Sunday, February 13, 2011

Vegetarian

I've been considering the vegetarian lifestyle recently. Mandy spent much of her life as a vegetarian and only because of practical purposes did she succumb to eating meat again (mostly because of my meat eating needs). Finn has not directly eaten meat yet, so I think he's a vegetarian by default. After reading several successful accounts of people switching, I have weighed the pros and cons of such a lifestyle.

I haven't heard of anyone who, after going on a meat-less die,t have negative results. No doubt just the opposite. I think the main frustration for me would be convenience. Eating out in Greenwood is very difficult on a meat-less diet; the majority of our restaurant choices consist of major chains that specialize in the type of food that 90% of Americans enjoy. This alone wouldn't be a problem if they offered decent entrées that didn't revolve around meat.

Finding lunch that is fast and "healthy" is pretty much impossible in Greenwood, mainly for the same reasons as above. The most frustrating part of my day is if I'm very busy with things and I need something fast for lunch. South Greenwood provides only a few choices: Burger King, Subway, McDonalds, and KFC. Boones is an decent choice if i had 2 hours for lunch and Howard's is a great choice if I had a limitless lunch budget; however I don't know if either of these offers vegetarian lunches. Mark my words, if anyone opened a Chick-fil-a in south Greenwood, they would make a KILLING, but that's a bit off topic.

A solution to the eating out problem is simply order meals without the meat or order meat-less appetizers as the meal. Both of these might be good solutions if what you got was substantial enough to call a meal, which depends on the venue. Pasta would become a staple when dining out, but that would get a bit old.

Another problem I face with vegetarianism is doing it right. I believe you can have a meat-less diet and still eat just as bad, if not worse, than with the meat. When you don't have meat as the center of the meal, what are you going to substitute it with? This is where a certain degree of creativity and knowledge must be used in making healthy food choices, and I must admit, I don't have either the knowledge or the creativity, but I expect both can be learned.

Anyway, that's all I've got on the matter. I've got a lot more research to do and I feel that this would be a progressive change. I'll keep you, dear reader, updated on my progress.
-Brian

3 comments:

  1. Consider that humans are by nature meat eaters. Many vegetarians suffer from various deficiencies and experience problems later in life due to cumulative malnutrition. I anticipate those sorts of things are avoidable, but like you suggested it would be a hassle. For a while I limited my meat intake to like once a day or every other day, since my wife was a vegan for a while and noted the benefits (as well as the impracticality). I think there are commonsense tradeoffs that can be made. I think anyone trying to sell the benefits of a completely meat free diet are probably literally trying to sell something. The human digestive tract is designed for an omniverous diet.

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  2. Like Ryan, I believe that vegetarians (general population) may be a little proud to admit any shortcomings of their dietary efforts.

    Just order healthy foods. I think it's a bit much to give yourself a new title. Abby and I have had a lot of accidentally vegetarian days, where our sources of protein are cottage cheese, eggs, peanut butter, beans, etc. Those are good days, but so are the ones where we have tuna, beef, chicken, pork, or whatever else in a whole and healthily cooked form. The bad days are when we eat fried foods or not enough fiber/fruits/veggies/whatever healthy things, whether we eat meat or not.

    A more immediate need in your change of lifestyle is to replace fast food in general with packed lunches. Whether you pack meat or not, I can nearly guarantee it being a favor to your body.

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