Ben's uncle was talking to me over the weekend and said, "You haven't been blogging recently." Which was a shock, considering I had no idea anyone really cared whether I blogged or not. I had decided to discontinue the vegexperiment at the end of February. Though, I've seen myself tending toward it ever since. I considered, albeit slightly facetiously, giving up meat for Lent...which would have meant about a week and a half of being able to eat meat before giving it up again. As it was, I didn't give anything up. Oh, well.
I still order veggie burgers over hamburgers. I still go full days without eating meat, completely unintentionally. I haven't stopped picking the meat out of my frozen meals. It's just not entirely appetizing. :/ And I still prefer the vegetarian version of Hot Head (sometimes I even get free queso because I pass on their free guac for veggie burritos!). While some people may have to wrack their brains trying to think of a meal where they *didn't* eat meat, I have to wrack mine to think of one where I *did*.
I think the vegexperiment accomplished what I set out to discover: meat really isn't that important to me. Do I enjoy an occasionally Whopper at Burger King, barbacoa in my Chipotle, chicken tikka masala, homemade chili mac or Easter turkey/ham? You betcha. But, I am entirely content to eat my spaghetti without meatballs, my ramen sans chicken and my sushi...well, just the way it is!
Until next time should we meet, should we meat? ;)
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Results of the Vegexperiment Challenge
So, what did you notice about what you ate? Did you even remember to notice? It's ok, I forget things, too. :)
So, instead, can you remember what you've eaten in the last week? If so, how prevalent was meat in your dietary choices? Just curious to see what people find.
I failed yesterday. I went to visit some friends and they had made pizza with pepperoni and bacon. I had planned to pick the meat off, but HOLY CRAP it's hard to pick bacon bitz off pizza. So, I ate it anyway. Shame on me.
So, instead, can you remember what you've eaten in the last week? If so, how prevalent was meat in your dietary choices? Just curious to see what people find.
I failed yesterday. I went to visit some friends and they had made pizza with pepperoni and bacon. I had planned to pick the meat off, but HOLY CRAP it's hard to pick bacon bitz off pizza. So, I ate it anyway. Shame on me.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
I was sick! Don't judge me!
:( I failed yesterday. But I was sick! So I asked Ben to pick up some chicken and stars for me. It's my favorite. I hate that commercial for the "grown up" soup where someone has chicken and stars and their friends or coworkers or whoever they were made fun of them for eating "kids'" soup. WHATEVER! It's awesome. Chicken and rice is a poor substitute and will do in a pinch, but if I can help it, I'm having my chicken and stars, darn it!
Maybe one day when I'm feeling not sick and start craving chicken and stars, I'll go get some star-shaped pasta (they sell it at Kroger, I've gotten it before) and some vegetable stock and make some semi-chicken and stars soup. We'll see.
Maybe one day when I'm feeling not sick and start craving chicken and stars, I'll go get some star-shaped pasta (they sell it at Kroger, I've gotten it before) and some vegetable stock and make some semi-chicken and stars soup. We'll see.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
The Vegexperiment Challenge
Today starts a new month. I ended January with about an 87% success rate with the vegexperiment. I actually tried my very first veggie burger yesterday for lunch. It was good! I'm not kidding. Believe me, I wouldn't eat something solely because it was vegetarian.
I've been thinking a lot about how other people (friends, coworkers, family, strangers) have responded to me doing the vegexperiment, which I elaborated more on in my blog on January 10. One person's response really stuck out to me. The person said that she didn't think she could do vegetarianism because she didn't like many vegetables. She specifically mentioned not being able to choke down brussel sprouts, cabbage and cooked spinach.
Let me make something very clear: I hate brussel sprouts, cabbage and cooked spinach, too! I also hate (with a passion) peas and onions. I strongly dislike peppers, avocados and some varieties of beans. Just because you don't like vegetables, doesn't mean you can't be a vegetarian! I love some vegetables (and some vegetable-like-fruits and legumes) such as tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, snow peas, bean spouts, corn, green beans, edamame, zucchini, asparagus, artichokes and cooked carrots, among others. I just choose to eat the vegetables I like, in addition to other vegetarian-friendly foods.
So, with the beginning of the new month, I have a challenge for you, should you choose to accept it. You don't even have to do anything you wouldn't normally do, just be more aware of what you're doing.
Over the next week, try to keep track of your meals and what you eat.
Are there any meals that you had that could be considered vegetarian, or was meat included in every meal you ate?
