It occurred to me in the grocery store this morning that it’s been very nearly a year since I began what I thought was going to be an experiment of a few weeks, maybe a month or two. It was almost a year ago that I decided to “try the vegetarian thing” for a while.
Occasionally when the topic comes up in conversation, people ask, “so, are you vegan?” My answer to that is a quick and unequivocal no. I don’t have that much self control, frankly. I know myself pretty well and I know that I’m not cut out to go fully vegan. I like a dish of plain yogurt and berries in the morning too much. I like eggs too much. So, by strict definition, I’m an ovo-lacto vegetarian … who has a piece of fish every great once in a while. Which makes me a sometimes pescetarian, I guess actually. But even the fish thing is maybe once in every 6 or 8 weeks, if that.
See what happens when you insist on labeling people? Sheesh!
At any rate, it’s been nearly a year since I’ve had chicken, turkey, beef, pork, lamb, goat, buffalo or anything similar.
People ask sometimes why I’m doing it. Is it political? Is it health related? Is it my left-wing pinko commie west coast tendencies bursting forth? Did I have a bad experience with a cow or a pig?
None of the above, really. Well, OK, I guess you could say to a certain extent that it was health related. I have a general desire to eat healthier and that is actually easier to do when you cut out all meat, frankly.
No, actually, I honestly did start doing this just as an experiment to see if I could. I’d heard Graham Hill (he who started treehugger.com) on NPR one day discussing why he’s a “weekday vegetarian” and what he talked about sounded interesting. Could I do it? I didn’t know. So, I tried it out and over the months now it’s worked out pretty well – though I’m doing it seven days a week.
So almost a year in, I’m actually surprised at how easy this has been. Of course, as mentioned earlier, I haven’t gone the whole way to full vegan living, so I’ve made it a little easier on myself from the start – for me anyway. It’s certainly the longest I’ve ever stuck with any dietary change I’ve made over the course of my life. I do actually feel better and I don’t have half the issues I used to with my insides. My cholesterol is down and I’m generally in better health overall than I had been. That’s not all from the veggies alone, of course, but I’m convinced that’s a big part of it.
The hardest part of this change has been dining out. It’s become very clear to me over the last 12 months that the general restaurant world out there either doesn’t care about non meat eaters, doesn’t think it’s worth catering to them or just doesn’t understand them. I’m frankly amazed at how few menu items exist that are geared to a veggie lifestyle. Don’t believe me? Next time you’re out at your favorite restaurant – especially for lunch – try to find a menu item that doesn’t include beef or poultry. Look at how the dishes are prepared and imagine what the dish would be if the meat was removed from the recipe. Furthermore, if you do modify a dish that’s normally got meat in it and have them prepare it without, just see if the price of the dish changes any at all. The Cobb salad entre with chicken at $10.75? I’ll bet you a dollar that the version with just lettuce and veggies will still be $10.75. I don’t even care about that, honestly – it’s the attitude that gets me. You order something and ask them to prepare it with no meat and they look at you like you’re a lunatic or something. It gets even more fun in a large group restaurant setting where the menu is limited due to group size. Perfect example was a vendor dinner that a large group of us got taken out to in Las Vegas last week during the NAB convention – there were probably 25-30 people in the party. The normal menu for the restaurant was already typically limited, but then because of the large group, they’d put out only a “banquet” menu of three entres, one tiny starter salad and a couple of hors d’oeuvres. Not one item on the menu was veg-friendly and none of the dishes would amount to much more than the side veggies if the meat was eliminated. The server was actually embarrassed at the situation, but to the restaurant’s credit, they had a specific vegetarian menu that they brought out for me so I could order dinner. That’s all fine and good and all, but it still felt a little like “the water fountain for coloreds is over yonder, boy…”
So, I’m still learning strategies for dealing with some of these things. To be fair, though, most eateries I’ve been to are more than willing to be accommodating and if the place has a decent chef, the meal will come out fine and delicious.
But you do learn to trend toward Indian, Mediterranean, Tibetan, Asian and similar restaurants whose menus are sort of more “naturally” vegetarian or vegan by default when possible. A very dear friend of mine and I found a terrific Indian place in that very self same Las Vegas last week for a dinner for just the two of us that was to die for. That was a very nice meal and a very nice evening in general.
Does this amount to a permanent life change at this point? Yeah, I think so. It’s been reasonably simple, it’s healthier, I feel better for it and, in all honesty, from that left-wing commie pinko west coast side of me – it is actually better for the environment and people in general to be producing and consuming less meat – red and highly processed meats, especially. But I’m not one to engage in the politics of food, frankly. For me it was a personal decision and one that I’m happy with. And in the end, that’s all that matters, right?
