Oh, have you heard?? Veg is where it’s at, and if any one entity deserves the credit, the factory farming industry should rightfully take a bow.  Thanks to our global penchant for raising an insane number of animals for human consumption, the greenhouse gases that are continuously released have resulted in a rather toasty planet.

The United Nations recently acknowledged that it would be extremely wise for us to put the breaks on our production and consumption of animal based protein in favor of limiting or cutting meat out of our diets altogether…or perhaps even noshing on equally protein-rich yet far less environmentally polluting insects. Suddenly, crisp, good-for-you veggies sound incredibly lip smacking good, don’t they?

As the Meatless Mondays campaign continues to pick up speed and typically meat-centric celebrity chefs like Mario Batali embrace ‘vegetable butchers’, our culture seems to have a new appreciation for the finer flavors of the produce rainbow. Perhaps that’s why we care so much about the fact that the chef of New York City’s vegetarian & vegan-centric Dirt Candy scored a coveted spot on Food Network’s Iron Chef.

This probably wouldn’t have happened 5 years ago, and yet in 2010, Amanda Cohen was given the opportunity to “put a different face on vegetarian food” by treating vegetables “as seriously as chefs treat pork.” Up against chef Masaharu Morimoto, they both prepared entirely meat-free creations, but in the end, only one reigned supreme. To see how it all went down, take a gander at Cohen and Morimoto in action during the rebroadcast of their showdown on Food Network, set to air multiple times in the upcoming week, or dispense with the suspense by viewing the battle right here!

Via New York Eater