Could meat be removed from the dishes it was in and not make much of a difference?
Reflect on your own dietary choices and just how easy or hard it would be to give vegetarianism a try.
I'm not saying you have to try vegetarianism after that week, but I wonder if you'll be surprised at what you find. Maybe you'll find that you eat meat a lot more than you thought, maybe you'll find that it's exactly as you expected, or maybe you'll find that vegetarianism wouldn't be too bad, but you still want your steak. All of those results are ok! :) I'll check back in next week and hopefully people (or at least one person) will be willing to share their reflection.
I've been thinking a lot about how other people (friends, coworkers, family, strangers) have responded to me doing the vegexperiment, which I elaborated more on in my blog on January 10. One person's response really stuck out to me. The person said that she didn't think she could do vegetarianism because she didn't like many vegetables. She specifically mentioned not being able to choke down brussel sprouts, cabbage and cooked spinach.
Let me make something very clear: I hate brussel sprouts, cabbage and cooked spinach, too! I also hate (with a passion) peas and onions. I strongly dislike peppers, avocados and some varieties of beans. Just because you don't like vegetables, doesn't mean you can't be a vegetarian! I love some vegetables (and some vegetable-like-fruits and legumes) such as tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, snow peas, bean spouts, corn, green beans, edamame, zucchini, asparagus, artichokes and cooked carrots, among others. I just choose to eat the vegetables I like, in addition to other vegetarian-friendly foods.
So, with the beginning of the new month, I have a challenge for you, should you choose to accept it. You don't even have to do anything you wouldn't normally do, just be more aware of what you're doing.
Over the next week, try to keep track of your meals and what you eat.
Are there any meals that you had that could be considered vegetarian, or was meat included in every meal you ate?
Could meat be removed from the dishes it was in and not make much of a difference?
Reflect on your own dietary choices and just how easy or hard it would be to give vegetarianism a try.
I'm not saying you have to try vegetarianism after that week, but I wonder if you'll be surprised at what you find. Maybe you'll find that you eat meat a lot more than you thought, maybe you'll find that it's exactly as you expected, or maybe you'll find that vegetarianism wouldn't be too bad, but you still want your steak. All of those results are ok! :) I'll check back in next week and hopefully people (or at least one person) will be willing to share their reflection.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Better than I thought
I did the math today. I can count on two hands (barely!) how many times I've failed at the vegexperiment in the 27 days I've been dong it. I don't always eat breakfast, so instead of thinking of 3 meals a day, I decided 2.5 would pretty accurately represent what I eat. I took 27 x 2.5 and got 67.5, so I rounded up to 68. Minus the ten lapses is 58 meals as a vegetarian. That's almost exactly 85% of my meals.
Now, originally I thought I preferred vegetarian meals about 80-85% of the time anyway, so this makes me think it was lower. Not that it's been a hardship, but I've been much more deliberate than usual about avoiding meat. But, it reinforces that 85% vegetarianism is possible with little effort on my part.
Honestly, the times I've eaten meat has been mostly because of other people, whether it's to not inconvenience my housemates or someone made a dish with meat or the vegetarian options were sort of obligatory rather than something a person might actually enjoy eating. I would be just fine if I did all my cooking or if restaurants offered something worth eating. I shouldn't have to settle for a salad because it's the only thing offered.
I blog every couple of months for my job (working with child care programs), and I've considered using this point as a topic: that people who have dietary preferences or restrictions should have the benefit of being able to eat appetizing food. Is that so wrong? That people enjoy what they eat? Just because someone is vegetarian or vegan or kosher or gluten-free or peanut-free or lactose intolerant or diabetic or WHATEVER doesn't mean they should have to eat bland, boring food. Honestly, the option for that person should be appetizing enough that someone else who DOESN'T have the preference or restriction would want to eat it.
Slightly off-topic, but I promise it really isn't: my New Year's Resolution is also tied with food, but I had decided to wait to start it until the vegexperiment was over...basically, February. You see, I eat quickly. This comes from conditioning myself to eat in a short amount of time in elementary school, due to the way the school structured their lunch schedule. It didn't help that after college, I taught for a year and teachers have very little time to eat as well.
My husband eats somewhat slowly. This dichotomy has been problematic in the past. Whereas I am loading up my next fork/spoon-ful as I'm chewing and still have a partial mouthful of food when I take my next bite, inversely he takes a bite, chews it thoroughly, puts his fork/spoon down, takes a drink, talks a little bit and THEN loads up his next bite. My New Year's Resolution is to try to eat slower. I think that it will not only help the situation of me waiting ten minutes after I'm done eating for Ben to finish, but will help me eat less and get more from my food.
