Chili

“Chicken or beef?” I asked, automatically reaching into the freezer for the ground beef. We were making chili for Friday night dinner at my apartment and, when it comes to easy chili recipes, I once considered ground beef a staple.

“Definitely chicken,” said Daniel, who was busy filling my roommate’s Crock-Pot with canned beans. “Beef is really bad for the environment.”

“That can’t be right,” I protested, because — as a red-blooded American — I’m programmed to defend hamburgers at all costs. I closed the freezer, and we looked it up. As usual, when it comes to environmental issues, Daniel was correct.

According to a study published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, cattle release five times more greenhouse gases and require 28 times more land on average than other livestock. It’s a problem even if the cows are grass-fed, which is slightly better for them and, it happens, the environment — it skips the emissions generated from processing their food. The bottom line is, cows are really inefficient energy converters, despite being plant eaters. Remember those consumer-producer food chain graphics from grade school? Well, cows buck the energy transfer trend, in a bad way.

Guess it’s hard times a-coming for The Hard Times Cafe.

The problem is, if college cooks have learned anything from recipe blogs, it’s that Crock-Pots are a student’s best friend. And what Crock-Pot recipe is more classic than a hearty, beefy chili?

Fortunately, chili comes in many varieties. My childhood favorite is this secret chicken and white bean chili recipe my mom has squirreled away at home. This five-ingredient version from Gimme Some Oven, though, is a pretty good imitation, so that’s what I made this weekend.

In keeping with the five-ingredient theme, you can use turkey instead of ground beef for Gimme Some Oven’s standard red chili. If you’re vegetarian, you already one-up us carnivores when it comes to saving the environment with your eating habits. But you probably still want your lazy weeknight meals to taste good, so here’s a five-ingredient sweet potato and black bean chili that looks pretty promising.

I can’t say I’ll never eat another hamburger, but it’s good to know you can make green choices and enjoy your life, too.