (e.c.o.), Inc. is a design and licensing firm, dedicated to improving outmoded, outdated and wasteful food packaging. e.c.o. is marketing its first product, the ‘Green Box’ (US Patent 7,051,919), a pizza box manufactured from 100% recycled material. The top of the ‘Green Box’ breaks down into convenient serving plates, eliminating the need for disposable plates. The remainder of the box converts easily into a handy storage container, eliminating the need for plastic wrap, tin foil or plastic bags. The perforations and scores that create this functionality allow for easy disposal into a standard-sized recycling bin. Made from a standard pizza blank, the ‘Green Box’ requires no additional material or major redesign and can therefore be produced at no additional manufacturing cost. e.c.o. owns the utility patent on the ‘Green Box.’

As a card-carrying member of the carnivore family, I spent most of my young adult life dining on the weekly T-bone steaks and shredded chicken fajitas provided to me by my parents. And I’ll admit–even now, I can still smell how delicious those grilled, spicy fajitas were. *sigh.

The first time I ever thought about giving up meat was my junior year in college. One of my old high school pals came in town for the night to visit, and we went to Rockfish for dinner. I had chicken something. The next day, we went to Taco Cabana for lunch. I had chicken quesadillas. I thought both would be harmless since I’d eaten chicken in restaurants hundreds of times before, but both proved to be a ginormous mistake. And the next day, as I laid in my hospital bed and watched the IV drip into my arm, experiencing such intense abdominal pain that I could barely move, I told myself I would never eat chicken again. Nothing in the entire world was worth salmonella poisoning.

But it wasn’t as easy as I thought, and I ended up wavering on my promise. Four years later, I decided to give up chicken for good, and that I would say good-bye with one last favorite dish: chicken spaghetti. Since I’m cooking it, I thought, I can be extra careful so I won’t give myself salmonella. Totally safe. Totally wrong. The only thing worse than getting salmonella twice is knowing that the second time you gave it to yourself and you can’t call the health department to complain this time. After that, chicken and I were no longer friends.

A few months later, a coworker forced me to watch a lovely little video called Meat Your Meat. I didn’t think it would have much of an impact on me, and I didn’t even take it seriously in the beginning because it was narrated by Alec Baldwin. (If you watch 30 Rock, you get where I’m coming from.) But afterward, I was incredibly horrified. I’d never really thought about what meat went through to get to my plate before–just that it was usually bathed in something magically delicious when it was served to me. So, I gave up pork. The pigs seemed to be the worst off in the video, and it felt like the right thing to do.

Beef was the last meat to go for me. Every time I considered giving it up, my mind immediately thought of the delicious smell of a grilled steak or smoked brisket. But it wasn’t until a few months after the video that it happened: while eating a piece of cold brisket one night, I unknowingly bit down on a huge chunk of cold marbled fat. I immediately gagged and spit it out in the sink, and after a massive wave of nausea passed, I knew: I was done with beef. (In my mind, the incident was comparable to the scene in the first Ace Ventura movie when Ace realizes that “Finkle is Einhorn,” and “The Crying Game” begins to play.)

I realize that this entry may make me seem like a fair-weathered, cause-and-effect vegetarian, but with some things you really do have to learn the hard way. I’ve lived a much healthier life since I gave up meat, so I believe the struggle was worth it. It’s not always easy, but it’s a work-in-progress, just like me.