Going Vegetarian

Beginning October 1st, I’m going vegetarian. Dun dun duuuuun. Now before anyone freaks out, I’m only going vegetarian for a month. After having several friends dabble with vegetarianism, a sister who went vegan and back, and a mom who’s the occasional vegetarian (for religious reasons), I decided I’m going to check out what the hoo-ha is all about. I want to see if it would be hard to stick to a vegetarian diet and whether I’d get bored. To be honest, I’m not apprehensive. I like vegetables, often better than meat, and when I was younger, I gave some thought to being a vegetarian because I liked vegetables so much. In fact, if I eat a meal without enough vegetables, I feel dissatisfied and not satiated. However, I never gave it a good go, even though I eat vegetarian meals of my own accord all the time.

Since I’m not eating vegetarian for moral reasons, my ground rules do not give me a strictly vegetarian diet. For example, I’m letting myself have one cheat meal a week. This is just a contingency meal, in case I end up in a situation where eating vegetarian isn’t an reasonable option, such as dinner at someone’s house or a restaurant without vegetarian options. Friends with whom I’ve discussed this have challenged me to not have the cheat meal, but I honestly don’t see the point. One cheat meal a week is a tiny percentage of the many meals I will be eating over the course of the month, and I’d rather have the option to flexible. Though I’m happy to do it, having vegetarian friends creates more work for me when I play host to them and meat-eating friends. I am not capable of asking my guests to eat just sides while everyone else gets an entree. I imagine that it is the same for other people who would invite me over for dinner. For that, I built in the cheat meal so I wouldn’t create more work for someone who has been so generous as to have me over as a guest.

The other non-vegetarian option I’ve allowed myself is the use of chicken/beef/fish stock and sauces that may have a meat/fish component (such as Thai fish sauce). The reason for this is because I have a lot of asian sauces and condiments that do have some meat/fish component to them and I’m not about to go look for a vegetarian replacement to use for simply a month. Also, if somehow I ate unknowingly ate something that contained a meat component (like gelatin, which is made from beef), I’m not going to be beating myself up for breaking the rules. I want to adhere as closely as possible to being a vegetarian, but there are just going to be times when I won’t know all the ingredients that went into something, and there’s not a lot I can do about that. Again, since I’m not eating vegetarian for moral reasons, I don’t see a problem with a more flexible approach to it.

Ultimately, I believe that a well-balanced and carefully chosen omnivorous diet is healthier than a strictly vegetarian diet. So if my diet isn’t strictly vegetarian but 95% vegetarian, I can live with that. I’m doing this as an experiment, just to see what happens and with a desire to see something through. It will definitely be interesting, and I will try to chronicle my efforts and report back in on any effects on my body, mind, and spirit. I hope that my month of vegetarianism will teach me something about how I eat and how my body responds to food. I intend to return an omnivorous diet when the month is over, but hopefully with greater insight into the life of a vegetarian.

Neither Pomp nor Circumstance

Without too much ceremony, this is my umpteenth attempt at a blog. Every time I try to start one, I inevitably stop after about 5 posts. At first, I was trying write down my thoughts. Turns out my thoughts were asinine, so I quickly gave that up. Then I tried to have a food blog. Unfortunately, I use recipes more like guidelines, never stop to measure how much of an ingredient went into a dish, and generally just wing it with whatever I happen to have in the fridge. Due this haphazard approach to cooking, writing out recipes for my own creations was difficult. The food blog fizzled.

So here I am again. I've decided not to post recipes, I'm not any good at that. But I do love food, talking about it, eating it, making it, the whole she-bang. It only makes sense that I write about it, and I've decided this time around, I will be documenting my successes and failures in the kitchen. No recipes from me, but reports from the front lines on how other people's recipes fared in my kitchen and in my (oh dear!) hands. Along the way, I may post other things of interest to me. If it's interesting to you, great! If not, well, that really is too bad.

Here goes!