Each day when I sit in my usual spot at the dining room table to have breakfast, I feel just a little bit guilty. This is because I suspect Julie, the guinea pig, is secretly judging me and giving me the eye for eating meat. She looks so happy nibbling on her fresh veggies and stares at me whenever I’m having my sausage and eggs on toast.
So, here I go again with the vegetarianism bit. I did this last year too. It seems that every few months the guilt of eating meat overwhelms me enough to devote 30 days of my life to being pro-veggie. Today is day three and it’s going pretty well. Here’s an overview:
Sunday, February 1st
The idea of being vegetarian for 30 days came to me again when I was having dinner with my sister, brother-in-law, cousin Amy and friends at The Foundation. My cousin Amy is a vegetarian and has lived a very healthy pro-veggie lifestyle for as long as I remember. The Foundation is a hip landmark vegetarian restaurant in Vancouver that also serves vegan friendly dishes and manages to make just about anything taste good.
Monday, February 2nd
This was the day I was originally going to start on the veggie diet but I wasn’t prepared enough in the morning (I hadn’t gone grocery shopping yet and the fridge was still stocked with a Costco size package of pastrami).
Tuesday, February 3rd
I went to grocery store and picked up on the essentials for being a vegetarian when you’re someone who really likes meat: canned veggie soup, bread, crackers, and cheese. You always have to have back-up for the days when you feel especially lazy and don’t want to cook anything! My local grocery store is currently undergoing renovations so the frozen foods section was off limits. The produce section was also very unusually lacking in any sort of vegetables. My brother-in-law was surprised to find that there were only six button mushrooms available. I was equally surprised to find that there were only six cucumbers and they were all a slightly off light green colour. It’s as if they had let the were-rabbit loose in the store.
Wednesday, February 4th: Day One
Not that bad. I didn’t miss meat at all until dinner time. I had cereal in the morning and mushroom ravioli and veggie soup for lunch. It wasn’t until my sister asked me to order pizza that I was a little sad I couldn’t eat meat. I absolutely love eating greasy pepperoni pizza while watching a movie. I ate bread instead.
Thursday, February 5th: Day Two
This was a much yummier veggie day. I had veggie lasagna for lunch and a veggie burger from A&W for dinner. The only problem was that despite eating a lot (the lasagna dish was actually quite big), I was starving by the time dinner rolled around. I need to remember to stock up on snacks.
And here we are on day three. Consumed food thus far: three slices of toast and an egg with cheese to go with my regular mug of coffee.
Hooray for saving a chicken! …or at least part of one! :]
Why didn’t you just eat a piece of greasy, plain cheese pizza? Or a veggie pizza?
That makes no sense.
I guess I should’ve explained that we were only ordering one pizza because we got that pasta bundle from Pizza Hut to try their new pasta dishes. I wasn’t about to force my family to eat plain cheese or veggie pizza just because I decided to stop eating meat. And, I couldn’t eat the pasta because the only two flavours Pizza Hut has are meat marinara and something else that has chicken. We ordered meat marinara because my brother-in-law had made a chicken alfredo pasta earlier in the week. If we had only ordered pizza and no pasta I would’ve asked to make one half of one of the pizzas a veggie one.
How can we expect you to care for an island, when you can’t even order a pizza?
I ordered the pasta didn’t I?
haha
I keep a budget in mind when ordering take out / delivery. And, sometimes I choose to eat leftovers and things already in the kitchen, rather than ordering an excessive amount of food of which will become leftovers the next day.
Are you by any chance applying for the Best Job in the World as well?
I wouldn’t even be able to do veggie-only for a week. I’m a definite carnivore with a beef fetish.
.….….Which is weird really, because I LOVE cute animals, like little bouncing lambies, little mooing cowsies and little snorting piggies.
.…… I can’t help that they’re so yummy!
I know what you mean. I do love eating meat as well.
I didn’t always though. When I was a baby I wouldn’t touch the stuff and my mum was afraid that I wasn’t getting enough nutrition. So, she called in a monk (the only logical thing to do right? lol) who did something and from that day on, I liked meat. Go figure.
My best friend wanted to go vegetarian about ten years ago, so she asked me to do it for a while too for moral support. So for about four months straight, I didn’t eat a single piece of meat… unfortunately my friend that wanted to become vegetarian couldn’t give up meat, so she kept sneaking meat the whole time I wasn’t eating any, haha! So once she decided she couldn’t give up meat, I tried to eat some, and it made me sick to my stomach. I’ve never liked red meat again! I still eat chicken, but I pretty much haven’t liked meat ever since the time I went for four months without it. Weird, huh?
Yeah, chicken is the tricky one. The first time I went veg the one thing I really craved was fried chicken!
My grandmother was raised in rural Mississippi, and she apparently makes the best fried chicken ever because she grew up on that and fried fish… but I’ve never been a big fan of fried chicken, or fried things in general really, haha. Except my grandma’s fried okra, mmmm…lol!
Do you have a myspace? I used to have a facebook, but I didn’t like it as much as myspace, so I deleted it.
By the way, thanks for responding to all the comments on here! I know you’re really busy right now, so it’s nice of you to take the time and respond to people.
Hi Megan,
Well, you guys take the time to read my posts and comment, so the least I can do is reply!
I’ve never signed up for a myspace account. I only use Facebook and Twitter.
This makes me think of the person that went into the diner and asked what the special was and was told that it was boiled tongue and cabbage. He exclaimed, ” I could not eat something that came out of a cows mouth, I’ll have some eggs,easy over.”
Nice to see that even spambots have humour.