So, my big question at this point is: do I want to bring the vegexperiment to a close in four days or do I want to keep it going, temporarily or permanently? Well, I've thought about it, and I think I can handle both the vegexperiment and the New Year's Resolution. I think that waiting was a good idea, because it gave me time to focus on vegetarianism. But, now that I've found that it's not that difficult, initiating my New Year's Resolution alongside of it should be fine. I'll reevaluate the vegexperiment at the end of February to see what its fate will be. Perhaps I'll even have a better percentage of success with it in February. We'll see. I think I've done pretty darn good already, better than I thought I had done. :)
Now, originally I thought I preferred vegetarian meals about 80-85% of the time anyway, so this makes me think it was lower. Not that it's been a hardship, but I've been much more deliberate than usual about avoiding meat. But, it reinforces that 85% vegetarianism is possible with little effort on my part.
Honestly, the times I've eaten meat has been mostly because of other people, whether it's to not inconvenience my housemates or someone made a dish with meat or the vegetarian options were sort of obligatory rather than something a person might actually enjoy eating. I would be just fine if I did all my cooking or if restaurants offered something worth eating. I shouldn't have to settle for a salad because it's the only thing offered.
I blog every couple of months for my job (working with child care programs), and I've considered using this point as a topic: that people who have dietary preferences or restrictions should have the benefit of being able to eat appetizing food. Is that so wrong? That people enjoy what they eat? Just because someone is vegetarian or vegan or kosher or gluten-free or peanut-free or lactose intolerant or diabetic or WHATEVER doesn't mean they should have to eat bland, boring food. Honestly, the option for that person should be appetizing enough that someone else who DOESN'T have the preference or restriction would want to eat it.
Slightly off-topic, but I promise it really isn't: my New Year's Resolution is also tied with food, but I had decided to wait to start it until the vegexperiment was over...basically, February. You see, I eat quickly. This comes from conditioning myself to eat in a short amount of time in elementary school, due to the way the school structured their lunch schedule. It didn't help that after college, I taught for a year and teachers have very little time to eat as well.
My husband eats somewhat slowly. This dichotomy has been problematic in the past. Whereas I am loading up my next fork/spoon-ful as I'm chewing and still have a partial mouthful of food when I take my next bite, inversely he takes a bite, chews it thoroughly, puts his fork/spoon down, takes a drink, talks a little bit and THEN loads up his next bite. My New Year's Resolution is to try to eat slower. I think that it will not only help the situation of me waiting ten minutes after I'm done eating for Ben to finish, but will help me eat less and get more from my food.
So, my big question at this point is: do I want to bring the vegexperiment to a close in four days or do I want to keep it going, temporarily or permanently? Well, I've thought about it, and I think I can handle both the vegexperiment and the New Year's Resolution. I think that waiting was a good idea, because it gave me time to focus on vegetarianism. But, now that I've found that it's not that difficult, initiating my New Year's Resolution alongside of it should be fine. I'll reevaluate the vegexperiment at the end of February to see what its fate will be. Perhaps I'll even have a better percentage of success with it in February. We'll see. I think I've done pretty darn good already, better than I thought I had done. :)
Monday, January 24, 2011
wedding and honeymoon
So, I totally failed at the wedding. There were chicken salad sandwiches that my aunt brought. Chicken salad! It taunted me. I caved. Then, we stopped and grabbed some Burger King afterward and I got a chicken sandwich. Didn't even finish it, but I still had it.
On the honeymoon, I made a decent endeavor. We were on a cruise, so I had a lot of options...except when I didn't. Every night there was a sit-down dinner. That's the only times I failed. They had vegetarian options, but two of the times I failed, I asked the server about some aspect of the dish and his response was not positive. Once he said that the dish was "not very popular" and another time he said it was a "vegetable jello." Uh, no. I'm not going to avoid meat just to eat something that tastes like crap. But, I'd say I was 85-90% successful.
Since then, I've done ok. I had chicken in my dinner last night, but it was more convenience for my housemates not to keep the chicken separate for their food. It wasn't a huge deal...I managed.
