Perceptions and reality of the vegexperiment

Just in the last 10 days of the vegexperiment, I've encountered one question a lot: Why? There are varying degrees of intonation to that one word. Some are genuine curiosity, some are judgmental and it seems they don't really want to know after all, some can't fathom even the thought of going a mere day without eating meat. I guess this has intrigued me because I never noticed other people who were vegetarians getting quite the same reaction. Maybe it's because I'm only doing it for a month (so far). Maybe it's because my consideration of doing so was mostly internal for the last few months. Maybe it's because people forget that I'm doing it at all, like Ben did today when he was given a larger order of City BBQ than he intended to get and wanted to share with me (ooohhhhh, City BBQ, you taunt me).

I've noticed that avoiding meat at times is easy, since I prefer vegetarian options often. Take this past Saturday: we went to BD's Mongolian Grill for lunch. I always get a vegetarian plate there, because the only meat I'd get is chicken and it doesn't add enough to the meal to make it worthwhile. Not a problem at all. It took two rounds up at the grill, though, for them to notice it was a vegetarian plate and ask if I wanted it blocked from the rest. I'm not that picky, so it wasn't a big deal, but it gave me pause that they didn't notice the first time through.

I also tried Hot Head Burritos for the first time today as vegetarian. I thought it'd be similar to my missing the meat in Chipotle, since they're somewhat similar. Surprisingly, I enjoyed Hot Head more as vegetarian than I did with their pork, which is what I usually get there.

I've also noticed that avoiding meat at times is not so easy. I'm not talking about City BBQ, either. Today for lunch I had a frozen meal that I bought before I started the vegexperiment. It was one of my favorites--lemon herb chicken with green beans and tomatoes. I usually pick out the chicken anyway, so I figured it wouldn't be much different. I didn't realize how many teenie tiny pieces of chicken are hidden in that darn thing. I kept coming across them as I brought the fork toward my mouth. While I'm not going to beat myself up if I eat meat during the vegexperiment, I didn't want to give in for this instance. So, I diligently picked through and extracted six pea-size pieces of chicken, pieces I would have just eaten before, even though I was already throwing out the large pieces.

It's just interesting the things I notice now that I didn't really before.