Can You Be an Ethical Consumer and a Weight Watcher?

Over time I have gradually cut most meat out of my diet.  I’ve eaten mostly chicken or fish for years whether I’m actively tracking or not, But I’ve also become more aware of the ugly underbelly of our food industry, especially when it comes to the treatment of living creatures and slaughtering them so we can eat their bodies.  I’m not here to convert you, but if you watch enough documentaries on the subject, you might feel the same. 

Having said that, it’s not always easy to eat a sustainable diet while you’re counting WW points. In some ways, it helps because you are cutting out (or at least reducing) things like cheese and other dairy foods. In fact I love Almond milk (1 point per cup) and it’s lower in purple points than nonfat dairy milk (3 points). But if I want to make tapioca pudding, almond milk doesn’t cut it. It gets all weird as you are bringing the pudding to a boil. 

Also, eggs are zero points on purple and so are potatoes, so often, a low point breakfast for me is homemade hash browns and scrambled eggs. If I want toast I also eat two slices of Sara 45 Calories & Delightful whole grain bread (2 points, purple)  I’ve eaten plant based burgers for a while. Two good brands with low WW Points are Gardein and Morningstar (3 purple points)  but there are lots of  others I haven’t tried, and it’s easy to make your own.  I plan to post reviews of some WW recipes in the future. 

I tried “Impossible Burger” recently and it is honestly delicious!  I like it better than real ground beef!  It is lower in points than real beef, but not as much as I expected (6 points for a 3 ounce burger) and higher than the other veggie burgers, so be sure to check the points before consuming! As far as looking and tasting like a real meat burger, however, Impossible Burgers beat the others hands down!

Impossible Burger with shredded zucchini and sliced green onions added

So in some ways, being an ethical consumer, and losing weight on WW may seem like a conflict, but with proper planning, you can do it. For me right now, I’ve decided not to eat anything with eyes....no animals, fish, chicken etc. But I feel like eating eggs and milk products is a sustainable way to eat. However, I can’t stand the idea of a bunch of chickens locked in cages laying eggs for me, so I buy organic, cage free, pasture raised chicken eggs. Similarly, I want to picture cows happy on a farm, grazing in a pasture, and then milked for the products I end up eating. There are health reasons NOT to drink cows milk, but that’s a topic for another post! 

If you’re interested in watching a few eye opening documentaries, here are a few to check out:

Netflix: 

What the Health

Cowspiracy 

SeasPiracy 

Watch for:

Food, Inc