I have a week left of the vegexperiment. I have to decide if I want to extend it or call it quits at the end of the month. Food for thought. (pun intended)
On the honeymoon, I made a decent endeavor. We were on a cruise, so I had a lot of options...except when I didn't. Every night there was a sit-down dinner. That's the only times I failed. They had vegetarian options, but two of the times I failed, I asked the server about some aspect of the dish and his response was not positive. Once he said that the dish was "not very popular" and another time he said it was a "vegetable jello." Uh, no. I'm not going to avoid meat just to eat something that tastes like crap. But, I'd say I was 85-90% successful.
Since then, I've done ok. I had chicken in my dinner last night, but it was more convenience for my housemates not to keep the chicken separate for their food. It wasn't a huge deal...I managed.
I have a week left of the vegexperiment. I have to decide if I want to extend it or call it quits at the end of the month. Food for thought. (pun intended)
Friday, January 14, 2011
I'm getting married tomorrow
I'm getting married tomorrow. The dogs decided at 6am to play musical mattress and woke me up. See the previous sentence as to why I'm still awake. Anyway, I figured this gave me plenty of opportunity to blog again.
I failed a couple of days ago. I was trying to figure out what I could make for us for dinner, and the easiest thing to make was a boxed lasagna mix. It came with all the stuff in it, with no way to separate out the meat. Oh, well. Other than that, I've been doing really well. I love that sushi is vegetarian! I had some last night and it was sooooo good.
Back to the title of the blog: Ben and I decided *literally* five days ago what we were doing for our honeymoon. Originally, we had wanted to go to Scotland. Scotland in January, plus lack of "batter" (UK slang for money...thank google for that one) meant Scotland waits for another time. Then, we looked into cruises. There was one within reasonable driving distance that left this coming Monday. We were seriously considering it, but it was a lot of money, and I was uncomfortable spending that much on it. Granted, it included our lodging, food and entertainment for five days, but still...So then what we were going to do was a "staycation" and kind of be tourists: do things we wouldn't normally do if we had a day off. Well, our decision was to go on the cruise. The more I thought about it, and the more excited I am now that it's finalized, the more I realize it is a fabulous deal and I can live with the money we're spending.
So, why am I telling you about this? The vegexperiment is going to be tested during this cruise. Yes, they have vegetarian and pasta dishes, but I don't know what they are ahead of time, and my best option *might* be the meat dish. We'll see...they also have a sushi bar on the cruise ship, so I might be frequenting that, depending on if it's included in the cost or additional. I have a feeling it's additional, so I may not go after all. The budget for our honeymoon is essentially what we spent to go on the cruise, so there's not a lot of wiggle room for extra expenses. That means no shore excursions, but after seeing what they are (and how much), I'm pretty ok with that.
I'll update once I'm back, but for the next ten days, you won't be hearing from me. I'm still alive, just basking in the wonderfulness that is newlywed-dom. :)
I failed a couple of days ago. I was trying to figure out what I could make for us for dinner, and the easiest thing to make was a boxed lasagna mix. It came with all the stuff in it, with no way to separate out the meat. Oh, well. Other than that, I've been doing really well. I love that sushi is vegetarian! I had some last night and it was sooooo good.
Back to the title of the blog: Ben and I decided *literally* five days ago what we were doing for our honeymoon. Originally, we had wanted to go to Scotland. Scotland in January, plus lack of "batter" (UK slang for money...thank google for that one) meant Scotland waits for another time. Then, we looked into cruises. There was one within reasonable driving distance that left this coming Monday. We were seriously considering it, but it was a lot of money, and I was uncomfortable spending that much on it. Granted, it included our lodging, food and entertainment for five days, but still...So then what we were going to do was a "staycation" and kind of be tourists: do things we wouldn't normally do if we had a day off. Well, our decision was to go on the cruise. The more I thought about it, and the more excited I am now that it's finalized, the more I realize it is a fabulous deal and I can live with the money we're spending.
So, why am I telling you about this? The vegexperiment is going to be tested during this cruise. Yes, they have vegetarian and pasta dishes, but I don't know what they are ahead of time, and my best option *might* be the meat dish. We'll see...they also have a sushi bar on the cruise ship, so I might be frequenting that, depending on if it's included in the cost or additional. I have a feeling it's additional, so I may not go after all. The budget for our honeymoon is essentially what we spent to go on the cruise, so there's not a lot of wiggle room for extra expenses. That means no shore excursions, but after seeing what they are (and how much), I'm pretty ok with that.
I'll update once I'm back, but for the next ten days, you won't be hearing from me. I'm still alive, just basking in the wonderfulness that is newlywed-dom. :)
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