I just found a great article entitled "So You're an Environmentalist; Why Are You Still Eating Meat?" I've pulled a few quotes from the article. I've emailed the article to my meat-eating, environmentally-concerned friends to again try to entice them to eat lower on the food chain.

Harvard nutritionist Jean Mayer estimates that reducing meat production by just 10 percent in the U.S. would free enough grain to feed 60 million people.

According to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), livestock raised for food produce 130 times the excrement of the human population, some 87,000 pounds per second.

More than a third of all raw materials and fossil fuels consumed in the U.S. are used in animal production.

Supermarket shelves overflow with soy- or seitan-based meat substitutes. The soybean contains all eight essential amino acids and exceeds even meat in the amount of usable protein it can deliver to the human body.

It's never been easier to become a vegetarian, and there have never been more compelling reasons for environmentalists to make that choice.

I can vouch for those last two statements. I love to cook and have used many meat substitute products - "fake meat" as my kids refer to them - and am always amazed at what they can do with soy. My favorite is "Smart Ground" fake ground beef. I go to Emeril's web site, Food TV and allrecipes.com and search for ground beef recipes. We're not big on tofu at our house.