I’ve never had any qualms about eating meat. But I’ve never had much qualm with eating anything. Except I generally pass on the dessert menu; I don’t have the biggest sweet tooth so... unless she wants something. And even then I’ll have a bite or two, just to try it. Thanks.
I did participate wholeheartedly in bashing vegetarian and vegan lifestyles though; it seemed absurd to forgo the food source that had been the reason for our massive cortex development. And I like convenience. And steak. And hotdogs. And chorizo. Duck. Broccoli. Ginger. Big fan of eating anything really. [Also fragile male ego meant I enjoyed putting others down while reinforcing my carnivorous/caveman roots]
But I am a reader and my reading did interact with my curiosity about nutritional health which also crossed with my growing environmental conscious. This intersectionality of ideas has ultimately led to my own resolution with eating meat. I want to reduce my life total consumption of meat for two reasons: better health and living closer to my environmental values. My goal was to take 2 weeks from eating meat and then just see how long I could stick it out.
Now I’m going to first qualify by saying I’ve done a similar experiment before, almost strictly for cuisine purposes. I wanted to know how a vegetarian eats, particularly at restaurants, but I also wanted to challenge my own cooking ability. The results were pretty excellent. In NYC every menu will have a vegetarian option. I felt fine if a little hungry. My bowl movements in that last week were exceedingly spectacular; f*** yeah fiber. Seriously, having a great poop extremely satisfactory. Poops at work became a minor high point in my day, which really tells you how shitty my job is. [HA!]
My rules this time around were as such: allow fish/shellfish, eggs, and the dehydrated chicken stock in my spice cabinet (because MSG is delicious). Otherwise no flesh from animals. Instead, supplement proteins that I would try to stick to included tofu, beans, quinoa, plants, nuts, and cheese.
Over the course of 4 weeks, I stuck to my rules nearly entirely, taking two big breaks during the third week and one small cheat on the 4th. What I discovered is that while it was generally easy to make modifications to my own diet, when my dietary restrictions competed against other people comforts, I would always back down. But instead of abstaining from whatever meat came to the table, I had little self-control in eating some. I got a little better at this later in the experiment, but failed spectacularly in the early tests.
On my first cheat I went to a bar with coworkers and for the table came finger food including wings. It had been about 10-11 days without any meat and the smell of wings enraptured my intoxicated mind. I didn’t over eat, but I had about half a dozen wings through the couple of hours. [To be fair, I tried the veggie spring rolls first but they were disgusting]
The second cheat was a week later. I held myself a little more accountable and only had 2 wings, but also there was mushroom pizza which served as an excellent deterrent/alternative.
The second major cheat was out with dinner with a friend. We decided to split an app and an entrée because neither of us was immensely hungry. While I could have been more insistent on choosing vegetarian (and I think my friend would have been cheerfully accommodating) I half wanted the excuse, and half didn’t want to be that guy. We split 12 wings and chicken penne vodka.
Health/diet wise, I didn’t feel much different except that I ate more often. I would find myself craving food around 3 or 4pm, even after eating heartily for breakfast and lunch. I decided to listen to my body and split most lunches into two smaller meals, especially towards the later weeks. I had tough lifts and swims through most of the diet, but I don’t know how much that was due to time restrictions or diet. I didn’t feel more tired during exercise, I just felt worse. At the very end of four weeks, I had an excellent long lift. The change might have been due to warming up properly which I hadn’t had time in the workouts before, but I cannot discount the idea that my body had just adjusted to my new diet.
While I’m glad I did this experiment and I think I got out of it a very satisfactory result, I have room for improvement. No cheating would be nice for next time. I think I’ll continue to allow fish but I will try to replace times I cheated with meat, with fish. Regardless, I’m quite proud of forcing myself to make different choices. I didn’t feel much different but I can only imagine that my health benefited mildly from not eating meat. I can also speculate that if this is a long term change, I can see the positive effects compound over a lifetime.
I don’t imagine that I would make the permanent change to vegetarianism, it’s a hassle. But also I really enjoy eating everything and a large part of cuisine is meat. I don’t think we should be over eating, but I want to get to know food better, from making/getting ingredients to presentation to the even importance of eating as a social activity. I want to hunt, butcher, go diving and fishing and gathering, I want to plant and cultivate and harvest. There is something beautiful about creating food and eating it, and I think that for me my respect for culinary art spans further than just vegetables; however it does include vegetables, which is why this experiment is valuable.
Next time I think I’ll take some health metrics like BP, heart rate, maybe get blood work particularly like cholesterol and triglycerides and see if testing will back my intuition.
And finally, fuck vegans. You’re all crazy. Eggs?? You gotta live without eggs? I’m just a little salty, I posted a comment on my partial vegetarianism on an Insta, and some vegan account just shamed my partial commitment with radical dogma, which I found rude and discouraging. We’re all just out here trying our best, why you gotta hate on a playa? /rant
Okay! Next time I’ll do this around fall this year! I’ll try tracking better, take some pictures, do another write up! Peace