It’s New York Climate Week and I am participating in on a conversation about climate change and food. It’s super interesting to hear how changing our diets needs to be a part of our fight against climate change. Having been a meat eater all my life, the idea of being vegetarian was anathema to me until the year 2000. That year I had a big health scare and became a vegetarian. It was hard at first especially because I was living in Italy and I love charcuterie and cheese but then I slide quite happily into the diet and felt better and thinner than ever before. I ate that way for about two years and then I slowly made my way back to being a carnivore. A couple of years ago after a different health scare,  I started to eat in a more healthy way as well but I didn’t really hold the line. Being in the wine business and attending so many tastings with only cheese and coldcuts offered didn’t help to hold the line either. In 2019 I did a big project for the Oregon Wine Board in NYC. I met someone who works there who was vegetarian. He told me about a term VB6 which stands for vegetarian before 6:00pm. I loved that and tried it with a degree of success this year. Once again, I am at a cross roads and thinking of going back to this way of eating. This time, not only for my own health but for that of the planet. This fascinating conversation led by a Professor at the Columbia’s SIPA school and their Department of Energy Policy, another Professor who works at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, located at Columbia University, a Professor at New York University, and a member of the FAO. They are not only linking diet to climate change but also COVID to Climate change and deforestation and the jumping of these diseases from animals to people. It’s really fascinating and scary at the same time.

I am looking forward to seeing how this new diet feels on my body and how it goes with wine pairing. My friend, Sunny Gandara has also been instrumental in making me look at all of this slightly differently. Check out her pairing classes.